Ronald Pacchiano

Most small business owners don’t know much about basic computer maintenance and as a result, their PCs slow down or crash. The real issue is neglect: failing to update security patches and antivirus software, overloading the system with trial software or running five toolbars at once in Internet Explorer. Of course, many small business owners […]

Last month, we discussed several utilities to help troubleshoot memory and hard drive issues. However, many of the problems you’re likely to encounter will be software related. Most will be minor problems, like a driver that fails to load or a program that consistently generates an application error. But others, like a virus infection or […]

Sooner or later you’re going to experience a problem with your PC. It could be minor, like a virus infection, or something more serious that prevents Windows from loading. It might be something major, like a failed hard drive, or even the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD). While these scenarios can be unnerving, none […]

With the launch of Windows 7, many people will soon either upgrade their computer’s operating system or purchase a new P.C. Either way, you need to save your existing data. This can be an arduous task. Rounding up documents, pictures and music, backing up e-mail messages and account settings and making a list of the […]

Whenever I restore a PC for a friend or family member, they almost never have the original drivers or system recovery CDs that shipped with the system. All you can do is install the retail version of Windows onto the system. And it’s almost inevitable that the drivers for a least one device will be […]

I once lost a significant amount of data to a hard drive crash. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with backing up my data and storing it in a variety of locations. Most of this data resides on my desktop PC and two external hard drives. I also have some on my laptop and a few […]

Most people never bother to password-protect their computers, but several of Windows Vista’s built-in applications and features require a password for your user account. Although this is fairly simple, many people forget the password they created. Did they use any capital letters? Did they place a number sequence at the beginning or the end of […]

The blue screen of death (BSOD) is no stranger to anyone who uses Windows, and it can be caused by a variety of reason including incompatible hardware driver, to a virus infection or corrupted system files. Sometimes the corruption is so bad that neither safe mode nor Microsoft’s System Restore can fix it. Typically when […]

In Part 1 of this article, we explained the benefits of creating an image backup of your PC and showed you which application and hardware components you would need to do so. We also walked you through creating the Bootable Rescue Media that you’ll need for the restore. Next, we’ll walk you through the image-creation […]

At one time or another we’ve all experienced some type of data lost. Whether it’s a single document or an entire hard drive, data lost can be disastrous. You can lose data in any number of ways:  a virus, a hardware failure or in many cases, simple human error. That’s why routine backups are so […]

As a writer and product tester, I spend a lot of time working on my computer. When I bought a new laptop, I wanted very specific features: a big LCD to reduce eye strain, a large comfortable keyboard to minimize hand fatigue, a super fast CPU, lots of memory and storage, Bluetooth, Blu-ray optical drive […]

I am a divorced single mom, and I am currently taking college classes in the evenings. My parents usually watch the kids for me, so most evenings I end up doing homework at their house. I work off of a six-month old HP laptop connected to their wireless network. For the most part this setup […]