Know where your files are; often users do not know where they have stored their files on the disk. One of the first things to know being a PC user is that where your files belong.

To understand this, the concept of folders (directories) and files must be clear. An analogy may be of help here. Assume your hard disk is a cupboard and it has racks inside. Now the disk can be thought of as the cupboard and racks can be folders. Now if the racks had files they are like files in a folder. Using the same analogy if the racks had more racks and then files under each rack, these are like sub folders (folders under folders) and files under sub folders.

Knowledgeable users please excuse us for going back to basics.

Best way to store your data: The best way to store your data is to create a single folder called “data” and store all your data under that folder and under sub folders of that folder. So that in the event of a disaster and also at the time when you are doing a backup, you ned to remember only about a single folder.

With the help of your computer supplier’s representative, you could also get your e-mails to be stored within this folder if you are a Microsoft Outlook user. Latest versions of outlooks PST file also contain the contacts information.

Advantage of using this single folder concept is that, if you frequently backup this single folder you know that at any point of time all your data is safe.

Even data like Media Player play lists, Internet Explorer favorites can be exported to this folder occasionally for backup.

Disk cleanup:

Disk cleanup is a windows program seen in newer OS’s which in one shot lets you delete your internet explorer temp files, system temp files, etc. although doing this may not have an affect on performance it will help you free up a lot of disk space.

NTFS File System 

Nowadays most of the hard drives come in large size. NTFS is Microsoft’s more reliable and secure file system compared to the FAT32.

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