PCTips Box

If you want to reduce the number of unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster, use Disk Cleanup. It removes temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin, and removes a variety of system files and other items that you no longer need.

1. Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking System Tools, and then clicking Disk Cleanup.

2. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, choose whether you want to clean up your own files only or all of the files on the computer. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. (more…)

You may be able to free up some valuable space if you’re using two disk partitions, using two physical drives, or dual-booting between XP and Vista on the same machine.

I’ll show you several steps you can take to eliminate duplicate files and get more out of your disks.

Decide on your multiple-partition strategy

Years ago, it was common for users seeking more reliability to divide a hard drive into two or more partitions: portions of a disk, each with a different drive letter. Back then, recovering data from drive d: was easier than from drive c: if the primary partition (containing Windows) became corrupted.

That configuration is rare today, because backup programs and disaster-recovery services have improved. But there are still three situations in which you might find yourself handling two or more partitions or physical disks: (more…)

Sooner or later most of us have to confront the problem of running out of hard disc space. Usually there’s no alternative but to bite the bullet and delete some files and applications, upgrade to a larger hard drive, install a second hard drive, or if the PC is coming to the end of the road, buy a new one. However, it may be possible to delay the inevitable by scanning your drive with this freeware utility. It’s called DoubleKiller and its job is to track down and eradicate duplicate files. You would probably be surprised how many duplicate files you accumulate over time, I found several hundred megabytes worth on a quite modestly well-used office PC. (more…)

Copying files between folders, drives or PCs can be painfully slow with Windows file transfer service. If you regularly move big files around you may want to give Copy Handler a try as it can move files up to 6-7 times faster.

Copy Handler program is a small tool designed for copy/move files and folders between different storage medias (hard disks, floppy disks, local networks, CD-ROMs and many other).
Advantages of the program: (more…)

Just because Windows Vista is such a resource hog, the operating system features the Windows Experience Index, a rating system designed to measure the capability of the computer’s hardware configuration in order to assess the overall performance of the machine through a numeric base score. The algorithm for determining a base score ranging from 1.0 to 5.9 is directly connected with the processor, physical memory (RAM), graphics, gaming graphics and the primary hard disk. However, there are a few contexts in which the Windows Experience Index, the mechanism at the basis of the system rating will present and erroneous score for the hardware configuration.

This is a problem observed following the commercial release of the operating system back in January 2007. (more…)

You must use a full retail or OEM version of XP (not the cd from your old computer) this makes life really easy and can usually be downloaded from the web.
You must also have a genuine XP key, which has not been used on another system (without genuine key you will not get updates and your system will be labeled as using pirated software by Microsoft.

Next you should know or find out the specifications of your system, to do this goto Manufactures website.

The most important step is to find out if your hardisk is using SATA interface (if so you will require the SATA XP drivers and a floppy disk, as this is the only way that XP can install these drivers.) (more…)

This procedure should work on all Windows OS but we tested her on Windows XP. Now to optimize you Hard-Disk fallow next steps:

1. Run Notepad and open file System.ini which can be found in Windows directory,
2. When you opened this file under [boot] section change shell=explorer.exe into shell=defrag.exe,
3. Restart you computer, (more…)

By default Windows Vista will automatically defrag your hard drive (defrag: reorder files on the physical hard disk and not to make them easily accessible / re-organising your file cabinets).

The default is that Vista itself schedules the best time for this to do, while this could decrease real-time performance it might be better if you choose when to defrag yourself. An easy way to disable this scheduled defragmentation is as follows. (more…)

There are many free software diagnostic tools available to test and help you determine what, if anything, is wrong when you suspect there may be a problem with a hard drive.

Some of these tools are built in to your operating system already and are ready to use right now while others are available from your hard drive manufacturer.

Interested in some slightly more costly but arguably better third-party hard drive tools? (more…)

As some of you will already know, Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk to try and improve searching speed. The only downside to all of this is that your PC will have to be indexing all of the files, so if you don’t use search very much you can disable this feature: (more…)