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First Aid Unfortunately, system crashes are a regular part of computing life. In fact, often times computers are riddled with them. Why? Well, there are a lot of things going on under the hood. And "bit sequences" and "instructions sets" are quite unforgiving. The priority in the computer industry at the moment is to deliver the lastest and the greatest -- both in hardware and software. It is no different than any other industry. Car manufactures had be sued to add safety features. It is only when users demand a stable usable product that it will be supplied.

In addition, the computer world is screaming (and I mean screaming) forward. In this movement, people (Microsoft, Macintosh, etc.) are trying to include as much as they can.

And now, the notorious BUT. In trying to include the world, we open ourselves to instability. And, as we outgrow certain styles of hardware, software and/or programming, we tend to bring new things on-board. Old things and new things don't always make friendships. And people from different countries (platforms) often have a hard time understanding each other. There are a lot of different reasons why they don't make friends, and the primary term is conflict. It can be a "Hey you! You're in my memory space!" issue. Or a "I wanted to use that file! You are suppose to be done with that!" Or even a "Wow man!? I just don't know what the hell is going on here at all...?" issue. And there are more.

People can utilize conflict in a constructive way with the proper consciousness and intention. Not computers. Basically, if I am a file - or piece of data - on a mission, and you are in my place, I am going to wreak havoc.

Fortunately, there are SOME things we can do. And only some. There are built in devices in the operating systems that let us manage (to a degree) the programs running on our computer. But that is getting ahead of ourselves.

On a PC you can pretty much break down system crashes into the following categories:

  1. The "Blue Screen of Death"
  2. Total video freeze (Complete Lock-Up)
  3. Using the CTRL+ALT+DEL Task Manager
  4. Doesn't shut down and SCANDISK startup.
  5. Safe Mode
  6. F8 Computer BOOT options
  7. I screwed up everything and need a BOOT disk

Hopefully among these options you can learn enough about system crashing to avoid smashing your computer on the ground and slamming it out of your window (and possibly getting hurt in the process).