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DR.
MAC'S COMPUTER CLINIC No.7
Give Your PC a
MOT
Welcome
to another Computer Training Clinic.
Today we
are going to look at a common health problem that most PC's will eventually
suffer to one degree or another! And....we are also going to use your new EndItAll2 program.
Note: Some
of you may have had problems downloading EndItAll2 because the link we gave you was inactive.
Sorry about that.
Please go back to the Clinic No. 5
We have replaced the bad link with a new link that does work.
If you have not yet
downloaded and installed the EndItAll2 program, you will obviously
NOT
be able to use it. Full instructions are in Clinic 5
and Clinic 6
NOTE: EndItAll2 is
the latest version of 'EndItAll'.
In the examples in this clinic and
for any future references, where the words 'EndItAll' appear, please
apply (or assume) 'EndItAll2'.
O.K. Dr. MAC IS NOW
CONSULTING WITH A SICK COMPUTER IN THE CLINIC ...
 SYMPTOMS
--Sluggishness.
--Sporadic operation
--Crashing too much. --Collapsing with exhaustion.
--Suffering
from disorganisation -- Behavior problems
--Won't
do what it is told
--Weird reactions to input
Dr.
MAC'S DIAGNOSIS:
After
prolonged use, many files can wind up scattered all over the hard drive, directories become rather DISorganized, fragments of files are
left behind and clutter up your hard drive and parts of some files are erroneously linked to parts of other, non-related files.
This can all lead to the symptoms described above!!
In
advanced
cases, the hard drive can actually develop bad sections (sectors) to
the point that it is possible that you will completeyt lose documents
and files.
In more severe cases, the
hard drive
can fail altogether....which means you lose EVERYTHING, you'll have to buy a
new hard drive, and you'll be starting everything from scratch.
NOT a very nice illness to have!
But fear not---we have THE
CURE :
Use Scandisk
(Windows 98 to ME) or Chkdsk
(Windows XP)
on a regular basis - at
least once a week.
Click HERE
to skip
forward to Chkdsk---the
Windows XP version.
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HOW TO USE SCANDISK
(WINDOWS 98) TO
MAINTAIN YOUR PC |
Since you
will be using Scandisk on a regular
basis, it makes sense to have a shortcut to the program on your
desktop.
--Click on the big "Start" button and point your mouse
to the word "Programs". A side menu appears.
--Go right to the top
and hold your mouse over the word "Accessories". --Find and hover
over "System
Tools" and you will see ScanDisk. --RIGHT-click over
"ScanDisk". Another new menu that appears.
--Select "Send to
....Desktop (create shortcut) It
looks like this :
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RIGHT-click
over ScanDisk
and on the new menu
that pops up, select
"Send to ..."
and then
"Desktop (as a shortcut)".
The shortcut icon
to ScanDisk will
now appear on your desktop. |
After the
Scandisk shortcut is made, double-click the "END
IT ALL2" short-cut on your desktop.
The
following box opens to show all the programs that are running on
your computer.
Click the big "end it all" button .... like
this
:
Note: All
these programs (well,
not these ones specifically......the ones you see in your
End It All 2 window) are currently running on your PC.
When you click the "end it all" button, all of them will be closed down---EXCEPT for Explorer and Systray.
These two should NOT be closed down.
When you click the "Exit" button, End It All will also close.
"Explorer"
and "Systray" (your System Tray, next to the
clock) are protected because it is important to keep them running.
Therefore, End It All 2 will NOT close these two programs down.
It
is very important to close down running programs before using ScanDisk.
There may be problems with some of the programs or files that are open. Also, if they are NOT closed down, Scandisk might skip over them - so your PC
will NOT get the full medication and treatment benefits!
Now double click the new Scandisk shortcut on your Desktop.
The
following box opens.
Make sure you select "Standard" and "Automatically fix errors"
Now click the "Advanced" button .... like this :
Your "C" drive
should be
highlighted
automatically
- Select "Standard"
- Select "Automatically
fix errors"
- Then click on
"Advanced"
The following box now
pops up:
Study these illustrations carefully and apply the same
selections to your own ScanDisk :
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PLEASE NOTE :
Windows 95 will
NOT
show all of these boxes.
That's fine.
Just
select all the
others that you do have.
Then click on
"OK" |
You are now back to the
first ScanDisk screen.
You have closed down all
running programs
using End It All2.
You have made your ScanDisk settings.
Now
you're ready to give your PC a damn good MOT !
CLICK THE SCANDISK "START" BUTTON .... and the TREATMENT BEGINS!
When the
"treatment" has finished, ScanDisk will show you a summary.
If
it found no errors, it will tell you. If it DID find errors, it will
also tell you .... AND confirm that it has "fixed them all" .... like
this :
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ScanDisk tells you it
found
errors and fixed all of them.
This is a summary of
all the files, folders,
free-space etc. on
your hard drive.
After you have looked
at this summary, click
on CLOSE.
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And on
the main ScanDisk box, click on "Close" again.
WELL
DONE! YOU HAVE JUST GIVEN YOUR PC A VERY HEALTHY TREATMENT !
You can
now put your computer to bed knowing it has just received an
excellent MOT!
If you wish to continue using your PC, remember that most
programs were closed down by EndItAll, so you will need to reboot.
ScanDisk
creates a log file of all the errors it found.
If you want to read it,
open up Windows Explorer and find the file C:\Scandisk.log
Double click on this to open and read it. (We showed you how to create
a shortcut to Windows Explorer in Clinic No. 3
if you missed it)
When you
double click the "Scandisk.log" file, you may be asked which program you
want to use to read it.
Select 'Word'(if you have it) or 'Notepad'. And make sure you also click on "Always use this program to open this type of
file"
Click
HERE
to skip past the Windows XP version.
Windows XP Version
Windows
XP has 'Chkdsk' (check disk) rather than ScanDisk. Chkdsk serves the same purpose
as Scandisk but it is accessed differently.
To use Chkdsk you must be logged in as an Administrator account.
It is not
necessary to run End It
All 2 to prepare your XP system because Chkdsk already makes sure it has
exclusive access to the subject disks before it will run.
If Chkdsk
cannot lock a specific drive, a message appears asking if you
want to check that drive the next time you restart the computer. Let's get started----
The
easiest way to run Chkdsk is from the 'Run
command'.
To do this, first click on the big 'Start' button at the bottom
left of the screen, then click on 'Run'. In the field (blank line) that appears, type chkdsk x: /f (where the 'x' is the drive to be checked.)
Then click 'OK'...or hit your 'Enter' key.
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Click on "Run..."
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In the box type chkdsk
x: /f (where x is the drive to be checked), then
click on OK.
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If Chkdsk is able to
'lock' the drive, you will get a window like this. |
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When Chkdsk completes it
reports what it has found and any corrections it has made (none in this
case).
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If Chkdsk cannot
lock the drive (this will usually be the case with your C drive), a
message appears asking you if you want to check the drive the next time
you restart the computer.
Reply 'Yes' by typing Y.
The next
time the computer is re-booted, Chkdsk will automatically scan your disk before
the logon screen comes up.
Keep
in mind that it might take a bit longer for your system to boot
completely since the chkdsk scan will be going on in the background. When the scan is complete, chkdsk will automatically reboot
the computer again.
You can see the the report of Chkdsk's activity using the Event viewer.
Click on the 'Start' button at the bottom left of the screen then hold
the mouse pointer over 'Administrative Tools'.
Follow these steps:
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Hold the mouse pointer
over 'Administrative Tools'
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From the new list that
appears, select 'Event Viewer'
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Click on 'Application' |
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Scroll down until you see
an entry for 'Winlogon'. Double click on it.
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The report appears in a
new dialog box like this.
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WELL DONE!
YOU HAVE JUST GIVEN YOUR PC A VERY HEALTHY
TREATMENT !
You can now put your computer to bed knowing it has just received an
excellent MOT !
If you wish to carry on using your PC, remember....most programs were
closed down by End It All 2, so you will need to reboot.
As ALWAYS, we encourage you to do ... SAVE THIS WHOLE CLINIC as a
single file in a special folder.
Then you can refer to it as often as
you like, and learn at your own pace WITHOUT spending money being
connected to the internet.
Full details how to do this are in Clinic No. 2
And remember, part of keeping your PC in tip-top shape is to run the
standard ScanDisk
(Windows 98 to ME) or Chkdsk (Windows
XP) at least once a week.
Once you
have
made the settings to your 98 to ME systems as shown above, you DON'T need to do that part again.
Next time, simply close down all running programs, launch ScanDisk , and
click on "Start". For XP systems, follow the same steps as outlined for XP above.
SEE
YOU SOON WITH MORE POWERFUL PC MEDICINE !
Dr.
Mac
Dr. Mac's Computer Clinic
LIBRARY
All Dr. Macs Computer
Clinics that have appeared on the idf50 web-site
are HERE
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