How to clean computer hard drive

Level of difficulty: EASY

Maintaining the computer’s hard disk at a regular basis should be done at least once a month. To keep your computer running smoothly and efficiently, clean your hard drive, it will also give you more disk space, and you can get rid of unwanted data. If you follow a thorough cleaning procedure which you will get below it will make your hard disk last longer and give you ample storage space. If you are not having the time to do a thorough cleaning of the hard disk once a month, at least follow this procedure once in a while.

Materials Needed:
- home made solution with mild soap and warm water
- cotton cloth.
Step 1
Scan your disk for virus and try to rectify it, do it when you are free as it might take time. Use Scandisk program it is used for Windows as an error checking tool. Double click on my computer, and right click the hard drive, then go to 'choose properties' and then from the tools tab, click on 'Check now', which is the error checking box. You have to select both for scanning bad sectors and fixing it. Click on the 'start' button, you will be asked if you want to schedule Scandisk to run the next time you switch on your computer. Click on 'yes' and restart. A light blue screen appears during boot up, it will take a while before error checking is complete.
Step 2
Now delete unwanted files by running a cleanup utility. Do a Disk Cleanup, deleting old files, temporary files which are not required. Try by using a CC cleaner, which can be downloaded and can delete files from Excel and Word. After they are deleted, you will know how much space you have left.
Step 3
To click old programs, start menu, then go to control panel, and double click on the add/remove programs. From the list, and remove what is not required, deleting games which you don’t need will free lot of space.
Step 4
Music takes up lot of space, so if you are not using it but at the same time don’t want to get rid of, move them to a CD Rom or to a DVD. Now that you removed unwanted files, run Disk Defragmenter, it will help to organize disk space. Go to my computer, and right click on hard drive, then select properties and go to the tab tools, click on 'Defragment Now' button, it will take some time.
Step 5
Do these steps at least once a month and your computer will work efficiently to your satisfaction.