Q: How can I diagnose problems with my hard drive?
A: A great place to start with hard drive diagnostics is right at the manufacturer's web site. All major brand drives will have utilities for their drives.
Q: Can viruses affect my hardware?
A: No. While in theory a virus can erase the BIOS of a PC and some even manage to erase all the data on hard drives, this type of damage is not permanent.
Q: How can I protect myself against viruses?
A: The first things you should do:
- Buy or download a free anti virus program.
- Update that anti virus program, then run a full scan of your system.
- Do not open email attachments, even if you know who they're from. Some Email worms will send mail from a friend or loved-one's computer, so the send might appear to be from someone you know, but might actually contain a virus.
- Stay away from shady sites.
Q: Will my firewall protect me from viruses?
A: No. While some firewalls may save you from worms scanning the Internet for open ports, a firewall will not save you from Human error virus infection, such as opening email attachments or partaking in file sharing.
Q: My computer is running slow what steps can I do to fix it?
A:
- Hard disk drive is short on available disk space.
- Several software programs have been installed / uninstalled leaving behind bad files confusing the software.
- Data corruption.
- Computer is overheating.
- Bad hardware.
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