Cutting the brakes

Sure, Windows is a system resources hog, but it's not the only reason why your computer slows down. Junk files and folders, as well as read errors contribute
to this, but this is fixable. Simply get rid of the unnecessary data, and within no time your hard drive will be back in full swing.

CLEANING HARD DISKS

First, install the HDCleaner, available on this month's CHIP DVD . The tool will help us to create a restore point after booting the system. Open the program and select the system partition that needs to be backed up and click on the 'Start' link under the category 'Clean Hara Drive' from the left navigational panel. This will open up the 'Start Scanning' screen, where the Scan Options show 'List found files after scan', check mark this, before you press 'Scan now' to start the process.

Once the scan is complete, a window titled 'Following files were found' appears. Go through the list to ensure that no important files are listed, and check the option 'No Backup' before you click on the 'Delete and wipe files' button. Note that this action permanently deletes the files from the computer and there is no option of restoring this data at a later time.

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This action ensures that files are permanently deleted and not simply sent to the Recycle Bin or saved as a compressed ZIP archive. Once the deletion process is complete, go back to the main application window to perform the system scan once more to confirm that there are no more files hidden on the disk. HDCleaner also has a couple of more useful functions like 'Clean Folders' and 'Clean Center'.

'Clean Folders' helps to clean all the free space on a hard disk, a file shredder with a drag and drop interface, a duplicate files scanner, and a shared DLLs list. 'Clean Center' contains all the tools that a clean-conscious user will need. This includes an Internet Explorer cookie wiper, a Registry cleaner, a Super cleaner to delete temporary files and MRUs, the AutoRuns module, and uninstaller, a list of all the software registry keys, a file splitter, and an AntiSpy module to disable sending private information to Microsoft.

REPAIRING HARD DISKS

It's possible to track down physical errors in individual sectors using the 'Check Disk' Windows utility. Right click on the icon of a particular system partition in 'My Computer' and select 'Properties', switch to 'Tools' and click on 'Check Now' under the Error¬Checking category to start it. Activate, 'Automatically fix file system errors' and 'Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors' options. Since the disk check utility requires exclusive access to some Windows files, the PC needs be restarted . So, save all your work and leave the PC alone while the checkup is in progress.