PC Maintenance Most PCs use traditional hard drives for file storage. Over time, the continual data writes and deletions of everyday PC
usage start to take a toll on a drive's data transfer speed. As a hard drive's capacity fills with files, it stores new information on parts of the disks that are slower to write and read. Moreover, a very full drive will pose problems for the OS (operating system), which requires a certain amount of free drive space to run properly. Therefore, you should occasionally run a utility, such as Windows' Disk Cleanup or Piriform's CCleaner (www.piriform.com) to get rid of "junk" files. While you're at it, uninstall programs you no longer need. Also, as free space dwindles into small chunks, a drive starts to store large files in fragments. This bogs down reads and writes, too. Use an automatic defragmentation utility to keep your computers sprightly. David Ferrin [email protected] For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
