We, at Geeks On Call, are seeing an alarming trend of increased hard drive failures.  What is causing it?

Heat and age are the two main causes of hard drive failure.   "As consumers attempt to stretch their dollar and get more life out of their computer systems, they are tending to keep them for longer periods of time before replacing them," says Laura McInerney, Geeks On Call franchise owner.  If you couple this behavior change with the industry's trend toward cutting costs in computer production, you realize more people are operating older PCs with less efficient cooling mechanisms. "In the day when computers cost $1000 for a new system, they would be shipped with two or more cooling fans. Now, systems are shipped with fewer fans, and most consumers rarely bother to check that."

So, what can you do?

• Make sure the computer is receiving adequate ventilation, and the BACK of the PC has adequate space (i.e. not stuffed into a cabinet) to dissipate the heat.
• Make sure you have disk copies of all of your software and licenses so the machine can be rebuilt when the harddrive fails.
• Make sure animal dander is regularly removed from the vents in front and behind the PC.  This can significantly impede air flow and cooling capability.
• DO NOT run defrag more than once every few months. This is a highly intensive disk activity and can exacerbate heat buildup and premature failure.
• Periodically run the ScanDisk utility. If it reports bad sectors, seek to have a harddrive replaced as soon as possible, as that problem tends to get progressively worse and may indicate an imminent failure. Here's how:
  • Open My Computer, and then select the local disk you want to check.
  • On the File menu, click Properties.
  • On the Tools tab, under Error-checking, click Check Now.
  • Under Check disk options, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box.
• Make sure you have an adequate data backup. Backup solutions have come down dramatically in price, and some, like our Carbonite solution, are $50 per YEAR and very affordable.

If you need assistance with any of the above, please call a certified Geeks On Call technician at 1-800-905-GEEK (4335) for an appointment TODAY, or book online at our main website GeeksOnCall.