How to Deal With a Computer Crash

 

Almost everyone has experienced an unfortunately timed computer crash. Maybe you were right in the middle of doing your taxes, or were at the halfway point of finishing that report your boss expects in the morning. But there have been many computer crashes and glitches that have caused far more wide-ranging damage:

--CNN reports that in 2000, the spy computer used by the National Security Agency crashed for a few days, preventing staff access to important information.

--According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a 2009 computer failure at U.S. Bancorp denied access to thousands of unemployed people who were attempting to withdraw their money.

-- The London Stock Exchange suffered a blow in trading in September 2008 as a result of a computer crash that lasted a few hours.

--Computers responsible for control and navigation of the International Space Station failed temporarily in 2007.

-- News reports claim that the crash of the Spanair plane that killed 154 people in 2008 was supposedly related to a malware-infected computer.

Reasons for a computer crash
“Sam,” a security engineer who prefers anonymity because of the nature of his job, explains that there are usually two main causes for a computer to freeze or crash: defective computer memory and impending hard disk failure.


“Computer memory is composed of several chips placed together on a stick. If one of those chips on the memory stick goes bad, it could cause a computer to freeze because the operating system is expecting that memory space to be available.

“A hard drive disk is composed of spinning metal plates with a metal arm that reads/writes data to the drive," Sam says. "Since it is mechanical, it is prone to failure. As such, hard disk drive manufacturers have what's called a MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure). Usually, it's in the range of hundreds of thousands of hours, but it's not a guarantee. If the operating system attempts to read/write data to a hard drive that has started to physically fail, it could cause a computer freeze or crash.”

Other reasons for crashes and freezes include clicking on malicious links or attempting to use modern software on an older computer.

According to a help-desk analyst we spoke with, “The most common reason that people's computers have problems is because they try to do 2010 tasks on a 2003 computer. We have a lot of computers that are way past their warranty, and they install programs that were never meant to run on hardware of that age. Once they install and open that program, they also have various other programs running in the background, such as multiple Internet browser windows or Word documents,” she says.

Preventive measures
The primary advice from tech experts is to always save your documents regularly in case sudden disaster strikes. Aside from that obvious but often overlooked step, our tech expert "Sam" outlines a few simple steps that can help deter computer failures and prolong its life:

--Keep your anti-virus subscription up-to-date and download the latest updates.

--Download and install the latest updates for your operating system (Windows or Mac).

-- If a website or email looks suspicious or asks for personal or banking information, do not click any links contained within the email or website.

Using programs like AOL Computer Checkup Premium can also help fix various glitches, make your computer run more smoothly and increase its performance. If you're worried about losing important documents, music or videos, you may wish to consider online-storage solutions like SugarSync -- so even if you do crash, your important data is protected.

What not to do
A few years ago, MSNBC reported a couple of studies that showed many users suffer from “computer rage,” and that some scream or hit their computers when it has crashed or failed. The story even cites a case of a restaurant manager who tossed his laptop in the deep-fryer when it had stopped working.

In the event of a crash, the best thing to do first is reboot. According to our help-desk analyst, this simple step is often overlooked. “Most calls I take start with, ‘Have you restarted the computer?’….This is the easiest (and least painful) troubleshooting step.” If rebooting fails to work and the computer is “dead,” so to speak, your last best hope may be a professional computer technician. With hope, they can diagnose the problem, and if all else has failed, help salvage your data.