Use Toshiba HDD Protection

Many Toshiba laptops come with a program called Toshiba HDD Protection pre-installed. This program helps to protect your hard disk drive from being damaged due to falls or impacts. By default, it should already be enabled. You might be tempted to lower the detection levels in this application, but doing so could cause your hard disk drive to be damaged. Remember that while the application can reduce the chance of damage, you should still avoid allowing the laptop to fall or suffer rapid impacts.

For more information on this utility, see the following article:

Toshiba Hard Drive Protection

Optimize the drive

Windows 8 and Windows 7 optimize hard disk drives automatically through a process called defragmentation. Unless you've disabled this, you don't need to do anything. If you have disabled this and want to run the process, you can still do so.

In Windows 8, search for "Defrag" at the Windows Start screen and select "Defragment and optimize your drives."

In Windows 7, search for "Defrag" in the Start Menu's search field and select "Disk defragmenter."

You can use this tool to optimize your hard disk drives, allowing Windows to find needed files faster.

Remove items from startup

Some applications run automatically when Windows starts. This can add additional functionality, but it also decreases the performance of your computer. Sometimes you might want to disable certain programs from starting automatically.

In Windows 8, search for "Task Manager" at the Start screen. Select the "Startup" tab. Select an application you'd like to disable from starting automatically and then click the "Disable" button in the lower-right.

In Windows 7, type "msconfig" in the Start Menu's search field and press ENTER. Uncheck the boxes next to applications you'd like to disable from starting automatically.

You should be sure of the purpose of an application before disabling it from starting automatically. Some applications might be important. If in doubt, you might consider searching on the Web to discover more information about a program. Remember that if you find that you disabled something vital, you can always re-enable it.

For more information, please see the following video: