DETECT AND REPAIR DISKS

Detect and Repair Disk Errors In addition to running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter to optimize the performance of your computer, you can check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the Error Checking utility. As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult, or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors, and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced.

DISK DIGGER

CLICK TO ENLARGE DiskDigger can recover files from any type of media that your computer can read. This includes USB flash drives, memory cards (SD, CompactFlash, Memory Stick, etc), and of course your hard drive. The types of files that it recovers include photos, videos, music, documents, and many other formats. DiskDigger can even scan reformatted or badly formatted disks (disks to which Windows can DiskDigger is also very compact and portable. The entire program is a single executable file that you can run from anywhere. There This if the best file recovery app I have used.

SYSTEM PITSTOP

System Pitstop 1.0 is a program designed to automate the maintenance of the Windows XP Operating System Its featured benefits are: Automatically executes Windows XP's proprietary programs; Chkdsk, System File Checker and Disk Defragmenter Automatically creates a Windows XP System Restore Point Automatically executes 3rd party programs Ability to automatically shutdown 3rd party programs after they have completed their tasks Includes separate execution timers for each program Can be scheduled via XP's Scheduled Tasks service Auto Startup option Provides various options to logoff/restart/shutdown the computer etc… Display startup or final action reminder Offers the option to create Chkdsk and Defragmenter logs Logs the date/time of all programs that have executed I did a little research on this program and it has some very good ratings on Major Geeks and there are several other freeware programs on the site for you to check out. I think I will give this one a try.

WISE DISK CLEANER

CLICK TO ENLARGE Wise Disk Cleaner is a user friendly, fast and easy to use application developed to free up disk space by deleting junk files that are no longer used by any software on your system. Even the least experienced user can easily remove junk files with this tool.  I didn't get all the screen shot but as you can see at the bottom the number of junk files that were removed from my drives

PARTITION WIZARD

CLICK TO ENLARGE Partition Wizard is a partition magic alternative. It allows home users, business users, and system administrators to easily perform partition operations safely and quickly. The Enhanced Data Protecting technology keeps your data safe even in cases of power outages or hardware failure. Partition Wizard is absolutely FREE OF CHARGE for home and business users. Partition Wizard is optimized and divided into Home, Business, Server, Enterprise and Technician Edition. Very good partiton manager.

SEAGATE DISK WIZARD

CLICK TO ENLARGE Seagate DiscWizard is an OEM version of Acronis True Image, the popular hard-drive cloning/backup utility. However, while the latter will set you back $50, DiscWizard is available from Seagate’s support site—free of charge. The program lets you clone an entire hard drive, create a backup image, and build boot media you can use in the event your system becomes unbootable. Go straight to the download from here.

CHECK DRIVE

CheckDrive CheckDrive offers you an easy way to check your hard drives for errors. CheckDrive may detect and fix hard drive errors that might appear on system crashes or when switching off your PC without a proper Windows shutdown. If you ever had a system crash then CheckDrive is for you. CheckDrive is completely free! Download it today to check your system for hard drive errors.