The document provides tips for maintaining a PC, including: 1. Back up data daily using external storage like a USB drive or cloud storage to minimize the risk of losing files. 2. Scan for viruses daily using antivirus software to protect against malware, which targets Windows PCs. 3. Perform disk cleanups regularly using tools like Disk Cleanup or CCleaner to remove unnecessary cached files and free up storage space. 4. Defragment disks monthly on Windows PCs to improve performance by organizing how files are stored.

1. B Y G E O R G E S M I T H - M O O R E
P8- PC Maintenance

2. 1st: Backup data
 This should be done daily. All key/new/ updated work
should be kept on a second storage medium.
 By doing this you minimise the risk of losing pictures,
videos and documents considerably.
 The different storage options are numerous, yet the best
ones are the USB drive (or portable HDD), or using a
cloud based storage.
 Both of these are fantastic for keeping data safe, yet do not use this as
the only place to store data.
 They both have one major downside, they have a limited amount of
storage. Unless you want to pay money for the cloud backup. Also
although a cloud backup will never get lost, it takes time to upload to
the internet.

3. USB backup
The USB stick can get lost, and can get very expensive for a high ‘GB’ version.
Yet it allows you to backup lots of files.
A major downside to it is that they can become lost and damaged.
With the addition of USB 3.0, USB sticks have become much faster, it can
transfer 640MBps per second.

4. Cloud backup
 Using a service such as OneDrive or drop box allocates you a
certain amount of ‘GB’s’ for free.
 This may not store all of your files as time goes on, but files
can never get lost or damaged while on the system.
 Cloud servers also mean that you can access the files
anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection.

5. 2nd: Scan for Viruses
 Nowadays this should be done daily at the least.
 This requires an antivirus program such as Norton.
They allow for scans to be initiated at a time that
suits you, or when the computer is idle.
 Windows PC’s are most at risk due to the large
consumer base, so windows users MUST have an
anti-virus program. It MUST update regularly and
scan regularly.

6. Virus scans

7. 3rd: Disk clean-up
 In order to maintain the performance of the PC,
using either the Disk clean-up tool, or a program
such as ‘CCleaner’. This searches through the PC to
find all unnecessary and unwanted files.
 Unnecessary files would be files like the internet
cache, this takes up storage space for valuable files,
as shown by the picture on the next slide, there is a
possible 3,000 MB that can be removed.

8. Disk cleaners

9. 4th: Disk defragging
 Over time the hard-drive would become fragmented
and slow the PC down as files are spread apart from
one another. Defragging ‘squeezes’ these files
together.
 This is needed on Windows due to the way in which
the files are stored, the file architecture.
 This should be done monthly, yet with systems with
windows 7 or later, this has become automatic and so
is no longer a problem for computers.

10. Disk defragging

11. 5th: Scanning for HDD errors
 To access this, go to drive properties, you can
schedule the task with windows Vista or later. It
takes a considerable amount of time, and so is not
done regularly.
 This is used to find Hard-Disk errors, and amend
them, this will improve the speed of the HDD, but it
would also minimise the risk of corrupted files.

12. Checking for Hard-Disk errors (first option)

13. 6th: Hard-Drive Backup
 This is different from just protecting the files on the Hard-Disk.
 First make sure there are no viruses on the PC (or you would be copying
them), it is used for when either the HDD crashes or Windows becomes far
too corrupted.
 It should only be done every 6 months or so as it is a lengthy process.
This picture was taken
from google as I could
not take a picture from
my pc-

14. OS imaging
 It copies the entire OS, the benefit of this is that it
prevents the need to completely re-install windows
from scratch.
 The only thing that would have to be done is to copy
the most recent files over, this saves lots of time as
all of the correct files and applications would be
already there, you would not need to re-install them
all.