Maintenance

This page is a starting point for people looking for resources for computer maintenance for their personal, church and school computers. Place your recommendations into the appropriate category (or add a category if one doesn't exist) and also mention which processes and programs run on various platforms - Linux, Mac and PC.

Comments and recommendations from Jeremy Johnson (jertech.blogspot.com) - posted on the WELSTech show notes site

Defragmentation: (Best Disk Defragmenter from Lifehacker)

• Smart Defrag (free)helps defragment your hard drives more efficiently. This product works on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. [http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html]
• JKDefrag (free) is one of the fastest tools available and has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and runs in the command line or with a GUI interface. [http://www.kessels.biz/JkDefrag/]
• Mac OS X has some built-in adaptability to avoid fragmentation. [http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375] However, there are a couple defrag programs for Mac OS X. Check out iDefrag: (paid)[http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php] ProSoft Engineering also has a multi-function tool called Drive Genius: (paid) [http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php].

Magnetic Storage Data Recovery, Repair and Maintenance Utility:

• SpinRite (paid) has been a one-of-a-kind tool for over a decade.SpinRite v6.0 achieves complete operating system independence by incorporating the FreeDOS operating system. This means you can scan any hard drive regardless of operating system installed on it.SpinRite 6.0 can create a bootable diskette or generate a standard, CD-R burnable ISO file to create a "SpinRite boot CD". A bootable SpinRite can also be "installed" into any other motherboard bootable devices, such as USB flashdrives for portable booting and use. [http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm]

Imaging & Cloning:

• GParted (free) is a Linux bootable CD that can partition, re-partition, erase, format and convert from one format to another. There is a LiveCD and also the ability to make a bootable USB key. [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/]
• Disk Utility (free) is a Mac OS X utility that partitions, erases, fixes file permissions and repairs hard drive directory problems on Macintoshes. In addition is clones hard drives that can be used for imaging a lab full of Macs.
• Carbon Copy Cloner (free) is another wonderful imaging and cloning tool that now includes the ability to make bootable backs [http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html]
• SuperDuper ($27) SuperDuper can be found here: [http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html]

Registry Cleaners:

• Registry Mechanic ($29.95 for 3 PCs) has proven to be a very good registry tool which can also defrag and compress your registry. [http://www.pctools.com/registry-mechanic/]

Maintenance Scripts:

• Mac OS X, being a UNIX type operating system, contains a series of maintenance scripts that run daily, weekly and monthly. If you let your Mac run 24 hours a day, these scripts will run overnight. However, you can use free software tools to run the scripts manually too. Try Cocktail: ($14.95) from Sweden [http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/index.php] or Jim Mitchell's YASU: (free) [http://jimmitchelldesign.com/projects/yasu/] or Titanium Software's OnyX: (free) that contains many tools [http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/onyx_leopard.html].