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)

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:

Maintenance Scripts: