Guidelines for Maintaining Disks and Volumes

Table 12-9 describes the guidelines for maintaining disks and volumes as well as the frequency and benefits of performing each task. By following these guidelines as part of a regular maintenance program, you can minimize the chances of excessive downtime or data loss due to disk or file system errors.

Table 12-9: Disk and File System Maintenance Guidelines

Guideline	Frequency	Result
Run Disk Defragmenter.	Weekly (during idle times) or as needed	Defragmenting volumes increases file system performance. For more information about using Disk Defragmenter, see Troubleshooting Disks and File Systems in this book.
Back up data.	Daily	Backing up data prevents data loss caused by hard disk failures, power outages, virus infection, and many other possible computer problems. For more information about backing up files, see Backup and Restore in this book.
Perform a trial restoration to ensure the integrity of your backups.	Monthly	A trial restoration confirms that your files are properly backed up and can uncover hardware problems that do not show up with software verifications.
Review Event Viewer logs.	Daily	Careful monitoring of logs in Event Viewer can help you predict and identify the sources of system problems. For example, if log warnings show that a disk driver can only read or write to a sector after several retries, the sector is likely to go bad. For more information about using Event Viewer, see Windows XP Professional Help.
Use the Chkntfs command to determine whether volumes are flagged as dirty.	Daily	Running Chkntfs can help you identify volumes that have file system errors. If a volume is flagged as dirty, Windows XP Professional runs Chkdsk when the computer is restarted. You can, however, run Chkdsk immediately or postpone Chkdsk by using the Chkntfs command, although it is recommended that you run Chkdsk as soon as possible. To assess the damage without repairing the volume, you can run Chkdsk in read-only mode. For more information about using Chkdsk and Chkntfs, see Troubleshooting Disks and File Systems in this book.