Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Do I need to replace a hard drive that fails the SMART Check?

Posted on August 13, 2017

Question from Eugene N.: Rick, I have a 2 year old laptop computer that I fear might have a failing hard drive. I’m a professional photographer and I primarily use this PC for editing my photos.

Everything was working fine until late last night, but now every time I turn the computer on I get an error stating that the hard disk is in danger of failing and I need to run the hard disk test in system diagnostics.

When I run the disk test it says “SMART Check: FAILED”. Do you think I need to just go ahead and have the hard drive replaced or is there a way to fix this error?

I sprung for a 2 year extended warranty when I bought the laptop, but I’m not sure it’ll cover the repair if it turns out to be a software problem. I’m not worried about losing any data though because I create a new system image after I download the photos from every shoot.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

How to use ‘File History’ to automatically back up important files in Windows 10

Posted on August 12, 2017

Windows 10 offers multiple options for backing up your important files, and they are quite easy to set up and use.

I have already explained how to create a System Image Backup of the entire hard drive, and I recommend that you do that fairly often just in case you have a hard drive failure at some point.

But there’s another backup option that can ensure that you always have backups of the most recent versions of your important files in addition to the “old” versions that are stored in your most recent System Image backup.

Once enabled, Windows 10’s powerful File History backup feature will automatically create “snapshot” backups of every file that’s stored in the folders you designate. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why is my computer only recognizing 4GB of RAM even though I installed 8GB?

Posted on August 11, 2017

Question from Shawn: Hi Rick. Having recently read your post about adding RAM to speed up your PC, I just bought two 4GB Crucial RAM sticks to upgrade my Dell 755 desktop computer to 8GB.

This PC is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit so it should recognize the entire 8GB, but for some reason it’s only recognizing 4GB. Do you think I have a bad RAM stick?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I place an icon for ‘OneDrive’ on my Windows 10 desktop?

Posted on August 9, 2017

Question from Danielle G.: I use OneDrive all the time and I’d like to be able to access it by clicking a desktop icon.

The problem is I can’t figure out how to create an icon for it. Is it even possible to do that?

My computer is an Acer Aspire All-In-One with Windows 10 on it.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]