PCTips Box

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…)

Windows Vista has many new features that are designed to help older computers run Windows Vista better. One of those features and the topic of this tweak is called ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost helps your computer by giving it more high-speed memory. If your computer is running low on RAM then it has to kick a lot of applications out of high-speed physical memory to the paging file on your hard drive. This usually results in a big hit in performance and increased activity on your hard drive. ReadyBoost helps this situation by giving Windows an alternative to having to stick data into the slow paging file on your hard drive. Instead, ReadyBoost uses a USB storage device that is faster than a hard disk. This results in a performance boost because Windows will have a high speed alternative than using the slow paging file on your hard drive. (more…)

Suppose you get video, and can get into the BIOS, but Windows won’t start. If it doesn’t even attempt to start — for example, if a hard disk error crops up before you see the Windows splash screen — then you’re probably looking at a hard disk problem. But if the Windows startup process begins and then aborts, a faulty or conflicting device driver is probably the cause. This can occur because of a FAT error, or after upgrading to a new Windows version, after installing a new driver for an existing device, or after installing an entirely new device. (more…)

Microsoft has released a new virtual hard disk image (VHD) that has Windows Vista pre-installed. Using the hard disk image you will have Windows Vista running in a virtual machine in just a few minutes. (more…)

Whenever an error occurs in an operating system or any important programs or whenever system collapses. The question arising is, is there any boot disk? Some people ask booting disk! What is this all about? Others feel for not creating such things.
To avoid you from facing this problem I am giving this tip. (more…)

In Windows Defender, you can choose to run a quick scan of your computer or a full system scan. If you suspect spyware has infected a specific area of your computer, you can customize a scan by selecting only the drives and folders that you want to check.

A quick scan checks the places on your computer’s hard disk that spyware is most likely to infect. A full scan will check all files on your hard disk and all currently running programs, but it might cause your computer to run slowly until the scan is complete. We recommend that you schedule a daily quick scan. At any time, if you suspect that spyware has infected your computer, run a full scan. (more…)

Do you have a SATA disk drive in your computer? If so, you can squeeze a little more performance out of your hard disk. This speeds up the performance of your hard disk by enhancing write caching. However, if your computer is not connected to a battery backup and you loose power you have a increased risk for data loss or corruption. If you have a laptop your chances are data loss or corruption are dramatically less since your laptop battery will kick on if your power source is lost. Let’s get started: (more…)

Windows Vista’s powerful new graphics engine may be one of its hallmark features, but it’s engendering complaints from hardcore gamers…

Windows Vista’s powerful new graphics engine may be one of its hallmark features, but it’s engendering complaints from a key segment of potential early adopters: hardcore gamers.

A small but significant number of games written for Windows XP either crash or creep along slowly on Vista, according to numerous complaints by game enthusiasts in online forums.
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Running out of room on your hard disk? Need some extra space to install a new program? Don’t worry, Windows XP comes to the rescue. Both Windows XP Professional and Home Edition now include a zip compression utility that you can use to compress files and folders on your hard disk.

(more…)