Spring is in the air. While you’re getting ready to go to the park or the lake, or even start your spring cleaning, we’re all here at 24 Hour Data waiting to offer personalized service and fast, affordable data recovery to businesses and individuals.

 Before you head out to enjoy the weather, think about this: When was the last time you gave your home computer or Mac a good cleaning? Here are three steps to help you avoid system failure and the need for data recovery services.

 1. Defrag your hard drive. Through the course of use, data gets saved to your computer hard drive in no particular order. When you defrag (defragment) your hard drive, your computer reorganizes the bits of data that make up files so that the computer doesn’t need to go searching across the drive to find all the data. This minimizes read cycles on the hard drive, reducing wear and tear on the heads, and also speeds up your computer. Running a defragmentation function may also speed up your computer.

 2. Make sure your virus software is up to date and running at regularly scheduled intervals automatically. We see a lot of requests for our data recovery services because a customer’s system caught a computer virus that has prevented their computer from booting up. If your virus software isn’t up to date, now is the time to update it and run a scan. Set your virus software to run scans at regular intervals — once a week or more frequently, depending on how often you use your computer.

 3. Clean your computer fans. – We also see a lot of need for data recovery service after a machine that’s running hot has caused hard drive failure. Computer fans can burn out, resulting in overheating of the computer’s components. One reason fans burn out, or don’t run optimally, is because they’re dirty.

While you’re spring cleaning, make sure to shut off your computer, open the case and clean the fans with compressed air in a can. Then, clean the room where you keep your desktop computer, to prevent all that dirt, dust and pet hair from circulating back into your PC.

 Even following these tips, your computer may burn out, catch a virus, or experience hard drive failure. That’s when 24 Hour Data is here to save the day — and your data. Whether you need PC data recovery for family photos, college term papers, or important documents related to your home business, you’ll find our service professional and our prices affordable. Keep our phone number within easy reach and call us if you need data recovery.