Keep it clean
Dust can make the chips inside your computer run hotter and also clog cooling vents. An overheated system can cause intermittent poblems. At least twice a year, unplug your computer, open the case, and blow out the dust. Do not wipe it with a rag, use an aerosol can of compressed air.

Shut down gracefully
Windows 95/98/ME/XP, provide a menu-driven method to shut down your computer. Don't ignore these methods. Turning off power to your system while it is still running can be a disaster. Give your system the time it needs to flush caches, close files, and save configuration information before you pull the plug.

Store with a plan
You have lots of reasons to keep the files on your hard disk organized. First, it makes it easier to do "housecleaning" -- deleting files you no longer need. Second, keeping data files in their own well-labeled folders reduces the risk that you will inadvertently delete an important program or data file. Finally, a well-organized hard drive is easier and faster to back up.

Create folders for each program and place only the appropriate data files in them. Alternately, create folders for each member of the family. Give files and folders names that will make sense even after you've forgotten why you created them.

In addition to organizing your files, at least every two months you should delete files you no longer need. A disk filled to within 5 percent of capacity is more prone to errors -- and a lot slower -- than one that is not so chock-full.

Tune your hard disc regularly
Because it is the place where you permanently store your applications and, more important, the data files you create with those applications, your hard disk requires special attention to keep it operating at peak efficiency. Disk scans for "lost" files and bad sectors will prevent most disk problems before they occur, while running a disk defragmentation utility will improve the performance of your system.

Every day, you create new files, delete unwanted ones, and write updated versions of current files to your computer's hard disk. Because of the way Windows assigns disk space to files, your hard disk can become fragmented over time (i.e., your files get placed in pieces all over the hard disk, because there is no contiguous space large enough to hold them). A fragmented hard disk slows disk access and makes it harder to recover from disk errors.

To defragment a Windows 95/98/ME/XP hard disk, use the Disk Defragmenter program in Programs/Accessories/System Tools. You should defrag your hard disk every six months. You should also defrag it after you have created or deleted a lot of files in a short span of time.

Occasionally, a storage area called a sector on your hard disk goes bad. A utility called a disk scanner detects such "hard" errors and keeps a table of such sectors so that your operating system doesn't try to use them to store files. In addition, a disk scanner detects "soft" errors, where the operating system has lost track of pieces of one or more files. ScanDisk (found in Programs/Accessories/System tools) is Windows 95/98/ME/XP built-in disk scanner, and it detects both hard and soft errors. You should run a hard disk scan at least every month. In addition, if your computer crashes or you accidentally shut down without going through the proper shutdown procedure, run a disk scan as soon as you reboot.

Don't smoke around the hard drive. To a read/write head, a particle of smoke on hard drive platter is like a boulder with a 10-foot circumference on the highway.