Love Your Hard Drive

Perhaps above any other part of the PC, we all rely on the hard disk. It runs our programs, and it stores our precious data - pictures, music, accounts, letters, etc - until it fails. And that's the scary bit.

As well as doing regular backups of important files (hint, hint!), we really ought to look after it. There are ways of checking the health of your HDD, and one of them, a program called ChkDsk, is part of Windows.

Then there are free programs that do a little more, by accessing the data that the HDD stores about itself, the so-called SMART data. HD Tune is a recommended free program.

And then each company that manufactures HDDs provides a free Drive Fitness Test program, to download and run.

I know, it's a bit fiddly, so that's why it's good that there are people like me around, to do the job for you! For a consideration, of course.

If you're in the south Manchester, UK, area, get in touch: 0161 870 2563, for a full HDD health check, with detailed report.

News of Nasties

So glad you've found my blog. This is my way of keeping in touch with helpful information and advice. Well, that's my plan!

So here goes:

Warning #01
There's a nasty email going the rounds. It announces an update to Internet Explorer 7, and provides a link to a website where you can download the update.

Do not go there! Your computer is likely to get infected. The only safe place for IE7 updates is the Microsoft website.

By the way, you do get automatic notice of MS updates? Second Tuesday/Wednesday in the month is MS Update Day.

In the meantime, happy computing!