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Learn how to fix your common computer problems , read my articles related to common computer problems.

Showing posts with label remote computer support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label remote computer support. Show all posts

How to troubleshoot Hard Drive problems

Check the following things to troubleshoot your hard disk

Check Your BIOS
If you have an older motherboard, your BI0S might not recognize hard drives larger than 2.10 GB. Hopefully, your BIOS is EPROM which means although read only (noticed the ROM?) it can be edited by authorized editors. Nearly all newer motherboards support that. All you need to do is to go online, go to your motherboard manufacturer's website and try to download a flash BI0S update. Install it and it should be done.

FAT
If you have a large capacity hard drive with more than 2.10 GB, you might have a problem. Windows 95 itself will only recognize a partition with not more than 2.10 GB. You need FAT32. With FAT32, you can have one large capacity hard drive without partitioning. You will also save some space with FAT32. In short, larger hard drives require FAT32.

Consider Partitioning
Although you can have one big fat hard drive as one partition, you should consider partitioning as well, if you have a big hare drive. Partitioning is the method of dividing an area on a disk into smaller portions of lesser capacities that can be recognized by the operating system. Picture this: your hard drive is a cake. It is easier to eat a cake divided into pieces than to eat it whole.
Partitioning enables you to achieve greater efficiency and functionality from high-capacity disks (2.10 GB or greater). You can create partitions by using FDISK on a system running in MS-D0S mode or by using a third-party disk utility. Remember that after partitioning, all data will be loss so be careful.

You can set aside a small partition for backup purposes. In case you should decided to format, just format the partition you use to store Windows. Your data in the backup partition is still there. But be careful! If you format a FAT32 partition with a FAT16 formatting utility, your partitions with data in it will all be loss! So never install DOS after formatting Windows. Because D0S utilizes FAT16, your FAT32 partition will all be gone.

Access Time or Seek Time?
If you want to buy a hard drive but are confused with the specifications of access time and seek time, remember that the key to the speed of a hard drive is the average access time. This is the time taken to access a single sector to the time when the drive's head reaches the sector. But beware, some ads quote seek time that is not the appropriate measurement. Access time is seek time plus latency (the time it takes for the chosen sector to come around to be positioned under the read/write head)

Speed, Not Space
A lot of people are confused between speed and space. If you have a Quantum Fireball with 1.20 GB and a Quantum Bigfoot with 3.50 GB surely you should put the Bigfoot as the master and Fireball as the slave right? Wrong! You should always consider speed as well as space. The Quantum Fireball has a faster access time. A faster hard drive means better performance. Make sure your operating system is store in the faster hard drive. You can use the Bigfoot to store your programs or games which makes not much difference to the speed. With speed hungry programs or games, store them in the faster drive too. You must know what to put where.
The status of the drives is determined by setting small jumpers that are usually located next to the IDE connector on the drive itself.

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How to increase virtual memory in windows

Normally this warning message shows when you run many programs same time than the RAM installed on your computer is designed to support. Your can solve this problem by increasing the system paging file size also called as virtual memory. Using this virtual memory windows moving information to and from the paging file for fast processing. This will free up enough RAM for other programs to run properly.

To increase the system page file follow the give path:
Control Panel > System > Advanced > Click on Settings (Under Performance) > Advanced > Change

Here under Drive (Volume label), you have option to select any of your hard disk drive, but the best choice is, select any drive other than C drive for virtual memory.

Set the double Initial & Maximum Size of your Virtual Memory. Here set initial size 700 MB and maximum size up to 1OOOMB; you can change this size according to the free space available on your hard drive.

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