Scan Disk requires exclusive

access to a drive when it executes.

Hence, if one or more of the files are
open on the drive that you want to scan,
Diagnostic Software Tools
Scan Disk may display a prompt asking
if you want to schedule the drive check Diagnostic software is used to identify problems on a computer or
the next time you restart your computer. piece of equipment. These programs test the onboard systems for issues and
help to alert users of potential problems or breakdowns. Over the years, these
Once Scan Disk finishes its task, programs have gone from very basic to complex and highly specialized. With
Figure 169. Scan Disk Window
it provides a report that contains the
errors it has found and the amount of disk space it has scanned. It is therefore this increase in technology, the skill required to use the has actually
important for users to use the Scan Disk application because it ensures that their decreased to the point where most people can use this with little or
data is safe from being corrupted. Aside from this, there is a guarantee that their no training.
computer will perform at optimum levels.
Programs that provide
The earliest Scan Disk version appeared in MS DOS 6.2. In Windows 95 diagnostic information are
and 98, Scan Disk was given a graphical user interface (GUI). In this graphical common everywhere.
environment, the user can find: Something as simple as the oil
light on a car dashboard is a
progress bars
type of diagnostic software.
buttons
information regarding the status of the scan and the errors (if any) These hard-coded diagnostic
tools usually monitor one
specific part of a larger piece
of equipment and typically are
always operating. While these
How to Run Scan Disk in Windows types of diagnostic programs
2000 and Windows XP are the most common, they are Figure 149: Defragmentation and Optimization
usually the least versatile. of hard drive
Press the Start button on When people think of true
desktop. diagnostic software, they usually think of the types used on computers. These
Double click on My Computer. programs monitor the computer for problems involving every aspect of the
Highlight the disk to be scanned machine, from hardware to software far more complex and versatile than
for bad sector on the list of Hard
the change oil light.
Disk Drives.
Open the File menu and select
Properties option. Since the introduction of diagnostic software, it has evolved in many
Select the Tools tab. ways. The original type could only find the most major of problems. There
Click the Check Now button. should be strong indicators or physical damage in order for the software to
The scanning process will then recognize and report the problem. When computers became more common in
initiate. Figure 170. Disk Defragmenter window people's homes, particularly with the rise of Disc Operating Systems,
commonly known as DOS, diagnostic software became more common. Small
built-in programs, such as Checkdisk (CHKDISK), allowed users to perform
basic diagnostic routines on their systems. These early programs would often
output technical information and esoteric error codes instead of readable
information. In recent years, the output reports have changed considerably. Online Review
The basic outputs are now readable by most users, and they often contain After the research, watch this video presentation using the URL below:
tips or warnings telling users what they should or should not do, all in plain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS616jQOURg
language.
Answer the following questions:
Technological advances have even made Web page-based diagnostic 1. What do we need to back-up?
software available for home users. With minimal Web searching, nearly any 2. Why you need to back-up in the same drive?
home user can find a wide range of websites offering to speed up their 3. What other storage media is mentioned on the video?
computer or diagnose problems. Many of these sites are scams, so 4. Why is it important to create a system repair disc?
consumers should perform proper research before using them. General 5. What are the different system recovery options?
Internet searches can provide a number of resources to check a company's
credibility.

Some Downloadable Diagnostic Tools

Yet Another Cleaner
How to Scan Disk
Protects your PC from browser hijacker, malicious plug-ins,
malwares, adware, various viruses Scan Disk is one of the most common maintenance tools bundled with

ARO 2013 drive for errors and bad sectors. Once Scan Disk finds an error in the hard
Repairs registry errors, remove "junk" files, and ensure your PC is drive, it will attempt to fix it.
fully protected
There are a number of reasons for the errors found inside a hard drive
and these include:
RegDoctor
Improves your system performance and stability by repairing and
cleaning the Windows Registry frequent system crashes;
critical system applications that have been improperly closed; and
the existence of harmful programs such as viruses, trojans, etc.
Wise Registry Cleaner
Cleans the registry portion of the hard drive What Does Scan Disk Do?
Scan Disk is designed to repair damaged hard drive sectors and
clusters on y ajority of errors detected with the
Advanced System Care
Tunes up and maintains your PC, with anti-spyware, privacy utility programs permit the application to recover the data stored in the
protection, and system cleaning functions. damaged regions of the hard drive. When Scan Disk finds a bad or damaged
cluster during a scan, it will move the information stored in that cluster to a
new drive. Scan Disk also checks and repairs
CPU-Z the integrity of file systems such as FAT, FAT32, and NTFS.
Accesses various information's about your computer
 Advanced System Care Pro
Tunes up and maintains your PC automatically

Free Window Registry Repair

Scans, repairs, and optimizes your Windows registry

Figure 167. Filename for Image

Disk management tools:

6. The drive you choose will have all its data destroyed. Be warned. Fdisk - creates and deletes disk partitions.
Format - prepares a hard drive prior to use.
Scandisk or Chkdsk - checks for physical errors on the disk surface.
Defrag - optimizes use of space on a disk.
Disk Cleanup - removes unused files.
Disk Management - creates partitions and formats disks (GUI
Figure 168. Confirmation Window interface).

7. Click "Yes", and transfer of image to disk will be completed. System File Checker (SFC) scans the operating system critical files.

Procedure in Cleaning
Hardware Components

Critical Review Cleaning your computer

Now, that you are done with the disk image, read more about disk and its components and
image through ICT books and other resources. You should consider the peripherals helps keep the in
following topics for research: good working condition and
1. Acronis True Image helps keep the computers from
2. Norton Ghost Image spreading germs.
3. Other disk Image backup software

Figure 150: Cleaning Schedule

 Procedures: The floppy drive can be cleaned in two different ways. 7. Then wait for the operation to finish.
The first method of cleaning a floppy drive; (and our recommended method) is
to purchase a kit at your local retail store designed to clean the read/write
heads on your floppy drive.
Figure 164. Progress Bar
The second method of cleaning the floppy drive is only recommended
Copy Disk Image to Another Drive
for experienced computer users. Open the floppy drive casing and physically
swab the read/write heads with a lint-free foam swab soaked in pure alcohol, 1. Once you have created the disk image, you need to copy the image to
or trichloroethane. When performing these steps, be extremely careful when another drive.
cleaning the heads to ensure that you do not lock them out of alignment 2. Using the same software, under tools, select "Image Backup/
causing the floppy drive not to work. To help prevent the heads from Restore".
becoming out of alignment, use a dabbing motion lightly putting the swab on
the head and removing it, do not perform a side-to-side motion with the swab.

Ways to Improve your Computer's Performance

Figure 165. Image Backup / Restore

Disk Defragmentation 3. There are two radio buttons. Select "Store Image Disk".

Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down
your computer. Removable storage devices such as USB flash drives can
also become fragmented. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so
your disks and drives can work more efficiently. Disk Defragmenter runs on a
schedule, but you can also analyze and defragment your disks and drives
manually.

Figure 166. Store Image to Disk

When you store data into the hard disk, the data will normally occupy
the disk in continuous manner if there is sufficient data space on disk. 4. Under "Image File", browse for the image you just created.
Imagine if you delete some data files, this will then leave some "gaps" in data
space. When new data files need to be stored and if the size of these data 5. Then specify the drive you want to extract the image to be cloned.
files could not fit into a single gap, the data files will be segmented and fitted
across several gaps with interval. Your hard disk progressively becomes
fragmented after excessive usage of writing, deleting and storing of data into
your disk.
4. There are two radio buttons. Select "Create Image From Disk". A file is typically broken into several small parts and stored in various
areas on a hard disk. When a read request is executed, the disk will search
for the multiple pieces, process and link them and finally present it on screen
from the computer when you read a file or execute an application.

Besides improvement in system performance, disk defragmentation

will also improve data recovery yield in case your disk needs to be sent in for
Figure 161. Create Image from Disk recovery process.
5. Then, in the lower drop down menu, select the drive you want to clone.
For a similar reason, you should not perform defragmentation after
accidental data deletion as this will overwrite the deleted data when data
blocks are moved or replaced.

To defrag your hard disk, follow these steps:

1. Open Disk Defragmenter by clicking the Start button. In the

search box, type Disk Defragmenter, and then, in the list of results,
click Disk Defragmenter.
2. Under Current status, select the disk you want to defragment.
3. To determine if the disk needs to be defragmented or not, click
Figure 162. Image Disk Drop-Down Menu Analyze disk. If you are prompted for an administrator password or
confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

6. Save and indicate an image file name. Once Windows is finished analyzing the disk, you can check the
percentage of fragmentation
on the disk in the Last Run
column. If the number is
above 10%, you should
defragment the disk.

4. Click Defragment disk. If

you are prompted for an
administrator password or
confirmation, type the
password or provide
confirmation.
Figure 159. Disk Defragmenter
Disk Defragmenter might take
Figure 163. Filename for Image File from several minutes to a few hours
to finish, depending on the size and degree of fragmentation of your hard BACKUP
disk. You can still use your computer during the defragmentation process.
Creating a backup of files is one of the most important things people
Notes: do not do, even though it should be their top priority.

If the disk is already in exclusive use by another program or is Never recover lost data on the original media. Make a copy or image of
formatted using a file system other than NTFS file system, FAT, or it on another storage media, and recover from that copy.
FAT32, it cannot be defragmented.
Network locations cannot be defragmented. Check Mode of Failure
If a disk that you are expecting to see under Current status is not
showing up there, it might be because it contains an error. Try to repair Before you engage in any self-recovery jobs, do the following first:
the disk first, then return to Disk Defragmenter to try again.
Check if you have heard any sound prior to your data loss.
Cleaning Windows Registry notice if the performance of the system degrade.
Encountered any problems while opening files, folders or saving.
Registry is a system-defined database which is used by an Operating
System to store all the information needed to configure the Windows settings This is simply to make sure that the loss is logical in nature, and not
for 1 or more users, applications and hardware devices. Information physical. If you encounter any data loss arising from physical data loss,
contained in registry includes user's profiles, application installed on the please send it to a professional data recovery outfit.
computer, types of documents that are created, setting of properties sheet for
each application folder and icon, existing hardware in the system, and all the
ports that are being used.

Why Cleaning the registry is important

When using the computer, users may have experienced quite a DUPLICATION - Disk Image Backup
number of problems relating to registry issues that may result in severe
consequences such as error messages pop-up, noticeably slow performance Once you have installed the additional storage media, it is time to duplicate it.
of a system or even system crash. The reasons leading to these problems,
For that, you can use a free software - ADRC Data Recovery Tools.
however, are mainly caused by missing or invalid registry key(s) from the
Windows registry. 1. Download and unzip the program. Installation is not required.
Usually, when any particular application is uninstalled from Windows, it 2. Run the software.
is recommended that you should use Add or Remove Programs feature to
proceed (Start menu>Control Panel >Add or Remove Programs) However, if
you delete any program manually without using this function, you might 3. Under tools, choose the option
mistakenly move away the registry key in the OS or even leave behind the "Image Backup/Restore".
orphaned registry key. This, of course, will cause the problem of missing/
invalid registry entries. Other actions include deletion of startup programs,
installation of software embedded with spyware or changes in hardware.
And because of the above reasons, cleaning Windows registry has
become an essential and crucial action that you need to implement regularly.
Figure 160. Image Backup / Restore
 Do it regularly or you might experience losing all important data due to the
system breakdown.
UNDERSTANDING PARTITIONS
Can I Delete The Registry By Myself?
The master boot record is the first register that resides in your hard
disk. It is located at the first sector of the disk and the first program that runs The answer is "No". When you attempt to remove the registry by your
each time you power up your computer. The master boot record contains two own, the risk that you may remove the valid registry is high because without
important structures - the master boot code and the master partition table. the registry cleaner software, it is not easy to determine which registry
Both provide instruction and information and how your computer boots up. belongs to which application. Therefore this may cause the system to crash or
Due to its structure, a single hard disk is limited to four primary partitions. One the software to malfunction.
of it will be assigned as the active partition to contain your operating system.
Simply, You can create four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and How Do I Clean Windows Registry?
one extended partition which can be subdivided into multiple logical partitions.
You can either buy Windows Registry cleaner software available in the
For example, you may want to split your 80GB disk as follows: market or download a free trial package from the Internet to try out before
paying a full version. When run, this software will first identify the problems
40GB primary partition for your OS and software applications with your Windows registry such as missing/invalid key references. After that,
10GB for MP3 files it will proceed to probe your request for registry removal.
15GB for Document files
5GB for Miscellaneous files Below are some basic and useful features that you must consider
10GB for Archival files when choosing the Registry Cleaner software:

First, you create a 40GB primary partition. This will occupy the first of the ability to scan for the whole computer system for invalid/ orphan
4 partitions. Then you can create a 40GB extended partition. And within the registry
extended partition, you create four logical partition - 10GB, 15GB, 5GB & ability to backup all the current registry in the system
10GB. So the result of this will be a C drive (40GB), D drive (10GB), E drive have an "undo" feature to restore the cleaning action
(15GB), F drive (5GB) and an H drive (10GB). options on which to choose registry key(s) to be deleted
online updating of the software should be available
MAKING A DISK IMAGE BACKUP
Now, with the software running regularly, it will have saved up a large
Making a duplicate image or cloning a drive is often used in data amount of disk space for your PC. The system then will run as smoothly and
recovery to ensure that the original media where data has been lost is efficiently like before.
untouched while recovery is done on the cloned drive.
Organizing Disk Drive Partition
It can also be used as a backup procedure. However, it is risky What is Disk Partitioning?
because all the data duplicated will be along with whatever viruses and
malware that infected the drive. Partitioning creates a logical file structure on your hard disk so as to
divide various portions of a hard disk to be used for different purposes such
as a dual operating systems, storage or organizational purposes.
Why Partition Your Disk? Dual Operating System

Partitioning your hard disk helps categorize your files into logical You may wish to install more than one operating system into your
groupings so that you can search for files and make changes more computer. For example, you need to use a Windows and Linux operating
effectively. Folders are made for the same reason too. But partitioning system. But both are unable to be installed in the same partition. By
provides better security. partitioning the disk, you separate two logical spaces to include each
individual OS.
Security

Most default primary partition is the C drive. This is the drive where
your operating system and most other software applications are installed in. A
useful way of protecting your data is to store your personal information into a
separate disk partition. For example, if you are using a 80GB hard disk, you Evaluating your Needs
might want to partition it into two drives - drive C & drive D. Drive C will Ask yourself the following questions to help you determine the kind of
contain your operating system files and software applications such as your partitions to create:
Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Acrobat, Antivirus, Photoshop etc., while drive
D can be configured as a storage drive to store all your document files, JPEG, 1. Do you work more on documents than on software?
MP3 and other personal data. 2. Does your job require you to install multiple software applications?
3. Does the size of your software exceed that of your documents?
It is understood that your most important files are those that are difficult
or virtually impossible to replace. For example, if Microsoft Word crashes, you The objective here to is to study the space ratio to allocate for each
can always reinstall the application to make it work again. However, if your partition. The choice of how you partition your disk is important because it
document files are corrupted by a virus or worm, you may need to spend affects both disk performance and efficiency. If you are a designer or sound
money and precious time trying to recover your data. In some cases, you may engineer given a computer with 80GB of disk space, you probably would want
not be able to recover them if the damage is too severe. Statistics have to assign 25GB of capacity to your primary disk and 55GB to a secondary
shown that most viruses and worms are more likely to infect executable and drive to contain all your media files. You can always adjust this ratio
system files compared to your MP3 or excel spreadsheets. Therefore, if one according to your needs. On the other hand, if you are a software tester or a
partition corrupts, only that partition suffers and hopefully not the whole drive. hardcore gamer, you would probably choose to assign 50GB to your primary
disk and 30GB to the secondary drive for storage. Again, there is no fixed rule
Convenience or a standard template and much is directly dependent on your needs and
how you operate.
Another reason for storing your document files in a separate drive is
the ease of manageability. Say in a scenario where your computer needs to
be reformatted due to severe corruption, you can easily reformat drive C and
be assured that all your documents in drive D remains intact. This will save
you time trying to backup your documents, then restoring them back in your
Defragmentation Issue
local drive after your computer is reformatted and starts working. In this way,
Direction: In this activity, you will list down at least five importance of
should you decide to refresh your operating system or application, the stored
defragmentation and partitioning and its effect a computers performance.
data will not be affected.