Mantras of the PC Troubleshooter

PCs & Laptops For Dummies

Change causes trouble. Recall the items you've changed recently and you can better pinpoint problems and devise solutions. Use this list as a starting place.

Restart Windows to cure common ills.
Rarely do you need to reinstall Windows. Use the System File Checker to repair damage to Windows. Reinstall only after an unrecoverable disaster.
When your computer is more than five years old, the problem is most likely the computer itself. Buy a new one.
The best hardware upgrades are memory and storage, in that order. If the system needs a new processor, it's better just to buy a new PC.
Back up. Back up. Back up.
Use safe mode for troubleshooting only; do not run applications or finish your work in safe mode.
Create a System Repair Disk. Label it. Keep it handy.
The best way to troubleshoot mass storage is to understand what a file is.

About This Article

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.