13th February 2001

Cleaning up is easy -- if you let your operating system do it for you. Running the Windows disk defragmenter once a week is wise; keep those clusters tidy. Is Defrag locking up on you? Restarting after 10 percent completion? Perhaps you should run SCANDISK from the command prompt. Millennium Edition real mode woes? Grab an old Windows 98 boot floppy and run SCANDISK from there. Here's something you might keep in mind; check your "Windows \ Command" folder for a SCANDISK.INI file. Inside, you'll find dozens of environmental settings. If you suspect hard drive errors have been getting in your way, be sure NumPasses is set to "5" before you run SCANDISK. You should also be sure that ScanTimeOut is "On" if you plan on launching a thorough scan. Think of it as building a super meticulous broom.