1Hardware

failure

Have you ever stopped to consider just how many complicated components are crammed inside your computer? The answer is ‘many’. In fact it’s a small miracle that hardware problems aren’t more commonplace. All it takes is one of these highly sensitive parts to develop a fault, and suddenly your PC becomes about as useful as a chocolate tea cosy.

If your computer is crippled by faulty hardware there’s still a chance that your files themselves are still intact. If a power surge has fried your PC’S memory, for example, simply replacing it should fix the problem without any long-term effect to your documents and photos. And even if your processor or motherboard completely dies, it’s normally still possible to copy your files off the hard drive by plugging it into another PC.

If the hard drive itself fails, however, that’s a very different story. And, sadly, of all the components that can fail, the one most likely to is your hard drive. Especially if your PC has a traditional mechanical drive. SSDS benefit from fewer moving parts and are therefore less prone to faults.

How do I prevent it?

Annoyingly, hardware faults often strike out of the blue. But there are measures you can take to minimise the likelihood. Firstly, keep your PC clean – dust build-up can cause components to overheat and become damaged. So clean around the vents every so often and, if it’s a desktop PC, open up the case and clean away any dust inside. Do so carefully, though, otherwise you risk causing even more damage. Only open your computer when it’s turned off and unplugged, and use a can of compressed air to gently blow away any dust you find inside.

Free tools can also help to monitor your PC’S health and alert you to potential problems. Speccy ( www.snipca. com/21047) from the makers of Ccleaner is a very useful all-round hardware tool that analyses all the components in your PC and uses your computer’s internal sensors to warn you if overheating is likely. For your hard drive, get Crystaldiskinfo (free from www.snipca. com/21048, see screenshot below), which checks your drive’s temperature, error rates, spin-up time and so on, and provides you with an overall health score. Most SSDS come with their own manufacturer’s tool for monitoring and maintaining health. Samsung drives, for example, come with a program called Magician.

Ransomware is evolving quickly. Recent variants, such as the Jigsaw ransomware ( www.snipca.com/21074), instil even more panic by threatening to permanently destroy a certain number of personal files every hour until you pay up. Once your files have been encrypted, there’s often little you can do except pay the crooks’ demands – as the University of Calgary in Canada found out last month when it was forced to pay a $20,000 (about £15,000) ransom. Worse still, paying up doesn’t always guarantee you’ll get your files back.

How do I prevent it?

Ransomware can get on to your PC in a number of ways, but it’s usually spread via phishing emails, infected websites or fake software updates for popular programs, such as Adobe Acrobat.

As with other types of malware, good security software, such as Kaspersky, can help prevent ransomware from infecting your PC. But due to the ever-changing nature of these threats, it’s vital to keep your security tools up to date.

Knowledge can be an effective weapon, too. In Issue 479 (News, page 7), we reported on a new type of ransomware that can determine which ISP you use without you even knowing, and then defraud you by impersonating them. It’s a convincing con, but those who have been forewarned are far less likely to fall for it, so keep reading Computeractive to make sure you’re always alerted to the latest tricks.

By far the best way to thwart a ransomware attack is to have a full backup of your system and all your files on a drive or USB stick that isn’t connected to your PC. That way you can ignore any demands for money and simply restore your data – or even Windows itself, if needs be. See page 56 for more information on backing up.

www.snipca.com/21057

How do I prevent it?

Obviously, there’s little you can do to influence executive decisions made in the boardrooms of big multinational tech companies. But that doesn’t mean you need to be a victim of arbitrary changes to the services you rely on. The best advice is to keep offline copies of any files you store online. If you use a storage service like Onedrive, for example, make sure you install the desktop tool that syncs with a folder on your hard drive, so that there are always versions of your files on your PC, too.

In the case of your ebook collection, make sure you download copies of all the items you buy, rather than putting all your trust in services that you may suddenly find yourself cut off from. You could take the additional precaution of converting all your purchased ebook files to PDFS (or another non- DRM format) and backing these up along with your other personal files. Free ebook library management tool Calibre ( www.snipca. com/21058) will let you do this. A similar approach can be taken with any cloud photo services you use.

Windows 10 upgrade

Microsoft has gone to great pains to make the process of upgrading to Windows 10 as smooth as possible. But that hasn’t stopped thousands of users falling foul of failed upgrade attempts. And, in some cases, the process has left people with no access to their PC – and therefore their files – at all.

To a certain extent, this is to be expected. Upgrading your OS is a massively complex process from a technical point of view, with no shortage of opportunities for things to go wrong. No matter how much Microsoft wants you to upgrade, the decision to do so is not one you should make lightly. Turn to page 58 to find out whether Windows 10 is right for you.

How do I prevent it?

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corruption

Anything from computer crashes to cosmic radiation can damage the data we store on our devices (see www.snipca. com/21062 if you don’t believe us), causing files to stop working as they should. You might, for example, open a photo file to discover it’s a mess of coloured streaks, or launch a Word document to find it has devolved into pages of gobbledygook. In some cases, you’ll just be greeted by an error message.

How do I prevent it?

Cosmic rays aside, looking after your hardware (see page 51) will go a long way to preventing corruption. Always shut down Windows properly before switching your PC off or unplugging it from the mains, and use a surge protector between your PC and the wall socket. If you use Windows 7, you should also regularly check your hard drive for file-system errors. Open Computer, then right-click your system drive (usually C: drive) and select Properties. Click the Tools tab, then click ‘Check now’. Make sure both ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ and ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’ are selected (see screenshot below left), then click Start. Windows 8 and 10 do this automatically, but you can also run a manual drive check in the same way, if you suspect something’s wrong.

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