| Check Your Hard Drive(s) | | | | the warning message requiring a reboot for these |
| Now that we have a mechanism in place to return to | | | | disks or partitions, instead the check will just run. |
| "normal" if we break something, we should make sure | | | | If you have Internet access and your computer is still |
| that the hard drive is in good shape. | | | | able to download files then you may want to get the |
| Here is what we do. | | | | free utility called HD Tune. |
| Go to "Start -> My Computer" | | | | With HD Tune you can perform benchmark tests on |
| Right click on Disk (C:) | | | | your hard disk, examine any partitions there, check on |
| Select "Properties" | | | | the health of your disk as reported by the hard disk's |
| Select the "Tools" tab | | | | internal S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and |
| In the "Error-checking" box select the "Check Now" | | | | Reporting Technology) software and perform an error |
| button | | | | scan on the drive. The HD Tune utility also displays the |
| Check the "Automatically fix file system errors" box | | | | current temperature of the drive so that you can see |
| and the "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad | | | | if there may be any troubles coming up in the future. |
| sectors" box | | | | If you do discover that there are problems then I am |
| Click "Start" | | | | afraid it is possibly time to open up the wallet. If you do |
| You will get a message saying that the disk check can | | | | a search for "hard drive repair software" that should |
| only be performed by restarting Windows and ask if | | | | get you some good results. |
| you want to schedule the disk check for the next | | | | If that method doesn't fix it, then you have two options |
| reboot. Choose "Yes" and restart your computer. | | | | left, either send the drive out to a recovery company |
| When your computer comes back after the check, if | | | | who may charge you hundreds of dollars and they will |
| you have other hard drives or partitions, repeat the | | | | get what they can off the drive, or bin it and buy a |
| disk check on those as well. You will probably not get | | | | new one. |