Tag Archives: hard drive

Back ups, Backing up your computer, Basics, Hard Drives, Windows, Windows Secrets

How do I back up my computer? Part 2

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When it comes to backing up your computer, what exactly are you backing up? Well, pretty much everything that you have added to it. This includes, but is not limited to, documents you’re written, photos you’ve taken as well as anything that you’ve downloaded from the Internet such as videos, photos, audio files, Etc. What you aren’t able to back up are all of the Windows files, the program files nor any of the browsers or apps that you use. There isn’t a way to back these last things up anyway, unless you want to copy your whole drive. Even then, none of the programs would work. You’re backing up your stuff, not Windows or related stuff.

If you have purchased a new computer or laptop/netbook, it most likely didn’t come with any CDs or DVDs. These days, new computers don’t come with these system disks. You have to make them. Windows will prompt you to make new recovery disks and this is something you should do as soon as you can after purchase. If your computer fails, you can restore it to its original condition by using these disks. But, and this is a big but, creating the recovery disks has nothing to do with backing up your computer. When you create recovery disks, you are only backing up the original software that came with your computer, nothing that you have saved or created since you started using it. Remember that.

Where is all of your stuff? Nine times out of ten, everything you want to back up is in the My Documents folder. Windows automatically saves files to different folders in My Documents. Even the downloads from the Internet are saved there. This, however, doesn’t mean that everything is saved there. Some programs save your creations in completely different folders, ones that the program creates on its own. If you have things that are important to you on your computer, make sure you know where they are.

Windows Explorer, that folder on the bottom of your taskbar in Windows 7 or the ‘Explore’ program that comes up when you right click the start button and choose ‘explore’, is your friend. Get used to using it. All of the cool things on your computer can be found using Windows Explorer. Explorer is worth a blog entry on its own, it’s that important. Play around with it and see what you can find. I use it all the time and it’s one of the reasons I stick to Windows. The Mac OS has nothing like Explorer, that I have found anyway, and I get claustrophobia using OS X simply because I can’t find anything!

While we are discussing back ups, go back and read my post on WinDirStat . If you’re wondering where things are on your computer or if you simply want to know what’s taking up the room, read the post and you’ll be educated. WinDirStat is free and perfect for exploring your computer. Once you have the graphic up on your screen, run your cursor over it to see where everything is. As the cursor moves, the location of the file it’s resting on is shown. Some files, the Windows ones for instance, are huge but can’t be touched. Others, usually the blue ones, are your files and can be backed up.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll write more about actually performing the back up. It’s a step by step job that takes time but, ultimately, will save your bacon should your hard drive fail. Even if you only save precious family photos, it’s worth it, right? Some things that are lost are lost forever. That’s not a good feeling.

Thanks for reading!

Computers, Hardware

Give Your Computer a Holiday Gift

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It’s the holiday season, people. Your computer has given you a year of yeoman service, right? Why not treat your trusty workhorse to a nice gift for the holidays? Here are some suggestions:

1. Clean it up! If you use a desktop, carefully remove the cabling on the back, take the side panel off and vacuum the interior. I’m sure you will find lots of dust bunnies in there, specially if you keep it on the floor. Make sure you vacuum around the power supply intakes, the front intakes (take the front panel off to get to the dust underneath it) and the bottom of the case. If you are really a techno-weenie, remove the cooling fan from the CPU and vacuum the fins of the cooler itself. If you’re not technically minded, get a buddy who is to do that for you. You don’t have to take the whole cooler off, just the fan. Four screws usually do the trick.

2. A Vaccination Shot: If you haven’t done a virus scan in a while, make sure this is one of the first things you do for the holidays. I use Avast , the free version, and it works well. Just this week I did a fully system scan. First I ran it overnight because a full scan takes hours on my large drives, then I did a boot scan the next morning. Microsoft Security Essentials works well, too. Personally, I wouldn’t pay for an anti-virus program but you’re on your own if you want to spend your money that way. There are plenty of free or very low cost pieces of software that do the job. Lastly, download Malware Bytes and run it. Hopefully you won’t have any malware but if you do, Malware Bytes will get rid of it.

3. Update Everything: If you have everything set to update automatically, there still might be some software or hardware around that needs renewal. Your router? A firmware update is always a good idea. Your BIOS? Your fancy multi-function keyboard? I’m sure you will be able to find something to update. Most software gives you the option to update automatically and that’s always a good option to choose. I know Apple is a total pain with updates for iTunes and iCloud, etc. as is Windows. Whatever your feelings are on that, updates are generally better than the current version of most software. It takes time, sure, but it’s worth it.

4. Back Up : If you haven’t set up an auto-backup system for your computer, now is a good time to archive your personal data. DVDs are cheap and lost data is expensive. Digital photos don’t come with negatives. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. Time to download Burnaware and get busy. It’s free, fast and simple. Do it now, don’t put it off.

5. Get Rid of the Crumbs : My keyboard has served me well all year, helping me write hundreds of thousands of words. It’s time to unplug it and suck out the Triscuit crumbs. While I’m at it I will get a damp (not wet) J-cloth and clean off the various coffee and scotch spills. If you share the keyboard, maybe it’s time for a rub down with some anti-bacteria cleaner, too. Just don’t get it wet! If it does get a few drops of water inside it, put it in the sun for an afternoon to evaporate the moisture.

6. Watch It! : When your monitors are on, they look pretty clean but I can guarantee they probably aren’t. Get a soft cloth, dampen it and give the screen a wipe. Don’t use anything other than water and don’t spray the screen directly. Make sure your soft cloth is only damp not wet, grease free and lint-free. There are special cloths that you can pick up at the local big-box computer accessory store for this purpose. You don’t need any fancy liquid, just water.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks for reading.

Computers, Hard Drives, Windows

Windirstat – What is taking up all the room on my hard drive?

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With today’s huge hard drives it’s sometimes tough to know where all that room has gone. You buy a one or two terabyte drive, use it for a while and then you’re suddenly running out of storage space. Here’s a solution for you!

Windirstat (available here for free: http://windirstat.info/) gives you a real picture of what your hard drive looks like, in terms of which files are taking up all the room. Download the program and install it. I’ll wait. When you’re done, come back to see how to use the program.

Back? Ok. Here’s what you do:

1. Start Windirstat. This is the menu you will see:

Choose the Drive
Select the drive.

Select the drive that you want to take a look at. Usually that is your C: drive. In my case I have three to choose from but most computers have only one or two drives.

2. WinDirStat will nibble away at your drive, setting up an image for you. As it does this you’ll see little PacMans zipping back and forth. It’s kind of cute, actually. Once all of the stats have been collected, here is what you’ll see:

A graphic of a hard drive's files and folders.
This is a graphical representation of my hard drive.

3. Once WinDirStat has collected the information it needs, it shows you this graphic of your hard drive. It may look confusing at first but it’s really pretty cool. On the top right you’ll have a legend which tells you what color represents each type of file. On mine, the blue represents MPEG-2 files from my DVR. Each little section of that blue area is an individual file while the whole blue area on the left is a folder. Each color group represents a folder, each smaller highlighted area is an individual file.

4. Looking at this graphic, you’ll be able to see what files and folders are taking up the most room. If you click on each file, WinDirStat immediately shows you what file it is up on the top left section. If there is one particularly huge file, you can then decide if it’s something you want to save or archive or delete.

5. Some areas that WindDirStat will show you are obviously off limits for deletion. Any of the Windows files, for instance, must be left alone. There are two yellow files on the lower right, as an example, which represent two important Windows files; the pagefil.sys and the hiberfil.sys. These are your ‘scratch pad’ files and are about the same size as the amount of RAM in your system. Don’t touch them.

6. Once you’ve spent some time finding the files and folders that are taking up extra space, delete them or archive them to a DVD. Then you can reload WinDirStat and see what the big picture looks like. I keep pretty good track of what’s on my drives but there are always some files that seem to crop up that I could delete. See what you can find on your drive.

Thanks for reading!

 

Computers, Hardware, Troubleshooting, Windows

Computer Repair

There’s nothing like the feeling you get when your computer crashes or when something doesn’t work that used to work just fine. Frustration, stress, panic all add up to confuse what is usually a pretty simple issue. There is no quick and foolproof way to figure these problems out but here are some suggestions.

1. Don’t panic. Computer problems are often quite simple to resolve. Ask yourself some questions before you call for help:

a. What were you doing just before this happened?

b. Was there a recent power outage or storm?

c. Did you click on a link in an email?

d. Has anyone else but you used the computer lately?

e. Have you downloaded or installed new software?

f. Is your malware/anti-virus up to date and have you done a scan recently?

2. Troubleshooting a computer problem is a step-by-step process. You have to figure out what’s working and what isn’t. If the computer itself isn’t working, work through a process that includes your power supply, monitor (maybe your computer is on but you just can’t see it!), hard drive, DVD drive and so on. If you can’t power up, it could be a power cord, a power supply, a blown fuse or something as simple as a stick of RAM that has been jiggled out of place. Don’t assume that it’s a motherboard problem. When HP or BestBuy can’t figure out your problem in two easy steps, they will often say, “It’s your motherboard.” I’ve been around computers enough to know that this is rarely the case.

3. Rebooting your computer often gets rid of problems. Shut it down and wait for a few minutes before starting it up again. Assuming that your computer boots (starts), you can boot into safe mode for repairs if it doesn’t run properly in a normal environment. Safe mode is easy to start, check out how in this post.  It also helps to run your anti-virus or malware protection from Safe Mode.

4. If your computer was working well yesterday but isn’t today, consider using System Recovery to set everything back to yesterday’s settings. This is available in every Windows computer.

5. I know it sounds expensive and a waste of money but I think it’s a great idea to have at least two computers in your home, even if you are single. Why? Because you can use one computer to fix the other. Using Google to search for solutions has always helped me solve problems. Don’t underestimate the power of a $100 computer when you need to repair your $1000 laptop or desktop.

6. People are very helpful and you’ll find all kinds of assistance online. There are manufacturer’s forums, open forums, even Twitter to look for help.

7. Don’t assume that it’s user error. Sure, you may not know anything about computers but you’re not a complete idiot, either. Many tech people talk down to callers who seek help. Most of the time you can find the problem yourself without help and most of the time it’s not your fault. I learned about computers by breaking them, then fixing them. Let me tell you that you learn more when something doesn’t work than when everything runs smoothly. Life long learning, right?

Check out my brand new Facebook page. Feel free to like it and ask questions. I’ll do my best to answer you quickly.

Thanks for reading!

Computers, Hardware

Computer Terms – 10 you should know

Computers Made Simple tries to demystify and explain the wonderful world of computers. Very often, the wall between adopting new technology and simply dreaming about it, is based on semantics. Just as communication with someone from another country is often hampered by language, such is the case with technology. Early adopters communicate using buzzwords, while late-comers are left out of the conversation. We’re here to get you up to speed on the ‘lingo’.

1. CPU – Nothing too complicated here. The CPU or Central Processing Unit is the brain in your computer. Think Intel or AMD, silicone and transistors. The CPU, for the most part, decides the speed with which you accomplish your work. It is the thinking unit that controls everything that happens in a computer. Old CPUs had one brain or core while the new ones have at least two, sometimes four and, infrequently, even more. Two heads, or more, are better than one, right?

2. Memory vs. Storage – Memory or RAM (Random Access Memory) is what you are thinking about right now. Your brain can sort of stuff, think about many things at once and interact with everything that goes on in your life. When you go to sleep, your thinking process stops. When you shut your computer off, the RAM is deactivated. Everything that was in RAM, such as that Word document for school, is lost UNLESS you have saved it to your hard drive or flash drive. Storage is your memories. Things you did when you were a child are stored in your memories, just as things you wrote last week are stored on a hard drive. Memory is right now, storage is back then. Once you put something into storage, you can retrieve it even after you shut your computer down. If something is in RAM and you haven’t saved it, you will never get it back.

3. Megabyte/gigabyte/terabyte  etc. –  How big is your closet? Usually, closets are measured in square feet or square meters. Computers tend to measure things in bytes. Without getting into bytes, suffice it to say that a byte is a way of measuring information. The more bytes you have for RAM or for storage makes a huge difference in the computing world. My first real computer had a 250 megabyte hard drive and 2 megabytes of RAM. Since it had a single core CPU and used Windows 3.1, it was slow as molasses. But, it did just about everything that one could do on a computer at that time. These days, storage is measured in gigabytes (something like a billion bytes) or terabytes (a trillion bytes). Even RAM these days is measured in gigabytes. These terms are simply the size of something. An MP3, for instance, could be 5 megabytes in size while a DVD movie might be 4, 8 or more gigabytes in size.

4. Hz or Hertz – You’ll see Hz in many computer ads. If you think of Hz in terms of speed or cycles per second, it might make sense. The higher the Hz, the faster the computer. Hz is also measured in mega and giga terms. A laptop might chug along at 1.6 GHz and be perfectly fine for email and Internet work. A new desktop might race along at 3 or 4 GHz. A GHz is a billion cycles per second. Gamers and other hi-tech know-it-alls will go for the highest GHz they can. The average user will be fine with any computer that hovers around 2GHz. You can pretty much ignore this figure but this explains what it means.

5. Hard drives/SSDs – The older hard drives were similar to a record player from days gone by. They had arms and platters and all of the information was stored on whirling disks of magnetic material. These are still in use today, virtually every computer made has one or more of these. This style of hard drive is relatively cheap to make but they are susceptible to knocks and drops. Laptops that are dropped are usually OK except for their hard drives. Once the arm hits the platter, the drive is useless. Enter the SSD. An SSD, or Solid State Drive, has no moving parts. Theoretically they are impervious to physical damage. Flash drives, which use the same technology, have been frozen, hammered and heated and continue to function after all of that. SSDs are faster, too. They don’t use mechanical devices to write or retrieve information. There are no spinning disks, either, so they use much less power. Faster, quieter and lower power consumption make them very attractive. The price, however, is high at this point. As time goes by, the price will drop, I’m sure.

6. Optical Drives – anything that isn’t a hard drive or an SSD is usually a DVD/Blu Ray or CD drive. These are named optical drives because they use a laser to read and write to the plastic disks. The laser is an optical process, hence the name. Ignore the speed ratings when you are looking at these drives. All optical products work better when written at slower speeds. 8X is perfect for these, despite the fact that some drives advertise much higher speeds.

7. SATA – SATA is simply a way that a computer connects to a drive. Drive connectors have gone from ATA (or PATA) through SCSI to SATA, each one being faster than the last, in most cases. SATA has gone through a few upgrades so you might see SATA 1 or SATA 2 but that doesn’t really matter to most users. SATA means Serial ATA while ATA defines a standard. A standard is a generally agreed upon way of making something work. Remember Sony Beta vs. VHS? That was a war of standards. SATA can be safely ignored but now you know what it means, at least.

8. LCD/LED – LCD or Liquid Crystal displays are now being replaced by LED or Light Emitting Diode displays. LCDs use more power and create heat, although they are more efficient than the old-style CRT displays from years ago. CRT means Cathode Ray Tube, something that hadn’t changed since the early days of television. Look for an LED display these days for low power consumption AND long life. LEDs last for a very long time. Remember your old stereo with the little red lights on it? Those were LEDs. Do they still work? Now you know what I mean.

9. Cooling/liquid cooling – The new CPUs run very, very hot. You can cook on any modern CPU. Without air or liquid cooling, a CPU will burn up in a matter of seconds. The problem with air cooling is that it’s loud. In order to cool a monster CPU while it crunches numbers, you’d need a fan the size of a dinner plate, more or less. That would make a lot of noise, right? Liquid cooling is quiet and extremely efficient…as long as it doesn’t leak. Hard core gamers and power users tend to use pipes and radiators filled with liquid to cool their CPUs. You and I can continue with our air cooling for now, thank you very much.

10. Overclocking – Think of overclocking the same way you think of an athlete on steroids. A CPU that is overclocked has more power sent to it than normal and it is asked to work at a faster speed. More power and faster speed creates heat which must be cooled with a liquid. Once a CPU is overclocked, two things can happen. First, the warranty is shot and, second, the computer may become unstable. On the other hand, if you remember what I said about GHz and CPUs, anyone who buys a 2GHz CPU and overclocks it to 2.5/3 GHz (or more) is getting something faster for less money. You can see how this would be attractive to someone, even if it risks ruining the warranty.

There you have ten terms that you will be more comfortable with in the future. I hope you could figure all this out. Comments and questions are welcome.

Thanks for reading!