Chapter 35: Keeping Your Disk Safe

Overview

In addition to the files and folders on a disk, some of the space on each disk is used to store the structure of the disk, including a table of the parts of the disk that are free (available for storing new information), a table of the files and folders on the disk, and a list of which blocks on the disk store the information in which file.

If this structural information gets corrupted, you can lose some or all of the information on the disk. It's wise to check the structure of the information on each hard disk regularly by using a Windows program called ChkDsk, which not only checks the disk structure, but can also fix most of the errors that it finds.

Another disk problem arises when you create and delete many files over a long period of time. Files are stored in a series of sectors on your disk, and the sectors are not necessarily next to each other. While this is more of a problem for FAT32 partitions, NTFS partitions can also become fragmented after time. To fix this problem, you can run the Disk Defragmenter utility that comes with Windows. Disk Defragmenter moves the information on your disk around to speed up access.

Many programs create temporary or backup files, which are not always deleted when they are no longer needed. The Disk Cleanup program can delete stale temporary files for you.

Note  

If you need to restore your Windows system files to the way they were before you installed an upgrade or before your system started having problems, try the System Restore program. For information about your system and repairing Windows system files, see "Returning Your System to a Predefined State with System Restore" in Chapter 37.