System Tuneup Guide

Day 5: Repairing Corrupted Files:

Nothing bites worse than working on reports, data etc. in a program like Word or Excel and after diligently saving your files while you worked on them, opening them up later and seeing nothing but a confusing string of illegible rectangles in place of your valuable data! Data corruption usually seems to occur at the worst times, and it can happen even now that Microsoft has included data recovery tools with their latest versions of their programs.

Corrupted files are a pain, because you usually cannot access a backup, but have to try and repair the corruption. Corruption of data is often caused by the media used to store your data on (hard drives, floppies, optical disks, etc.). There may be a scratch on your disk or bad sectors on your hard drive when yuo save your data, resulting in a corruption.

It only takes a small amount of corruption to damage your entire file and render it useless. Many corrupt files can be recovered however, in whole are part, by using corrupted data recovery software like Ontrack Easy Recovery. It points out one of the simplest yet most effective ways to recover corrupted data and files: opening the file as a plain test document. While some formatting characters and images won’t be recovered or displayed in the plain text format, it is possible to recover sizeable amounts of text this way.

Once you open your file and copy the text, you can then paste that back into your main program (ie, Word) and then restore the formatting you had before. This might take a while if you had a large document or file initially, but at least you don’t have to start from scratch again!

Make sure after you have experienced a corrupt file that you run a full disk check (if the file that was corrupted was stored on your hard drive). This will make sure any bad sectors are marked and not used again for the storage of any future data you save.

To run a disk scan, right-click the drive icon in My Computer and then choose Properties > Tools > Check Now, and choose “Automatically Fix File-System Errors”. Also select the “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” option, and then click ok and be prepared to restart your PC for the scan to start.

Note: Another Very useful program that will fix any windows registry corruptions (which could lead to PC errors and data corruptions) is RegCure registry cleaner. Give the Free scan a try today and save yourself from suffering through any more data corruptions!

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10 Steps to Avoiding PC Disasters: Day 3 - Memory Failure

After the hard drive, your RAM memory is the most likely hardware component to fail, which can cause your PC not to boot or stop responding. You will see most memory errors and problems occur upon installation of your DIMM Memory sticks…but RAM problems can also occur at any time during the daily use of your PC due to power surges or overheating.

If you are getting Stop errors or your PC keeps freezing or crashing, you may have memory problems. The easiest way to repair memory errors is to first run a Windows registry cleaner like RegCure, as sometimes a corrupted and bloated windows registry can cause all sorts of errors on your PC, including freezes and crashes.

The next step would be to actually replace your memory, as that will usually fix any RAM related problems, but you’ll want to run some tests first: One of the most effective memory tests you can run, has to be executed outside of windows, so you’ll need a bootable CD. The test is called Memtest86 and is Free! The longer you run this memory test the more accurately it can measure your RAM’s performance levels, and determine if any faulty memory needs to be replaced.

If you find that you need to replace your computer’s memory sticks, then head of to Crucial.com and use their memory advisor tool to locate the specific RAM you need for your PC. This will involve choosing your PC’s manufacturer and model number. Then go to Newegg.com to purchase your memory (much cheaper prices than crucial)!

Keeping a close eye on your hard drives and RAM with the programs we’ve mentioned in these first two posts can really go a long ways towards preventing any kind of PC disaster from even happening!

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While sometimes you can’t prevent something terrible from happening to your PC, there are many things you CAN do to “Be Prepared”:

Sooner or later, you’ll probably have the wonderful experience of having your PC fail or ‘meltdown’ on you…this has happened to me several times in the past, and I wish I had a photo of the look of unimaginable horror on my face when I realized I couldn’t get my computer to startup and operate normally.

Computer disasters come in all shapes and sizes, from a damaging power surge, to and even more frightening theft of your personal data by someone to create a false identity.

10 Days to become a PC Disaster Response Specialist

That’s right, over the next 10 days we’ll be covering many critical issues on how to successfully restore a a dead PC to life, and we’ll also cover the area of computer security, and how to prevent break-ins and safeguard your data in ways that would make Fort Knox proud!

Are Your Components to Blame?

Many disasters can be caused by your hardware. The good news is it IS possible to revive a dead PC due to hardware failures, simply by identifying and replacing the malfunctioning components. Nothing is worse that typing a report that took you 3 hours to create, only to lose it because of a power outage or computer freeze. We’ll show you the options you have to diagnose and repair irritating errors that can be just as destructive as major hardware failures.

We’ll show you how to recover items or files that you deleted accidentally and want back. Like digital camera photos. We’ll look at how to repair scratched disks and how to use your recovery console to start your PC if it doesn’t boot. We will also show you how to create a recovery CD so you can examine an unbootable hard drive for your valuable data.

PC Security & You

We’ll also cover specific security concerns and what to do if your PC has been hacked or you know that someone else has helped themselves to your data. We’ll show you how to avoid spyware in all its ugly forms, and give you advice that will help you to protect yourself online. Wireless connections pose a major security threat today because most people simply don’t bother to encrypt their connections, which allows others to use your bandwidth without your knowledge.

So sit back and relax as we educate and entertain you these next 10 days…you’ll be better prepared to deal with any computer disaster after we’re done with you!

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