How to shut down your computer correctly and why it matters
Don’t use the power button to turn off your machine. It’s just a button to turn the device on. It is very important to turn off your computer the right way. Just turning off the power with the power switch can do a lot of damage to the file system. Even if you’re not using the computer, files are being used as long as it’s on. Keep in mind that there are always many things going on in the background, and turning off your computer with the power button won’t do it in a smooth way.
The real danger of blackouts, brownouts, and using the computer’s power switch is a “unexpected computer shutdown.” Operating systems are complicated, and before turning off, they must go through a “shutdown sequence” to make sure that all running processes have ended properly. When the power goes out all of a sudden, it can stop important threads and make your computer useless.
The most important thing is the system files. Think about what happens when a hard drive is writing data to a disk and then suddenly shuts down. What if the file being written was a system file that was needed for the system to start up? Now that file is broken, and you can’t start your computer until you go through a long process to fix it.
Also, frequent power outages can shorten the actual life of a hard drive. When the power goes out, the read-and-write head, which hangs over the spinning platters while it is working, snaps back into place where it was before. This quick movement can cause tiny flaws that add up over time and make a “head crash” more likely. A “head crash” is a problem that happens when the head touches and scrapes the surfaces of the platters, which destroys the hard drive. The quick loss of power can also do a lot of damage to solid-state drives. Problems can range from losing info to not working at all.
A lot of “computer advisors” and people on the internet say that there is no problem with turning off your computer with the power switch. They are wrong. They are wrong because of this. Let’s take a look at what really happens when a shutdown happens.
During the shutdown process, there are a lot of things going on. Here are a few examples of what happens when you tell your computer to shut down:
- Checking to see if any user applications (like a document that hasn’t been saved) hasn’t been stopped yet and, if necessary, prompting the user
- Putting an end to background services
- Waiting for the end signal from open or running services and apps
- Putting the memory on the hard drive
- Keeping records
- Everyone is logged out
- Putting an end to the system shell
- Start installing Windows updates and, if necessary, tell the system to finish running the updates when it starts up again
- Keeping the system register up-to-date
- Send the ACPI stop signal, which is what shuts down the computer
When the power goes out unexpectedly (due to a blackout, brownout, or using the power switch), these things don’t happen.
Is an unplanned shutdown bad?
Most of the time, your devices won’t be hurt when the power goes out unexpectedly, but the files on your hard drive will be. As far as the computer is concerned, holding down the power button is the same as cutting the power. If something goes wrong while you are working on a file, you will lose the work you haven’t saved yet. Besides that, it’s also possible that any open files will get messed up when the computer shuts down. This could make those files act in a strange way or even make them useless. Even though it’s rare to happen, it can be a big problem if it does. This risk shows how important it is to back up your data regularly.
In addition to messing up your computer’s system, programs, and files, the shutdown may have also changed the disk status, which tells you what locations are open on your disk drive. When you restart your computer after an unexpected power outage, the computer may write over previously given parts of your disk drive. You probably won’t find out until much later that something has been corrupted (lost) because the computer will have already written over those parts.
The right way to turn off your computer
In any case, it’s important to do things the right way when you want to restart or shut down your computer. Since shutting down and restarting are the same thing, most of the ways to turn off a machine can also be used to turn it back on. So, how should a computer be turned off?
- Step 1: Click the “Windows” button in the bottom left area of your screen.
- Step 2: Click either Shutdown or Restart.
- Step 3: Either wait for the computer to shut down by itself or start the reboot. Done!
If your power has ever been cut off without warning, your disk is probably broken. If a repair isn’t done right away after an outage, the corrupted disk will soon start causing problems, which you will know by hearing “My system is frozen and it’s not responding.” Remember the comment earlier that you wouldn’t find the damage until later? Well, you may have just found that later time. But “frozen systems” aren’t always caused by a bad disk drive.
How to turn off a machine that has ‘frozen’
Chances are, if you’re using a desktop or laptop computer with Microsoft Windows, it will work perfectly. But what do you do if your computer crashes and becomes “frozen”? Even though a frozen computer can be a sign of a major problem, there are things you can do to try to fix it.
Many Windows crashes are caused by programs that have stopped responding. Usually, all you have to do is wait a few minutes for the program to get back to normal. After waiting, if your Windows computer is still locked up and not responding, the steps below should help you restart it.
You should first try to close the app that is causing the freeze. You can do this with the help of a tool called Task Manager that comes with Windows. Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL at the same time should bring up the Task Manager. Task Manager shows you a list of all the programs (now called tasks) that are currently running on your computer.
You should look in the list of running apps for any that say “not responding.” If a program says “not responding,” right-click on it in Task Manager and choose “End Task” from the menu. This should close the app that won’t work. If a pop-up window tells you to “end now” or “wait for the program to respond,” choose “end now.” Any work you had open in this program could be lost. If this choice doesn’t work, most people use the power switch to recover, which may have caused more damage to the disk drive’s contents.
If a disk repair is done right away after an unexpected power cut, there is a good chance that the broken disk drive can be fixed. But if you restart the computer without the fix tool running, it’s likely that the disk drive won’t be recovered. This process usually works if it is done the first time the power goes out unexpectedly. If it is not done the first time, the chances of success are much lower.
There are many ways to use the repair tool, but the quickest is to boot from a Windows installation disk. Using the fix function in the installation options, run the CHKDSK repair tool from the command prompt. Be careful, though, because making the wrong choice with the installation disk can wipe out your whole system.
Later versions of Windows have a second system that can be booted up, but it doesn’t use your c-drive as the boot drive. Errors on the c-drive can be fixed if you start with this setup, but it may take several hours to fix.
It is best to run the CHKDSK utility in read-mode before using the command prompt either way. Read-mode is a simulation of the repair process that doesn’t actually fix anything. It usually only takes a few minutes to run.
If the CHKDSK tool doesn’t finish, it usually means that your disk drive has a big problem and is badly damaged, and you may need to reinstall. If the read-mode works, the CHKDSK can be run again to fix the disk. This process can’t be stopped, or else everything on the disk could be lost.
When you run CHKDSK in read-mode, the program will comment on the state of the repair. The most important part is the message at the end. “The Master file table’s (MFT) bitmap attribute is wrong” is an error warning that CHKDSK gives. Here’s what I mean:
The BITMAP property of the master file table (MFT) is wrong.
There is a mistake in the Volume Bitmap.
The file system had flaws, which Windows found.
How to fix the CHKDSK mistake in a bitmap volume
Since the mistake is with the Bitmap attribute, you can fix it by typing CHKDSK C: /F.
In the disk file system, a file called $Bitmap is made up of a lot of bits that show which disk groups are used and which are not. This bitmap file is in the Master File Table (MFT), and when a new file is made, its path is written into it.
What causes the error message “MFT bitmap attribute is wrong”?
Check Disk Utility can get the mistake “volume bitmap is wrong” for a number of different reasons. Some of the reasons are a broken hard drive, bad sectors, a broken Bitmap attribute, a broken empty space in the $Bitmap file, a quick loss of power, or a virus.
The main reason for this mistake is that when the system function Volume shadow copy (VSS) is called, the used clusters may not be reflected correctly in the volume bitmap values. Because of this, data could be saved in a bad state.
But if you always get the same error when you run CHKDSK, it means that CHKDSK can’t fix the damaged files. Also, if you have to format the disk because the files are damaged, you will lose all the information. Maybe it’s time to call a repairman.
You now know why I say that some people are wrong when they say it’s OK to use the power switch.
Keep your drive safe!