CIS 170F: Windows 7 Administration

Week 4

Managing Disks
Hard Disk Troubleshooting
Take the Mental Approach First

  • The very first step to take when you have a disk access problem is to stop, sit down, and think. Although this advice might seem obvious, it is seldom realized in practice. People experience what they conclude is a hard drive problem, open their case, and start ripping out components when, in fact, they have a file system problem that could have been easily resolved by running Error Checking on their drive. Similarly, others start reinstalling OSs when the problem is not software, but a failing CMOS battery or a loose cable that is causing the motherboard to lose sight of the hard drive.
  • So when you have a hard drive problem-or what you think is a hard drive problem-before you pick up a DVD or a screwdriver, get yourself a cup of coffee and take a few minutes to get a clear picture of the nature of the problem in front of you. The following are some questions you might want to ask yourself:
    • When did the problem start?
    • What was I doing when I first noticed the problem?
    • Is the problem consistent? If so, how? If not, what is missing from the puzzle?
  • This last point bears some elaboration. Computers, as a whole, are extraordinarily consistent devices. Input goes in here; output comes out over there. In the case of hard drives, you lay out structures on them, and the OS uses these structures to tell programs where their data is located. When you have inconsistencies, one of two forces is at work:
    • You're not seeing or you're overlooking something.
    • You could have more than one problem on your hands.
  • The key to this forced reflection is to have a "plan" before you react. And the cornerstone of that plan must be to do no further harm, and to figure out what the problem is without complicating matters further.
  • After you've pondered and had a cup of coffee, the next highly recommended tools to pick up are a notepad and a pencil. Begin by jotting down some notes on what happened, what you think the problem is, and what might be a good course of action to solve that problem. Use your notepad to reason out the problem; more often than not, eliminating a piece of flawed logic with an eraser is easier than restoring all the programs to your hard drive.