Here's my standard email for hard drive maintenance:

The following steps are valid in Win95 and Win98. Using this process can usually get rid of "illegal operations," "invalid page faults," "invalid protection faults" and the like. I take no responsibility for the outcome of using this process; however, I work for a helpdesk and have been doing it for two years over the phone with Fortune 500 company computers/users. It will alleviate 90% of common computer/application/display problems. Use this process once a month at home and once a week at work to keep your hard drive clean and efficient. On WinNT, use all of these steps, except Step 5.

1. No programs should be open. That means no buttons next to your Start button in Windows. It may also be a good idea to "end task" (hit ctrl-alt-del to get a list) on everything EXCEPT Explorer and systray. Ending tasks is especially helpful if Scandisk won't complete (Step 5).

2. Hit Start-Find-Files or Folders. In the Named box, type

*.tmp,~*.*

3. Double-check your typing and hit Find now. When it is done searching, hit ctrl-a to select all of the files, and hit your delete key. Send the files to the recycle bin. Close this window.

4. Empty the recycle bin.

5. Hit Start-Run-Scandisk. Select your hard drive (usually C:), Standard test, and Automatically fix errors. When scandisk is complete, close it by hitting Close twice.

6. Hit Start-Shutdown-Restart the computer-Yes to reboot the PC.

Approximately once every couple months and definitely before and after installing/uninstalling programs, hit Start-Run and type in "defrag" (without the quotes) and hit OK. Let defrag run on the C:\ drive. It could take anywhere from a half hour to a couple of hours, depending on the size of your hard drive and the speed of your processor. Reboot your PC after this as well.