Some of the more general slow laptop fix tips can prove to be quite effective for resolving the majority of PC performance issues. In this article I’ll show you some of the more common techniques you can use to help improve speeds for all applications as well as the operating system.

Make sure your registry is not corrupted

If your laptop keeps freezing on you then this may well be due to corrupt registry keys. A slow laptop could also be down to key settings being incorrectly set. Run a registry cleaner utility (e.g. Registry Easy or XP Repair Pro) to automatically repair and tune key settings.

Free up disk space

Clearing out at least 10% your hard disk and leaving it empty will actually improve performance. This empty space can be used by the operating system for virtual memory when running application commands and OS programs. Use the Disk Cleanup utility to get rid of cached/temporary files and uninstall unused software you don’t require.

Reduce the number of running services and applications

Open up the task manager and check on the processes tab which applications are using up a large amount of your memory. If RAM usage becomes excessive by individual programs then this impacts all running programs. Identify problematic applications and remove them, replace them or update them.

Improve disk access times

The speed with which your hardware can access documents on the drive belonging to your documents is directly related to how fragmented and dispersed documents fragments are on disk memory. Running a disk defragmenter on a regular basis (i.e. monthly) should help speed up access times by placing fragments alongside each other on disk platters.

Keep your OS programs and applications up to date

Software houses are always providing updates to fix bugs for your programs. These applications also include performance improvements so it is strongly advised to stay up-to-date with the latest versions of your applications. Windows update can help provide you with security updates and device driver patches. Check with manufacturers for updates to specific third party programs you use on a frequent basis.

Don’t let viruses get onto your system

Lastly, malicious adware, Trojan viruses and malware applications can all damage registry key settings and operating system programs causing slow laptop performance and (in the worst case scenario) explain why your laptop keeps freezing randomly. Update your anti-virus program with the latest virus definitions regularly and scan the entire hard drive as often as you can tolerate.

Slow laptop startup times are a direct factor of the number of applications initialized at boot time as well as the performance of each of these programs. Here I’ll show you how to reduce the strain on the operating system as it is booting up from a full system restart.

When your operating system is booting up from a complete shutdown it will need to initialize the various services and applications needed to run correctly. Many of these will relate to operating system services which are crucial for initializing hardware and peripheral components.

However, many will relate to third-party applications (e.g. Skype, updates, etc.) which you may not immediately require. Therefore you can often consider disabling them from the initial startup process and choosing to manually launch them later on if you desire. This can be especially worth doing if your laptop keeps freezing as the system is starting up (as this may relate to specific programs having faults).

Tools for fixing issues

The main tool for resolving this problem is the Microsoft System Configuration utility [start/run/enter msconfig]. The application contains a tab, labeled “startup”, containing the list of all applications and services that Windows initializes at boot time.

Unfortunately, applications are listed using their executable filename rather than the user-friendly program name you would be familiar with. Therefore review each of these applications and only disable the ones you are familiar with (using the check-boxes on the tab). It is worth research execute will filenames online to establish what program they relate to if you are in any doubt.

You may restore/enable these programs again later if desired to roll back your changes. You should notice your slow laptop startup speeds will improve considerably especially when certain resource-heavy applications are disabled (e.g. databases, Web servers).

If you decide that you cannot disable these programs then you should make sure that you have the latest updated version of the program which should include bug fixes as well as performance improvements.

One common cause of a very slow laptop is problems with disk space and the amount of fragmentation of its files. In this post I’ll show you why this can occur and how to resolve the problem.

Disk space

If your laptop keeps freezing repeatedly even when running basic applications then it may well be that your system is running out of space on the hard drive. The Windows operating system makes use of any empty space on the disk for allocating extra virtual memory. This is also referred to as the paging file.

It is good practice to keep at least 10% your hard drive left empty for virtual memory to expand. If the amount of space drops below 4% then your slow laptop will keep freezing constantly you may experience a blue screen exception. It is easy for disk capacity to start approaching 100% full if you are downloading a lot of files or transferring large music/video/image files onto the computer’s hard drive.

Solution: The best way to free up the extra space is to:-

• Run Disk Cleanup to get rid of temporary files.
• Uninstall programs you don’t use.
• Transfer larger documents onto an external hard disk.

Fragmentation

Each document you use is stored on the drive as a series of fragments stored in different locations around the hard disk platter. Accessing these fragments each time can become increasingly time-consuming if there are a lot of fragments as the read/write head needs to access different sectors of the disk.

This can be troublesome especially when accessing operating system files or documents which are continuously accessed by the computer. Excessive fragmentation can cause a slow laptop to gradually degrade in performance the point that applications keep freezing.

Solution: Use a disk defragmentation utility (Windows provides its own or you could try Regtool which is a registry cleaner and advanced disk defragmentation utility in one). These applications attempt to bring all the fragments back together to the one location on your disk so that a single read command will rapidly access your file.

Resources: Regtool – Registry repair and disk defragmentation utility in one.

The best HDD repair freeware choices you can make center around Windows tools and manufacturer applications. In this post I’ll show you where to find these tools and how to get the best from them.

Before making any repairs with these products you should be sure to make backup copies of your data. These products are generally quite safe but any tools which modify the data clusters on your disk do have the potential of introducing faults, so it is wise to backup first.

Microsofts Own Windows Tool

The first product to consider is Windows own disk checking utility. This HDD repair freeware is provided with all versions of Windows. The product primarily analyzes the drive for bad sectors and attempts to repair them. Any sections that can’t be fixed will be marked as off-limits so that no further data is being stored to these corrupted sectors.

Finding and using the tool is done as follows:

1. Open up a Windows Explorer.
2. Find the hard drive you want to scan. Find the icon for this HDD and right click on it. Choose the Properties menu option.
3. In the Properties dialog, select the Tools tab.
4. At the top of the tools section (error checking options) hit the Check Now button.
5. Each version of Windows provides different options at this point, but the most usual choice is to scan for and attempt to repair of bad sectors or do a thorough scan. Start your scan.

Manufacturer’s Software

The second type of HDD repair freeware you can consider are those utilities made available by the manufacturer of your PC or laptop. These can be the most useful products to choose as they are designed specifically for your hardware.

Go to your computer manufacturer’s website and search for HDD repair freeware in the resources or support section of the website. These type of products are usually used in-house by engineers and technicians for evaluating and rectifying faults, so may already have been made available to customers.

This article shows you how to recover formatted data from hard disk partitions using readily available software solutions. It also details a major problem affecting file retrieval on formatted disks.

How-to Steps

The steps involved to recover USB data or hard drive data are the same no matter what type of memory device or formatting was done. Proceed as follows:

1. Download a suitable data recovery application. A recommended and popular tool for use on internal hard drives and USB flash devices is Remo Undelete.
2. Install the program on any partition except the one that was formatted. The reason for doing this is in order to ensure that the installation files do not begin to overwrite any of your original data (from before the formatting).
3. Launch the application. You will be prompted to select a drive for analysis. At this point you should choose the formatted disk/partition.
4. The software application will attempt to recover formatted data by analyzing data clusters on the disk. Each document is represented by several clusters located around the drive. The formatting process will clear the file allocation table which has details of how these clusters can be pieced back together to form your original file. For this reason, your data recovery application will try to piece them back together using its own logic.
5. When the scan is complete, review the list of found files and clone whichever ones you need back onto an external hard drive or separate partition. Again, do not use the formatted partition copy the files onto as this could overwrite documents.

Recommended Data Recovery Software

Remo Undelete: Works on IDE / ATA / SATA / SCSI hard disk drives, SD Cards, Memory Sticks, Zip drives and USB hard drives, All Windows OS; Free trial scan.

Factors affecting success

The major factor affecting your ability to recover USB contents/hard disk files will be the nature of the formatting process that was used. If a formatting tool containing a data protection sweep was run then this can potentially overwrite data clusters repeatedly with blank data to ensure your data pretty. In this case, many read file retrieval applications will fail to find even fragments of your old files.

When reviewing the list of found files you may observe that filenames are not easily recognized. This is due to the fact that formatting clears down the file allocation table which contains the user-friendly filenames. The workaround for this is to copy/clone documents according to file type onto new disk/partition and then search through them in order to find any specific documents you wish to work on.

The two main methods of USB protection are using software applications (installed on the USB device) or secure hardware devices (built with security chips embedded in them). Here I’ll show you what the benefits and drawbacks of each approach are over the other.

It is critical to secure USB device contents especially given the potential for these devices being lost so easily and falling into the wrong hands. It only takes a few minutes to use low cost data recovery tools to locate lost or hidden documents on drive (including formatted USB devices).

Software manufacturers have been playing catch-up (e.g. True Crypt, Bit Locker To Go) to produce software that can encrypt the contents of your drive using their own algorithm. In parallel to this, hardware manufacturers of USB devices (e.g. Verbatim, Iron Key) have started creating their own upgraded USB flash drives which include security chips to encrypt all contents.

The great thing about using USB protection software is that you can make good use of all those USB flash drives you have sitting around on your desk and secure each one. All you have to do is install the application, set a password and then encrypt contents. Many of the commercial applications can also synchronizing with corporate backup software so that data is synchronized from your work computer to your secure USB drive.

By contrast, USB protection devices provide a higher grade level of security. Even if the device is broken open and the memory read directly (using Flash memory reading devices) it will be impossible to decrypt the information. For this reason it is the preferred option in secure work environments (e.g. government/financial institutions).

The deciding factor for many companies however will be the cost. In this regard, the secure USB drives containing security chips simply work out much more expensive than purchasing the software. So, many people will still opt for the software solutions until the cost of secure devices decreases.

sing applications to recover USB flash drive contents is relatively straightforward. There are however some tips to improving your chances of finding files using these applications which are worth knowing about. This article shows you some of the key things to watch out for.

Recommended Data Recovery Software

Remo Undelete: FAT/NTFS support, All Windows OS; Free trial scan.

Safety tips

Formatting:

trying to recover formatted data using any software application is going to be made much more difficult if the formatting tool included an evidence wipe. This is often done for data protection purposes to clear out your personal information. It will completely overwrite data clusters on the USB drive making data recovery tools redundant.

Installation location:

One mistake many people make when installing data recovery applications after files have been lost is to install the application into the same USB drive as the lost documents. Any use of the memory for running applications, installing files or storing new documents could potentially start overwriting your original lost data. In order to recover USB files successfully you should make sure to install the application onto your computer rather than the USB drive itself.

Disk checking utilities:

Using a disk defragmenter or disk checking utility can result in data fragments being moved around the USB drive. This is done in order to repair bad sectors or improve performance. These tools do however reuse any available space, which may include space belonging to files you want to recover. For this reason, try to recover USB contents before running any disk checking utilities.

Cloning:

Data recovery utilities will scan the USB drive for signs of any documents and present you back a list of lost documents are found. A major error they can make is to copy these files onto the USB drive itself (rather than back onto the PC). Cloning the files back onto the USB drive could in fact overwrite the clusters in the middle of the copy/paste process.

Using a USB protection device to secure data is becoming more popular as their prices decrease closer to their un-protected USB device counterparts. This type of hardware is essential for storing critical/sensitive data, especially when that data relates to a firm’s customers. In this post I’ll show you some of the advantages and disadvantages of using these new secure hardware devices for protecting USB drive contents.

It is increasingly necessary to protect the contents the USB drive since they can store so much information and even low cost data recovery applications can easily identify files that are lost or presumed hidden. Modern USB protection devices include security chips to encrypt all data being stored on the USB device.

Data encryption applies even if the password is not being used by the user. Consequently, even if the memory is removed and scanned using hardware reading device it will still be encrypted to the user. Some of the more common vendors of these new secure USB devices are Lexar, Verbatim and IronKey. Here are the pros and cons of using these devices:

Pros:

• Data is encrypted transparently with every file stored on the USB device unreadable without the password.
• Firms can also restrict employees to using only these devices. This is an option in many companies where USB ports are often deactivated in PCs.
• Since the device provides you the protection through the security chips it can also incorporate other features such as data wiping if the password is incorrectly entered a number of times as an extra safeguard.

Cons:

• The major problem with these hardware devices is the cost. It is hard to justify the purchase price when standard USB flash drives are so cheap. In comparison to using USB protection software which can reuse old devices, you really have to work out if the additional security is actually worth it.

Increases in broadband speeds have helped make online laptop data backup services more viable. Users can now rapidly backup/upload files to online servers. In this article I’ll show you what is involved in using one of these services and some of the benefits and drawbacks associated with them.

Prior to 10 years ago these types of services could not be provided as Internet connections in most households were to slow. However, many ISPs can now rapidly upload gigabytes of files online servers for safekeeping.

Recommended online laptop data backup services

iDrive/My Live Drive provides 2GB of space for a full laptop backup. Data is stored online so doesn’t require external hard drives to store the backup data.

Using Services

There are numerous services to choose from with many operating on a subscription basis according to certain upload limits. This really is an ideal solution for individuals who want to make a laptop data backup while traveling away from the office or home.

Benefits

• You can get at your data from any PC using a password-protected interface to the online backup service.
• Your data is copied to multiple backup servers so even if one goes down you can still access your data (i.e. backup redundancy).
• The services provide you with client applications you install on the laptop which can be automated to run backups on a scheduled basis or continuously.

Setbacks

• You still need a fast Internet connection to use the services. This is especially the case on the initial backup phase where you will be uploading a large amount of files. Subsequent synchronization activities are done a lot faster since the service will only update/upload a delta of files that have changed or new.
• You may experience some bandwidth contingency while the services are uploading over your Internet connection.
• You have to weigh up the monthly subscription costs involved in such a service.
• There are limits to the capacity allocated to you on the backup server. This means that you may only be able to do a partial laptop data backup. Storing a ghost image of an entire laptop drive would be impossible in most cases.

In terms of data recovery USB memory can be analyze and scanned in much the same way as hard drives can. In this post I’ll show you what tools you can use to do this and how to clone your files back onto your computer.

USB flash memory is based on the FAT32 file system format. This is the same format used by the Windows operating system for hard drives. Consequently, any data recovery software that supports this format (as most do) will work on hard drives and flash devices.

Recommended Data Recovery Software
Remo Undelete: FAT/NTFS support, All Windows OS; Free trial scan.

All data recovery applications work in much the same way:

1. Install the program onto your computer and then select the USB drive for scanning.
2. The application will analyze the USB memory for any data clusters belonging to files.
3. The clusters are then reassembled present back to a list of found files.
4. You simply have to copy the files you need back onto your computer.

As regards other software utilities, you need to be careful when using data recovery tools in relation to disk checking utilities/disk defragmentation tools. Any bad sector repair tools or defragmenters will complete their work by reusing any available free space on the USB.

This could mean that clusters belonging to your lost files (which are marked available for reuse) could be overwritten by using these tools. For this reason, always use data recovery tool before running the other utilities.

There are some other factors which also affect the success rate of these applications:

• The programs work best when used promptly. If you leave too much time before using the data recovery tool then there is the potential that new files stored on the USB memory could have overwritten your original data.
• When it comes to data recovery USB drives that are reaching full capacity will return a smaller list of found files. This is simply because there is not enough available free space for storing documents so sectors belonging to lost/deleted data rapidly reused.