Building A Computer From Scratch by Richard Horton
Safety The first thing you should do before beginning any project is to be safe. When dealing with electricity is dangerous. By now your probably telling me that I'm stating the obvious, but many people try building their own PC and burn up their hardware, or worse, their home. ... If your using only one hard drive set it to "master" by moving the jumper on the drive to master. ... Install The Processor Be sure to install the processor in the correct direction. ... Locate a hard drive. ... Be sure to fully install all the drives in the case before hooking up the plugs and IDE cables.

Plan B: Why You Should Always Have a Computer Backup Plan by Shannon Baker
There is an old saying, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, many people subscribe to this philosophy with their computers. If they can turn their computer on and access their email or play a game, then preparing for an eventual disaster is usually the last thing on their minds. ... If your hard drive fails, you must be able to restore your backup data to your new drive or computer. ... Now if your main hard drive fails, you will have a current mirror image of the drive you can restore using a special boot disk created by your backup software.

Data Loss - The 7 Most Common Symptoms of a Failed Hard Drive by Jason Perry
If your hard drive is clicking or making grinding noises, you are experiencing system blue screens or system freezes, an error message greets you with ‘drive not formatted’ or ‘operating system not found’, or lastly you are in a never ending loop of computer reboots…there is a very good chance... Clicking Hard Drive A clicking hard drive can indicate a head crash, corrupt firmware on the drive's ROM chip, an electrical problem like a burned chip, blown heads, a bad pcb controller, overwritten servo's, damage to the hard drive's platters and alignment issues from being dropped, jarred or...

Anti-Virus Software Maintenance Lesson by Michael Russell
Don't learn the hard way like I did. Anti-Virus software is important. If you surf the internet, this software keeps your computer alive. To keep the anti-virus software working effectively it must be updated every couple of days and letting it become out-dated may harm your computer. ... I tried a round about way to get into my files to save as much of my computer's disk content as possible then to destroy whatever virus or worm had infected my computer, I had to reformat my hard drive, which meant everything stored was gone.

Spyware - What Is It? What Do You Do About It? by Kelley Kilanski
Spyware is simply what it sounds like - software that spies on your online activity. You won't even know that it's installed most of the time since it is usually installed when you are browsing on the web or download another program and there are no informative pop-ups that ask, "Would you like... These spyware programs can search your hard drive and gather any information that might be useful for them to obtain your bank account numbers, credit card numbers, passwords and any other information that would allow them access to your money.

How Do I Fix My PC Because It Keeps Crashing? by Walter Patrick
Many times I have stared at my computer thinking " How do I fix my pc when it keeps crashing ? " Unfortunately there is no simple answer ! I used to think this problem was related to buying cheap computers but after buying various laptops and desktops at different price ranges there is one... Many trojan virus can cause your computer to reboot immediately once all programs have been launched, this can drive you mad and it is not fun as you are helpless ! ... Best option is to install anti virus software such as the free AVG software or norton anti virus and make sure you only visit...

Fixing PC Errors Quickly by Tim James
Do you know how much did it cost you the last time when you got your PC Errors fixed up? What about the time you spent up with the technician who had come to solve the problem? The truth is that you could have done that your self, without paying some body else for that task, and could have... Most of the time, these files are read by your computer easily, but sometimes the folder system can become corrupt, which makes it hard for the computer to access certain files and folders at ease and quickly or may be not at all.

5 Ways To Backup Your Data... by Jason Kohrs
The data on your hard drive is the most critical item inside your computer, and the only item which can not be replaced. It may be an unwanted hassle and expense to replace a defective memory module, monitor, or processor, but there is no replacing data once lost. ... The inclusion of a common data transfer interface, such as USB, allows an external hard drive to be connected to just about any modern computer for data transfer, or for more than one computer to share the external hard drive as a back up.

Computers: Do You Need An Upgrade? by Michael Quarles
Have changing demands left you unsatisfied with your computer’s performance? An upgrade may be called for. But which should you get to fill your needs? Computer repair shops make their money two ways: by selling their labor, and selling parts. The more parts they install, the more labor... Allow 35 watts for your hard drive, and another 35 for the CD/DVD. ... Hard Drive- You want space for all your stuff, and to be able to get at it fast. ... Try that first, then consider a new drive. ... It can help if you ask your computer to do a lot of multitasking, and make a big difference if you do...

Virtual PC - Slicker Than Oil by Don Watkins
When I was younger and worked on mainframes I was always working with pretty mundane stuff; batch processing for the most part with what little online work being done with smaller computers (Buker-Ramo if you must know) with the mainframes running DOS/VSE. ... You set up the amount of RAM and hard drive space you want to allocate to the "guest" operating system and start preparing the virtual machine like you would a regular computer. ... This might mean partitioning the hard drive, formatting it and then installing the operating system.