It’s important that everyone who owns or uses a computer takes the time to make backups of any important files or programs they have which are resident on their computer systems. These programs should usually be backed up as well in order to prevent these computers from suffering from the adverse effects of what malware, spyware and other types of computer viruses can do. Rather than bearing the risks of losing your entire information making the necessary backup copies of your programs and information will easily protect you in the long run.

How can you lose your files?

Different occurrences can make you lose a whole lot of your computer programs and files. Your computer may get affected by a terrible virus or some spyware or malware that can do serious damage to your computer. Circumstances that are beyond your control may also affect the operation of your computer. An entire storm could make your computer malfunction if your computer isn’t protected against circumstances such as power surges. You could have the entire information on your computer wiped out and everything in it rendered unusable. Even a child can affect the operation of your computer. It is usually in your best interests to make backups of every file or program on your computer that is important in one way or the other to you.

What types of files should you backup?

If you’re concerned about what sort of programs and files you should be backing up, the answer is quite simple. Simply take the time out to back up any files and programs on your computer which you feel are important. Most people usually take files that relate to one form of financial information or the other as the most important. Other people consider project files, address books, pictures, software or music as equally important. To some people the scheduling software in their computers hold some important information that should be backed up as well.

How can you backup your computer files?

Backing up computer files can be done in a whole lot of ways. The simplest of these ways is usually to take the time out to back up your computer files every single week or every month depending on the frequency with which you make use of your computer. Some people burn the information that they need to backup on their CD-ROMs. People who have computers that have no CD-ROM drive can easily take the time out and purchase an external hard drive in order to store the information that they want to back up. External hard drives differ in terms of the available range of memory sizes. Some of these hard drives are so small that they can fit onto a key holder. If you need external hard drives, the prices you pay largely differ according to the requirements that you have. Small external hard drives can usually be purchased for prices that are as little as twenty dollars. Larger versions go for hundreds of dollars and more. The space and size requirements are ultimately what determine how much you pay. Most external hard drives can easily fit into your computer via the USB port.

Where should you keep your computer’s backup files?

When a computer has been backed up you should take the time out to keep the computer files in a location that is safe. You may also decide to get a different level of redundancy and backup your computer in multiple ways. You can then simply store these backups in different places. Prevention is always a whole lot better than curative measures.

Your Windows Systems can crash due device driver failure, hard drive failure or corruption, buggy applications or application installer, possibly a problematic Registry modification, or a virus attack. We discuss a number of strategies and techniques for troubleshooting and recovering Windows NT, 2000, Vista and XP.

Driver or Service failing to load:

This type of failure is most common in windows after installing some device drivers or large applications which are much oriented to system services. These applications stop some services during their installations and sometimes fail to restore the services which cause this type of failure. In order to recover from this situation, we have to identify which driver installation causes this problem. This can be identified by using event viewer. The system log is written by the system during each critical task is carry on. This is accessed by control panel ->Administrator Tools -> Event viewer. Examine the application and system log for red signs. Then open the red signed and read the error report where, the driver which failed is reported. By knowing this driver uninstall the component associated to the driver which will rectify the problem.

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD):

This is the most common deadly error of windows. It shows a blue screen when the error occurs and automatically restarts the system. If it is the first time of occurrence then the restart may help to get into the system again. But if it occurs at every time of the booting then there are two possibilities to recover. One is fixing the cause and another one is reinstalling the whole OS again.

The main errors for the BSOD are software errors, hardware errors both during windows operation, and installation errors, startup errors and intermittent errors.

Ways to recover from Blue Screen of Death:

If the BSOD error message shows any driver error try to get in to safe mode by pressing F8 during booting of windows. There it shows a menu with the options of safe mode with command prompt. Select it and try to uninstall the driver.

If there is no trace of which driver try to get into the system by pressing F8 during system booting and select Last known good configuration. This may rectify the problem.

Another way is launching system restore wizard in safe mode by pressing F8 during booting and select safe mode. There in Start -> Run type Msconfig.sys. In the system configuration utility select launch system Restore. There a wizard guides to selecting a restoration point. Select a best known date when the system worked fine and restore the system to the selected date. This is the most recommended way to get rid of the BSOD.

If you plugged in any new hardware just before the BSOD occurs means the hardware attached is incompatible with OS. So change the hardware or try to plug-in in alternative slots.

If the BSOD occurs even in the safe mode then just repair the OS using the setup CD.

Sometimes the system in panic and causes boot failure then repairing the windows helps the user to get back the system to working state

Sometimes windows shows the error report like

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup
using the original Setup CD-ROM.

Select ‘R’ at the first screen to start repair.

_________________

NTLDR is Missing
Press any key to restart
_________________

Invalid boot.ini
Press any key to restart

To repair the windows put the windows setup CD into the drive and reboot the system. Ensure that the system Boot sequence is set with CD ROM in first priority. After booting it press any key to boot it from CD. Then press F8 to skip ELUA license agreement. Then press R to repair the windows. The windows setup will repair the windows installation and restores all the system files and boot up files.

People invest a great deal of personal and business time into their work on a computer. If by chance the computer crashes or a virus attacks then all the efforts might be lost. To minimize the impact of this, backing up files helps the user to recover when a crash occurs. There are two main types of files to take backups of, one is user data and the other one is system data.

Let’s see what files need to be backed up for safety and the ways to restore them.

User Data Includes

• Bank records and other financial information
• Digital photographs
• Software you purchased and downloaded from the Internet
• Music you purchased and downloaded from the Internet
• Personal projects
• Your e-mail address book
• Your Microsoft Outlook calendar
• Your Internet Explorer bookmarks

System Files Include

• System files
• Boot records
• My Documents
• Start Menu
• Desktop Items
• Favorites
• Send To Locations
• Internet History
• Windows System Components
• Application Data
• User Profiles

Ways to backup the user dataWindows incorporate a build-in backup utility which is useful to backup user data. It can be launched by clicking Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> system tools -> Backup.

This launches a wizard which gives two choices of creating backup files and settings and also to restore files and settings. From here you can select options such as what kind of files to backup and selecting next takes the backup of the selected files. We can restore it whenever necessary by selecting the restore option in the wizard.

Ways to backup system settings:

Sometimes during booting the system shows error report like these:

[Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWSSYSTEM32CONFIGSYSTEM ]

[Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWSSYSTEM32CONFIGSOFTWARE ]

[Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file): SystemRootSystem32ConfigSOFTWARE or its log or alternate

System error: Lsass.exe]

These are due to corrupted registry and system settings files in the system directory.

<Root Drive>windowssystem32configsystem

<Root Drive>windowssystem32configsoftware

<Root Drive>windowssystem32configsam

<Root Drive>windowssystem32configsecurity

<Root Drive>windowssystem32configdefault

Where <Root Drive> is the drive where the windows operating system is installed.

These files are not easy to copy to take backup. Because these files are locked by the operating system for security reasons.

Using windows backup systems settings can be easily take as backup. Other than this there are many utilities to backup the system files and system settings.

VistaBootPRO:

VistaBootPRO is the utility to manage and modify boot settings and also used to backup boot data. It is a third party tool capable of changing boot options for older versions of windows and latest versions.

For schools and other educational institutions they take backup of the whole drive and they restore these images periodically. The backup is taken in CDs or other secondary storage devices and can be restored when needed. Some utilities are available to take such backup. Norton Ghost is the very famous backup tool helps us to take the whole drive image backup. This gives up a bootable CD with backup image. On booting the system with the backup disc give some options to restore the whole drive.

Restore IT is another backup utility where the whole drive backup is stored in a separate partition called recovery partition. We can restore it without any separate backup media. The recovery mode is very simple like single click recovery. These types of recovery are used only when the data is the root drive is not important one.

Defragmentation:

Defragmentation is one of the best ways to increase system performance. Disk fragmentation means the storage of data is on physical disk in non contiguous locations and scattered through on the disk. The inability of the physical medium to provide contiguous storage is called as fragmented storage. The inability of storage controller causes two types of disk fragmentation, external and data fragmentation.

External fragmentation:

When the system turns to store a file in the physical location, the physical location may not have enough contiguous space to store that file. In that case the file is stored in non contiguous location. Sometimes when users delete files from the disk it may cause a free space in between files. Such fragmentation is referred to as external fragmentation.

Internal fragmentation

Internal fragmentation occurs frequently due to some type of failure of the file system store files in-between the storing process. This mostly happens while we cancel the copying of large files during. The file may be left undeleted but occupies more memory than the copied content. This is not considered a major problem but occupies unnecessary space.

Into our Hard Disk:

Let’s say for a sample that we are going to store a file of 5 MB. This file may be located anywhere because the sample disk is using 2048 byte clusters, so totally 2,560 clusters are needed. So these clusters may be on different platters and tracks of the disk. Our computer is made of electronic devices which can deliver responses at the speed of electrons, but our hard disk is just a mechanical device where it consumes time to move its head from one place to another. So this seeking time increases if the file is scattered on the disk and slows our system performance.

We cannot force our system to store files in a contiguous location. But we can rearrange the files to contiguous location. This type of rearranging a file scattered as clusters into consecutive locations is simply called as Defragmentation. Because when a file is rearranged in consecutive locations the head movement is decreased by less seeking between platters and tracks.

Tools:

In windows, two file systems are most commonly used. They are FAT32 and NTFS. Windows 98 supports the FAT file system and the defragment tool build-in with the OS gives good performance. The other third-party tools are JKdefrag, smartDefrag, ultraDefrag; speeDefrag can also defragment the disk. But windows 9x build-in defragmenter is often the best to use.

Windows NT version includes a newer file system called NTFS. The superiority of NTFS disk management capability causes less fragmentation. In earlier releases of NT versions they didn’t include any defragmenter. But the truth is the complexity of file management in NTFS is very much cause for different ways of fragmentation. Since FAT uses simple cluster based storage the Defragmentation is simple and easy to defragment it. In NTFS system the storing of file cause less fragmentation but the addition and removal of data causes more fragmentation. The NTFS uses a MFT (Master File Table) for keep track of file storage. The addition or removal of data from file causes the MFT to grow and causes fragmentation which reduces the performance further.

For Windows NT the popular utility called diskeeper by Executive Software is the best tool in my opinion to defragment the disk. On its wisdom, Microsoft licensed diskeeper and includes it in windows 2000/XP. But the version included is less capable and slower than the full version of the diskeeper. So it is best to use the Diskeeper full version from Executive software to increases the performance of the system. The other third-party tools are Norton Utilities for NT, Perfect Disk 2000, O&O Defragmentation, and VoptNT.

Introduction:

Sometimes the valuable information in your system may be lost due to system crash. In order to recover the valuable information from the system the recovery options are much helpful to get back his information. Sometimes people delete their files out of hesitation and then need the file back, at that time it is usually best to search in recycle bin. Even if he deleted from the recycle bin, the file can likely be recovered using a 3^rd party utility of some type. Because deleting a file from the disk means the operating system just mark the sectors as free so that it is used. So before another file return to the destination we can recover the deleted files. For that a lot of software is available in the market such as system mechanic, get data back and much more.

Sometimes installing some critical software makes the system panic. In that situation the system cannot able to boot normally. To overcome this following steps are useful:

First restart the system and get into safe mode by pressing F8. There uninstalling the software which causes the crash relieves the system to boot normally.

Sometimes the registry settings may not revert and still it refuses to boot normally. To recover this windows gives a build-in system restore point. This utility can be launched by

start -> Run and type Msconfig. This launches a dialog box, Select Launch system restore. This launches a wizard system restore. There we can able to create a system restore point or Restore my computer to an earlier time. Select the Restore my computer to an earlier time, and select next, which gives a calendar where we can find some set of dates, marked where the restore points are available. Select the date where the system to be restored and select next which confirms the action and the system will be restarted and restored to the selected date settings.

To set the restore point click start -> Run and type Msconfig. This launches a dialog box, Select Launch system restore, there select create a system restore point and click next, which asks the restore point description and click on create creates the restore point for the selected time. Then at any time it can be restored to the selected restoration point.

Some third party tools like RESTORE IT is used to restore the whole partition to a restoration point. This software takes a separate disk space for backing up the whole partition and it can be restored during system startup. So if there is problem in getting into windows we can easily restore it to the fresh installation state. But this will lead to loss of information stored in the recovered partition including My Documents and desktop. Win rescue, System Restore are some of the programs available to recover system from crash.

In Windows Vista a set of tools called Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) helps to recover from serious errors which may prevent windows from booting successfully. For Vista WinRE must be installed and it can be accessed by pressing F8.

This contains

Startup Repair – Fixes boot errors in windows startup process.

System Restore – Restores the system to a previous working state or restore point using windows shadow copy service.

CompletePC Restore – restore the complete PC from the disk image stored in the disk.

Command Prompt – allows full control to the file system.

These are the options used to recover windows from the serious booting or some critical problems causes panic.

Introduction:

Computer programs often need hundreds or thousands of individual files to work. When a user loads such programs, it creates some files that support the execution of the program and the data that it temporarily needs. Ideal software efficiently uses these temporary files and cleans them on exit. But there is no ideal software, so some junk data gets left on the disk.

Sometimes system crashes or software runtime errors may cause the execution to stop immediately without allowing clean up action. This may lead to scattering of unwanted temporary files on your hard drive. This scattering of files occupies more space which lowers the system performance. Normally, the system uses part of the hard drive memory as swapped main memory.
The increasing in temporary files leads to shrink of swapping area done by pagefile.sys, and decreases the system performance. The second drawback of the junk files is scattering files all over the hard drive. This increases the size of the indexing file of the disk partition. The increase in indexing file makes the search of a particular file using windows search utility much slower. Moreover, continued scattering of junk files makes other files highly fragmented over the drive. This fragmentation creates significant movement of the physical arm of the hard drive and thus slows down the system performance.

The junk files are mostly with the on of TMP suffix or a tilde (~), such as myfile.tmp or ~myfile.dat. These temporary files are safe to delete. Some more common files are created by applications are BAK files. These are the files called backup which may be required in the near future in restoring the old status. So there may be harm in deleting these files. The application program which creates the BAK file also failed to remove them. So the user must take decision that the file is to be deleted or not according to the application usability of the user. Some files to look for are the BAK are BAT files. These files are called batch files do some automation jobs, like automatic execution of files in start-up in autoexec.bat. So don’t delete these files until you are fully sure to delete it.

Normally windows stores the temporary files in the temp folder in the root drive. We can access this directory by clicking run in start and type “%temp%, this temporary directory consists of all temporary files created during the application execution. It is safe to delete these files during windows shutdown or during restart. If we try to delete these files during middle of some process, may restrict to delete these due to sharing of files by the application. So deleting these files may cause harm to the application. Some other types of junk files are internet caches which are created during surfing internet. These catches also causes leave junk files.

Utilities to delete junk files:

Windows comes with a basic clean up utility called disk cleanup. To access this click start -> All programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup. This launches a utility helps to remove tmp files including temporary internet files, application debug data, and other junk in the system. We can select which files are to be cleaned because some internet caches lead to loss of saved histories and cookies which closes all logged sessions in surfing sites.

The third party utility called ccleaner is a freeware utility that helps a great in removing temporary files. Sometimes there may problem in ejecting a flash drive from the system. This is due to sharing of temporary files from the flash drive. This can also be rectified by clearing all temporary files from the system using ccleaner which ease the ejection of pen drive.