Performing regular maintenance is crucial for ensuring a PC delivers a smooth experience. Here’s a guide on how to clean up your hard drive.

Do not shake or drop the hard drives. Even an accidental drop can cause internal mechanical damage to the drive platters.

Be aware, too, that you should always create a Windows system restore point before using Advanced Registry Optimizer 2010–or any Registry cleaner–in case it makes changes that cause your PC problems..

If your hard drive is encrypted (with something like BitLocker), you may have to follow a different recovery procedure, Arthur Shi, technical writing team lead at iFixit, tells Popular Mechanics.