I don't know about you, but at my house we have "levels of clean." The highest level, the one we rarely achieve, has the odds and ends picked up, the fixtures sparkling, the counters scrubbed, the laundry cleaned, folded, and put away, the cat toys in their little box, the carpets vacuumed, and the furniture dusted. The second level foregoes sparkling fixtures and clean laundry, but most everything is put away, kitty toys are kicked under tables and out of the way, dirty dishes tucked away in the dishwasher, and dirty laundry stuffed in the hamper. We go down subsequent levels until we hit rock bottom, when we wake up on Saturday, look at each other, and go "Good Lord, we're not leaving this house until we've gotten it in order." That can involve anything from gallons of Lysol to a regiment of Marines armed with dust mops and spray bottles. The refrigerator detail is sometimes authorized to terminate with extreme prejudice.

What does this have to do with your computer? Your computer needs maintenance on a regular schedule, just like your house or apartment. If you don't keep it up regularly, you get virtual cobwebs in your file structure, your hard drive stumbles over chunks and crumbs of last week's documents, random pieces of data block other pieces from fitting into their assigned places, and your PC's data structure starts to look like the pile of junk cluttering your coffee table. Bump it one good time and watch it fall over in an untidy heap. Problem is, it's harder to restore your PC's data structure than it is to pick up piles of unopened mail, magazines, and general "stuff." And, like the expensive candy dish that broke when it fell off the phone table, sometimes you can't fix what you lose.

Let's impose some order on your PC. Create a routine for regular maintenance of your computer and lessen the chance that you lose something irreplaceable. Even better, your data will be easier to access and your machine will run more efficiently. We're also going to learn a couple of new things, too (don't run away, it'll be fun). We're going to put two System Utilities to work: ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter. Both can be found under the System Tools menu - go through Start, Programs, Accessories, and System Tools, and there they are.

ScanDisk is the first salvo in our cleaning offensive. It snoops around the disk, hunting for bad data, damaged sectors of the hard disk ("Charlie, look here, there's a hole in the wall! My goodness, no wonder this house is so full of bugs."), and data that doesn't seem to go with anything else ("Look at this sock. It doesn't go with anything else. Just set it aside and see if we can find a match later.") Like unmatched socks, ScanDisk sets aside unidentified data in files that it labels with the extension .CHK. Most .CHK files can be tossed out with the trash. If you're really curious, open one up in Notepad and see if you recognize anything. If it's a dozen pages of gobbledygook, heave it overboard. If it's recognizable, you can save it as a text file. When you're finished with ScanDisk, you're ready for Disk Defragmenter.

Defragmenter lives to implement that old saying, "A place for everything and everything in its place." Left to itself, Windows tosses chunks of files and documents all over your hard disk with no real rhyme nor reason. After a while, your hard disk starts to look like a teenager's bedroom, with everything scattered everywhere and piled on top of everything else. Like a teenager, Windows insists, "But ma, I know where everything is!" And it does. But when you want Windows to crank up, say, a word processing application, it has to find the bits and pieces of that app strewn all over the disk. It takes time that you don't want to spend, and it heightens the chances that Windows will crash (sort of like the teenager in question: they can't find that one necessary hair clip or nose ring in amongst the debris, so they throw a tantrum instead). Defrag, as it's casually known, imposes order on your hard disk. "Word processor data goes THERE, anti-virus files go THERE, and what's that? Give me that, you know that doesn't go in with the system information, what's wrong with you? I didn't raise you to be such a slob." Thankfully, Defrag won't nag you as it straightens up your mess.

Daily. Run Windows' ScanDisk in "Standard" mode; check the Automatically Fix Errors box, or, if you have another utility like Norton's Disk Doctor, use it to fix errors. If you come up with a lot of problems and find your data reorganized into numerous .CHK files, you've got bigger problems. (Visit my ScanDisk page for more information on how to use ScanDisk to solve these problems.) Back up the files you've modified. (We'll go into file backups later.) Use your anti-virus program to scan your system for viruses (again, the subject of a further column).

Weekly/BiWeekly. Most of us can get by with doing the following once every two weeks; hotshots might want to do this every week, maybe on Friday afternoon instead of making up dirty limericks about the boss. Back up your whole hard drive; a tape drive, CD-RW, or Zip or Jaz drive usually works well for this (again, a later column will cover more of this area). Scan your drive using ScanDisk or another scanner, using the slowest and most thorough setting. Defragment your drive using Windows' Disk Defragmenter or another utility such as Norton's Speed Disk. (Defrag has a habit of discouraging you from using it, telling you that you probably don't need to defrag now. It lies. Do it anyway.)

Monthly. Go into your C:\WINDOWS\TEMP folder (use Windows Explorer) and delete everything older than one week. Test your backup files by restoring a few selected files (preferably something you don't mind losing if the backup goes wonky.) Update your virus scanner's definition files by going to the maker's Web site, or using the virus scanner's Update function. (Scalawags who get by with using demo versions of virus scanners, you should download new demos and think seriously about shelling out the bucks for your own copy. Get a line on free and/or cheap antivirus software by going to my AntiVirus Shareware Page.)

Do I really expect you to do this every day? Week? Month? Well, don't do it, and see what happens. Nyahh. Seriously, even if you don't scrupulously keep to this schedule, the closer you adhere to it, the healthier your PC will be. And you won't have to deal with so many virtual dust bunnies.