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Data Storage

Spring Cleaning For Your Hard Drive 337

Posted by timothy from the little-buckets-for-little-folders dept.
Shutup Now writes "Spring cleaning for your hardrive. This article talks about some extremes for keeping your computer running well. You decide whether this stuff is necessary." More than once a year is a good idea, too.
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Spring Cleaning For Your Hard Drive More

Spring Cleaning For Your Hard Drive

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  • format c:\ (Score:5, Funny)

    by poison_reverse ( 647609 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:52PM (#6035775)
    spring cleaning the right way- time for a clean install! It was time for a new porn archive anyway...

  • It's time to clean when... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:52PM (#6035776)
    ... The power supply fan halts on the 6 oz. of dust blocking the blades.

  • Life is too short (Score:5, Insightful)

    by flend ( 9133 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:53PM (#6035784) Homepage
    Your hdd is filling up? Buy another one :) In my opinion spring cleaning is forced by hard drive failure, just make sure you've backed up any original data (savegames, work, probably 600 mb worth :)).

    • Re:Life is too short (Score:5, Interesting)

      by markov_chain ( 202465 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:03PM (#6035845)
      One step further: buy a new hard drive every spring. Their capacity doubles every year, so you don't even need to back anything up, just copy to the new hard drive and stash the old one somewhere.

      • Re:Life is too short (Score:5, Interesting)

        by los furtive ( 232491 ) <ChrisLamothe@NOSPam.gmail.com> on Sunday May 25, 2003 @03:10PM (#6036138) Homepage

        That has been my philosophy since about 1996, and it has served me well. Having a notebook also helps to making sure that important data is duplicated.

        I buy a new HD about every 18 months, it usually gives me enough room to dump my (full) previous HD, and still have an equivalent amount of free space. It takes me about 18 months anyways to fill up what's left on the new hard drive.

        My friend's trick is to buy small sized hard drives from a big retailer that gives the 'premium' warranty, which is usually good for 2-3 years. When the warranty is almost out, he backs up his data, takes the drive out of the case and drops it from waist height onto the floor. He brings it in, and thanks to Moore's law, gets a new drive that is usually about twice as big as what he originaly had, since HD manufacturers stop making the small sized drives with time.

  • No offense, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:54PM (#6035786)
    I don't take tech tips from the newspaper.

  • you know what they say about windows (Score:5, Insightful)

    by facts ( 257980 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:54PM (#6035787)
    a new install every six months is the best way to make sure every thing keeps running well

  • Every day is springtime (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SYFer ( 617415 ) <syfer@syf e r . n et> on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:56PM (#6035799) Homepage
    The need for a "spring cleaning," IMO, is analogous to letting your sink pile up with dirty dishes. The messier things get, the more daunting (and unlikely to be completed) the cleaning task becomes. After years of gradually creating messes on my hard drive, I finally learned, through effort and discipline, to put my time and energy into "up-front cleaning." That is, I try to bring closure to everything I do before it fades into HD oblivion.

    If I decide an app sucks, I eliminate it on the spot. I put everything related to a project into a single folder whenever possible and when the job is over, I take the time to archive it out to DVD or whatever. I delete all the "test files" ASAP (how many "finalfinal02_B.*'s do you have stashed away?). Delete all those old pr0n files regularly! Dump those log files!

    It takes tremendous discipline to avoid it, but I've found all too often, that "spring cleanings" actually tend to be needed on an emergency basis when a new paying project needs space or when performance slows to a crawl.

    Similarly, how many bachelor geeks have spent two hours doing dishes on an emergency basis before an important client or, god forbid, a member of the opposite sex is due to arrive.

    • Re:Every day is springtime (Score:5, Funny)

      by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:03PM (#6035846)
      Similarly, how many bachelor geeks have spent two hours doing dishes on an emergency basis before an important client or, god forbid, a member of the opposite sex is due to arrive.

      Now come on... how many bachelor geeks have members of the opposite sex that aren't related by blood come over to their apartment/house? That's not a very realistic sitation. Besides, who uses "dishes" any more? All of the food I eat comes in disposable packaging.

      • Re:Every day is springtime (Score:4, Funny)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Sunday May 25, 2003 @03:10PM (#6036140) Homepage Journal
        That's not a very realistic sitation. Besides, who uses "dishes" any more? All of the food I eat comes in disposable packaging.

        I'll have you know all dishes are made from the only the finest silicon compounds.

      • Re:Every day is springtime (Score:4, Funny)

        by E-prospero ( 30242 ) on Monday May 26, 2003 @12:16PM (#6040641) Homepage
        Nah - What you need is to take a bachelor lesson from PJ O'Rourke.

        You will need:
        - 1 set of dishes, purchased at local thrift store
        - 2 pot lids, also from thrift store.
        - About 20 boxes of jello crystals.

        Method:
        1) Cook dinner. Use a fresh plate for each meal.
        2) When meal is complete, scrape excess off plate into bin, put plate in sink.
        3) Turn on hot tap, add enough water to cover plate.
        4) Add 2 boxes of jello to the water. Allow the jello to set.
        5) Each meal, repeat steps 1-4.
        6) When the sink is almost full, put the two pot lids in the sink, handles upwards, fill the sink with hot water (leaving the handles on the pot lids exposed), and add the last of your jello.
        7) When the jello sets, you should have a sink full of jello and dishes, with two pot handles exposed at the top of the jello.
        8) Use the two exposed handles to pull the entire jello block out of the sink, take the sink-sized jello cube to the thrift store, and put it in the donations bin. Then go into the thrift store, and buy a new set of dishes, and two more pot lids.

        The thrift store will then clean your dishes of leftover food and jello, before putting them back on sale. Next week, when you deliver another jello cube, you can buy the same cleaned dishes again. The money you pay buying the same dishes over and over is a donation to the thrift store, so they keep someone needy employed, and you get nice clean dishes for every meal.

        Russ %-)

    • Bachelorettes have the exact same problem (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:37PM (#6036012)
      Similarly, how many bachelor geeks have spent two hours doing dishes on an emergency basis before an important client or, god forbid, a member of the opposite sex is due to arrive.

      Ah, sexism at its best. Believe it or not, a number of my lady friends(ie, bachelorettes), have -exactly- the same problem. Folks, it ain't just guys who procrastinate cleaning up- women are just better at the last minute frenzied pickup :-)

    • Re:Every day is springtime (Score:4, Funny)

      by smilingirl ( 608655 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:47PM (#6036054) Journal
      DELETED!!!!!!!!!! DELETED!!!!!!!!!! Ahh, I feel so cleansed! Spring cleaning makes me think of that old Strong bad email.
    • The need for a "spring cleaning," IMO, is analogous to letting your sink pile up with dirty dishes.

      In my university days, I used to wait until I could smell them from the living room.

    • oh yes, i do agree with the 'cleaning as you go' attitude, but there's something else you fail to mention.
      ever notice that the more apps you install in any version of windows, the slower and clunkier it gets? no problem you say? just uninstall the app, remove leftover files and delete registry entries? sure, defrag the hard drive while you're at it, hmm?

      yes, then how come after doing all that, it still seems slower and clunkier than before?
      i have some friends that reinstall windows, drivers and favorite

  • Windows Home Users tips... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:57PM (#6035804)
    Now appearing on Slashdot! Coming soon, how to set the time on your VCR!

  • What backup? (Score:4, Funny)

    by nottestuser ( 166818 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:58PM (#6035815)
    eMule is my backup.

  • Stop! Don't Do it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aoteoroa ( 596031 ) * on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:01PM (#6035833)
    From the article:
    Then you turn your computer off, put the operating system CD into the drive and turn the computer back on. Following the on-screen instructions, you wipe the hard drive clean and let the operating system reinstall itself from scratch
    I find it hard to believe that people are still advising full reinstalls of an operating system as part of regular maintenance. This just isn't necessary (sp?) any more. You can probably get the same performance increase by reorganizing your files, and defragging the harddrive.

    A full reinstall risks loss of data. One example is your email. Outlook express buries its data somewhere in c:\windows\application data\ . Most people don't back up the windows directory and risk losing their email when performing a complete reinstall. Windows 2000, and XP are stable enough that rebuilding the system every 6 months is no longer a best practice. The only good time to reinstall the OS is if there is something wrong with it. For example if you have downloaded some strange porn-viewer.exe that has fsked everything up a reinstall should be your last resort option.

    • Re:Stop! Don't Do it. (Score:5, Informative)

      by gregmac ( 629064 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:10PM (#6035889) Homepage
      Actually, I think that anyone that uses windows as a general-purpose PC (ie, many different purposes, always installing apps and changing hardware) over a long period of time will eventually need to do a fresh install to get rid of everything. Between spyware, old drivers, utility apps (QuickFinder, Screen Resolution Changer, etc) and flakey uninstall programs, it just gets to the point where it is physically impossible to maintain a nice working system.

      The windows registry is one cause of this.. it's a huge unmanagable beast, with many ways to have things load and hook in to various operations.

      On the other hand, using it as a business system or for a specialized task where you aren't constantly changing configurations, then you probably have more chance of a long-term install working properly. But I wold imagine most /.ers would fit in the former, here. I sure do.

      • I'm really not sure why people always say this... Up until a month and a half ago I was running my main computer on a Windows 9x install that hadn't been reformatted or reinstalled from scratch since sometime in 1997... It lasted through an upgrade from Windows 95 to 98SE and a switch in the computer the drive was in before finally dying just recently from a hard drive failure. It just takes a little bit of registry trimming every once and a while and it'll be happy.

    • Yes! Do it, darnit! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TrekkieGod ( 627867 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:34PM (#6036002) Homepage Journal

      If you know what you're doing (as in, not the type of thing that should be posted in an article for novices, although he did include a warning) doing a clean install can have a *much* greater performance advantage in windows--including windows xp. Heck, from what I observed with my computer, I'd do it every 3 months...although every 6 months is good enough for most heavy users and every year should be good enough for the rest of the population.

      The trick is knowing what you want to backup, and making absolutely sure that you have it in places that you'd normally back up anyway. If possible, keep all data files in a separate partition so you can just format the one where windows and the installed programs are. I'd never back up the windows directory (that's where most of the trash that I want to get rid of is), but I changed the outlook directory to "E:\My Documents\mail" (yes, I changed the my documents directory to the "data" partition as well). If you don't have a separate partition, keep a checklist of every directory that you need to backup, and save everything that you would want to backup to those directories.

      The only good time to reinstall the OS is if there is something wrong with it.

      Not really, sometimes there's something wrong with your system and the best way to truly fix it is by doing the clean install thing. Try running adaware [lavasoftusa.com] and see how much spyware is installed. Then there are viruses...I've never had problems with them, but a friend of mine recently ran a scan and found 9 viruses in his computer, and his only detectable symptom was the computer would lock up often.

      Basically, what I'm trying to say with all this is that, if you're careful, you can safely do clean installs without risking the loss of any data at all, and the benefits are much greater than "reorganizing and defragging". And to those who will undoubtly respond...yes, I know, I've never had the need to do frequent clean installs with my linux partition either.

      One final advice for all you novices who are going to take the risk and do this for the first time. Don't follow these instructions:

      Then you turn your computer off, put the operating system CD into the drive and turn the computer back on.

      For god's sake...don't force your cdrom open when the computer is off. Just turn it on and plop the cd in there first thing, while in the bios screen :)

      • Re:Yes! Do it, darnit! (Score:5, Informative)

        by skt ( 248449 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @03:54PM (#6036358)
        Well, seeing as how this article is targeted at the average user, doing a clean install should be left out. As someone else has mentioned, a clean install has no place in any kind of regular computer maintenance schedule for the average user. Now for the rest of us, we won't be reading the newspaper to figure out the best ways to do maintenance.

        As you mention, separation of OS and data using partitions gives you quite a bit of flexibility when doing repairs (OS mysteriously implodes, scanner software kills machine, etc). But, there is an important difference between repairs and maintenance. Maintenance means you are cleaning/tuning a functioning computer, perhaps backing up files, removing stale desktop shortcuts, reorganizing files, etc. This means that your computer is NOT crashing and slow.. like the article says. Repairs are when something bad is happening, maybe your computer's performance is slow or the machine blue screens twice a day.. then you need to restore the machine's state to one in which it was functioning properly.. possibly using a clean install.

        I think they have good ideas for general system maintenance, cleaning the desktop, programs listing, and re-arranging data into one root data folder (after a full data backup). But, they seem to mix two different problems into one story, and giving some irresponsible advice in the process. The article implies that it will be some kind of "spring cleaning" for your computer, to the average reader this means that computer at home they use to check email and surf the web with. Then they go onto mention that the reader should consider a clean install as part of their "spring cleaning" (yes, I know there is a warning, but why even mention it?).

        Through my own experience as a user and computer tech, it is my conclusion that Windows NT-based systems do not need to be rebuilt annually like 9x used to under average use. People who simply use their computers as a means to an end (who are actually a good target for the article), do not install a lot of third-party software. They simply sit in front of their pre-configured machines at home and use the thing. The other types of users are the ones that usually end up doing clean installs of their operating system, those are the ones that like to tinker with their systems. If you know enough to be dangerous, you will be doing this on a regular basis. If you know what kind of software poses a risk to your computer, then you will be able to tinker with your computer for many years without the need for a re-install, providing you are using a modern operating system.
    • ...and defragging the harddrive.

      I use UFS2 you insensitive clod, I don't need to defrag my harddrive!
    • I have a box running Win95. I haven't done a reinstall for at least 4 years and it still "feels" fast. This might be due to having Norton system monintoring software that is constantly cleaning up the register.

      My wife's laptop running Win98 (and no Norton) could really use a reinstall, on the other hand. So go figure.

    • Actually on XP, and probably Windows 2000, I believe outlook express puts its data in the "my documents" directory.
  • Surely the author jests! Look at your Windows Applications with the date showing and you'll see that they don't write to themselves. But don't those Win apps all have some sort of 'ini' file which DOES get written to, and then left open when the app crashes?. Don't those Win people have apps that will permit them to edit ini files?

    And the author's techniques do not apply to Macs or Linux. Obviously the author is merely a journalist, and not a computer expert.

  • Not quite time yet... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by eet23 ( 563082 )
    I very rarely delete things. I always worry that I'll want the file again soon, and backing it up to CD is too much bother right now.

    I have 14GB in ~/, and I've still got another 20GB to go before I need to delete some useless files or get a new HD. But at the rate of increase, I may well have a new computer by then anyway.

    Incidentally, of that 14GB, about 10MB is actually important, and that is backed up.


    • What happens if your HD goes kaput???

      Having all the "extra" space won't really bring back all your old stuff. :(
    • "I always worry that I'll want the file again soon, and backing it up to CD is too much bother right now."

      I agree. Compact Discs: the modern floppy.

      Backup across a network.

      --Richard

  • LFS (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gspr ( 602968 )
    As Linux From Scratch is rather hard to maintain anyway (rebuilding a library at the bottom often causes problems for stuff linked against it), it is common to "reLFS", that is build an entirely new LFS on another partition on your harddrive. One builds the very latest of everything, and then moves all config files and stuff over from the old system. When I move over my personal stuff, I tend to be veeeery strict with myself, and "leave behind" a lot of things (to die under the hand of mke2fs). That way, my

  • Balancing acts with cheap new drives (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:12PM (#6035901)
    For me it comes down to a balance...

    A pile of CDs ($2), several hours of an IT professional's time (mine) spent backing stuff up (3x$30-50/hr), the pain in the ass when you managed to miss something vs. that shiny new hard drive ($80).

    On a straight time and cost equation, it's reached the point where it's now cheaper to buy a new drive and have a complete backup whenever I want one (plus a fully booting system I know at least semi-worked whenever I break my main one). Six months, or however much, later, if I'm sure I don't need that backup version, instead of a bunch of full CDRs, I've got an extra drive for a toy Linux box.

    Then again, the geek factor of getting to fiddle with the minutae kicks in. (Although the extra drives for toy Linux boxes appeal)

    If I'm short of time, buying a new drive ultimately works out cheaper. If I've not met my geekiness quota recently, fiddling's more fun.

  • Spring Cleaning the Debian way (Score:5, Informative)

    by mcgroarty ( 633843 ) <brian@mcgroarty.gmail@com> on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:17PM (#6035915) Homepage
    Debian users could make good use of "deborphan" and "cruft" for a little hard drive spring cleaning.

    deborphan will show which library packages are installed but not referenced by any apt-managed package. If you're reasonably sure you aren't building any unmanaged packages, you can just "dpkg -r `deborphan`" a couple times to remove any spurious libraries.

    cruft will show all files not recognized by Debian. Capture to a file and filter it through a chain of a few grep -v statements for areas you know you want left alone. You'll get a list of files you can toss in pretty short order.

  • In the case of Windows ME and XP... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Captain Beefheart ( 628365 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:20PM (#6035933)
    ...More often than not, it's all those System Restore points that are using up gigabytes of space (unless you're uber and have that service disabled). Just about every time you update a driver, XP will make a restore point for you, even if you don't ask for one. Thankfully, you can make XP get rid of all but the most recent:

    Go to My Computer, right-click on your XP drive/partition, click Properties, click the Disk Cleanup button to the bottom right of the pie chart, click the More Options tab, click the bottom "Clean up" button and click OK. I do that about once a week and free up at least 100MB each time.

    The disk cleanup applet will take care of the majority of system cruft. I don't know why people wipe and reinstall so often, it's really not necessary. When people talk to me about "random .DLLs and junk files" they sound like someone extolling the virtue of the Intel chip because it's more "compatible and stable" than an AMD chip. I.e., locked into stale notions of a computer's capabilities. I would recommend Norton's system cleaning utilites before I recommend a full wipe.

    Mostly, the gradual system slowdown people experience as they add programs over time is due to excess baggage like startup programs and unneccesary services. Check your system tray, hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and check your services list. You don't need WinAmp Agent, Mozilla QuickStart, or anything that automatically starts up anyway when you click on a multimedia file.

    And check out This excellent page [blkviper.com] for getting rid of half of the services you never use anyway.

    And use BootVis [microsoft.com]. It will clean up your boot time. Maybe a lot.

  • rm $PORTAGE_TMPDIR/*
    emerge -u world

    hmm. did I forget anything?

  • "Real men don't use backups, (Score:4, Funny)

    by akedia ( 665196 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:24PM (#6035961)
    they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies."

    (A quote from your hero and mine, Linus Torvalds.)
  • The Mac is still easier to use, a distinction it has kept for almost 20 years now.

    To use? Maybe. It still does seem to keep some slight edges of being more well-thought out, in my opinion.

    But I think it's not so much day-to-day use that's easier, it's administration. And that's what I think that many people forget... the kind of thing this article is talking about is, essentially, system administration, something that your average user sucks at. Make that easier, make it transparent, and you've made the
    • For things that the article was talking about, yes, it's *far* easier. The author mentioned installing/uninstalling programs. In OSX, many apps are abstracted to a single icon (which is really a package containing however many files). You can use it from whatever location, move it, use it again, put in the trash, pull it back out to a different location...still works. No .dlls, no libraries you haven't installed yet. Just works. Even Office v.X installs by dragging and dropping the application folder. Sure,

  • Why isn't defragging recommended? Admittedly, most of us 'in the know' are aware frequent defragging helps keep the HD organized... But its not mentioned in the article (unless I missed it in my quick glance). But even so I would think that it is much more important than a full re-install. Is it just because we have so much HD space these days that defragging is not necessary?

    • "Why isn't defragging recommended?"

      I guess a lot of people here are using Windows :)

      --Richard
    • Er, slight problem with defrags...It's not very healthy for the hard drive. You really shouldn't defrag more than once or twice a month (Depending on how heavily you use your computer) and even then, the fragmentation itself often isn't the cause of slow downs; it's usually those invisible files windows uses to keep track of your sessions (Yes, you can search on the internet, I don't know where the information on it is; I think files like NTUSER.dat and stuff do it; not sure. All I remember is when I follo
    • Defrag does NOT "organize" the hard drive, and per Microsoft, you don't need to defragment NTFS - it doesn't suffer the same penalties as FAT with fragmented files - you AREN'T still using FAT, are you? Defragging also does not save you a single byte of space.

      Back under your 1993 rock, Windows Troll!
      • Defrag does NOT "organize" the hard drive, and per Microsoft, you don't need to defragment NTFS - it doesn't suffer the same penalties as FAT with fragmented files - you AREN'T still using FAT, are you? Defragging also does not save you a single byte of space.

        Actually, defrag does save some space. If you have a small file fragmented that takes up 4k in say, 5 pieces, it will take up at least 5 clusters. As you know, clusters are groups of sectors that are the smallest size a file can take up.

        In FAT32, th
  • CDs are no good for backup anymore--way too small. Get yourself an external USB2 drive for backup and just copy over everything, then put it away in a safe and secure place, far away from the computer.

    Don't reinstall "just because". Yes, Windows XP installs still have problems with falling apart after a while, but less so than it used to be. Yes, applications on Windows still sometimes uninstall poorly (or not at all), but less so than it used to be. Generally, you are OK and disk drives are big enough

  • My Method (Score:5, Funny)

    by jonman_d ( 465049 ) <nemilar&optonline,net> on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:38PM (#6036017) Homepage Journal
    All I really need for my spring cleaning is some Windex and an extra strong magnet. That should clean out my hard drive pretty quickly, no?
    • I'm pretty sure you'd have to find an insane magnet to do any harm. You do know that there are super-strong magnets right *inside* of the drive, don't you?

  • Isn't this stuff common sense to /.'ers ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rooked_One ( 591287 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:40PM (#6036032) Journal
    I mean really... whats next - picking your nose for dummies?

    "Ah yes, the picking of the nose - a long practiced art started by arabs for digging sand out of their nasal cavities after those long caravans. The main trick to picking the nose is one simple rule: if it bleeds, you are picking it too much... or not enough."

  • Somebody should write a howto! This article is most intruiging!

    Actually, no, it's teh sucks. Don't bother with it.

  • oops (Score:2, Funny)

    by zumbojo ( 615389 )
    I opened up my hard drive casing and scoured the discs with a Brillo pad. Turns out that wasn't the best way to clean a HD. Next time I will read the article first.

  • A bit offtopic: Cleaning the keyboard. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by deragon ( 112986 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:47PM (#6036056) Homepage Journal
    Now, how many of you clean your keyboard the hard way, i.e. with a q-tip, trying to go between all the keys?

    Cmon, unscrew your keyboard's upper molding and wash your keyboard under water, no soap. This is what I do and it works well. I have done it last week with my two Logitech iTouch keyboards. They look like new. Yeah, so water spills over the electronics. So what? As long as the keyboard is not plugged while washing it, and that you let it dry properly on a hot dry day (I let them dry 24 hours to be sure), they will continue to work.

    Do not forget, water + electronics is not the problem, its water + electricity (off course, leaving your electronics for months under water, well, it might rust... Don't over do it. :) ) So go on, and clean your keyboards under the sink.
    • I've heard lots of people mention this, but it seems some keyboards don't survive. Washer beware.
    • wash your keyboard under water

      If your water is soft (or you're using distilled or deionised water) then maybe. But I've seen the thin layer of minerals that hard tap water can leave on electronics. I wouldn't try it myself...

    • If you going to partly take the keyboard apart, you might aswell go the whole way, and remove the electronics and membrane sheet. Most keyboards don't completely fall apart (IE, all the keys probably won't fall off). Then you can even use soap.
    • Do not forget, water + electronics is not the problem, its water + electricity (off course, leaving your electronics for months under water, well, it might rust... Don't over do it. :) ) So go on, and clean your keyboards under the sink.

      As another poster said, watch out for hard water. My favorite way is to wash it with ethanol. Excellent solvent. And it dries quickly with no residue.
    • You go 24 hours without your keyboards? Yeah. A lot of Slashdot will be following your advice...
      • Well duh, I use my spare keyboard off course. You do have a spare keyboard, don't you?

        BTW, its not though going 24 hours without a keyboard. Lets say 21 hours is enough to dry. You clean your keyboard at 21h00 monday evening, after finishing off any work on your computer. Then, you clean the dishes, watch tv and go to bed. Next morning you go to work. It will be 18h00 when you come back home. Assemble your keyboard and voilà. You didn't miss it much.
  • When I recieved the new laptop from work, I tore Windows 2000 apart into seperate bits and gave each their own partition (4 in total). (and I mean tear it apart at the "core", not just install programs to a different drive/partition) The system part, ie WINNT directory, stays defragged and clean, just like the Program Files directory. And it has proven itself seeing this thing runs 21 hours a day and I've messed with software a lot.
  • Reinstall my Microsoft based OS. Does that count?

  • Try this... (Score:4, Informative)

    by ewhenn ( 647989 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @04:06PM (#6036415)
    I have a ghost image of my OS with all of the applications I like setup installed and my system configured the way I like it (made after a clean install and all apps reinstalled). I have two partitions, one for data, games, etc., and th other for my OS. Ghost file is stored on the data drive. When things get cluttered, I simply restore the ghost image. I get my system back to "like new" state, the way I like it, and the whole process takes at most 7 mins.

  • ahem what about hidden IE5 files? (Score:4, Informative)

    by linuxislandsucks ( 461335 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @04:10PM (#6036435) Homepage Journal
    Okay poeple what about hidden IE5 content files?

    On a typical win2kpro install they can take up 8 gigs of a 26 gig hd over 2 years of use..

    to delete tranverse your douemnt and settings folder to your users folder..

    look for local settings folder and enter it..

    the temporay internet files folder then needs opened..

    warning Content.IE5 folder is hidden in here..add the folder to your path url and hit enter

    do not delete foledrs you see..

    enter in each folder and do selct all and move to recycle bin

    repeat until all those pesky folders in Content.IE5 are empty..

    open recycle bin and do select all

    right click on itmes and selct delte..

    choose ok on confirm screen..

    Now your done finally!

  • I remember the good ol' days of reinstalls every 6 months to keep my computer running...

    Now I use Linux, and since I don't have the privs to install stuff to / (except when I su), I can't put junk in /, and so no cruft builds up in /. As a worst-case scenario (which I haven't had any motivation to resort to), I can just rename my home directory and make a new one with permissions 700 belonging to me, and presto! All cruft gone. Bring in files (i.e., .gaimrc, gconf data) as needed.

    Speaking of which, here's

  • Steffen Gerlach's Scanner [steffengerlach.de] (see also his excellent Borland Delphi-based Civilization clone [c-evo.org]) and SequoiaView [win.tue.nl] were invaluable back when my hard-drive was a puny 20 giger. I highly recommend you all get them and try them out.

    P.S. Be sure to turn on the colour mode in SequoiaView.;)

  • SuperCleaner (Score:3, Informative)

    by supz ( 77173 ) on Monday May 26, 2003 @07:04AM (#6039706) Homepage
    I feel I should plug this program, since it's relevant to the topic. It's called SuperCleaner, and can be found here: http://www.southbaypc.com/SuperCleaner/ [southbaypc.com]. It does a rather nice job cleaning up random garbage files on your system, however you have to pay to register it, for anybody that might be turned off by that sort of thing. It only cost me a few dollars to register it back in the day, however the price tag has gone up a lot to $32.99.

    Are there any OpenSource/Freeware alternatives to this program, that anybody can suggest?

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