How to do a hard reset on your computer or pocket pc

If you cannot close the program manually and you are using a Windows operating system you can hold down "control", "alt", and "delete" all at the same time. Doing this will open the Windows Task bar. From the windows taskbar, you can select the program, or programs, that you would like to shut down and click "end program". This is a safe way to reset your computer and all of your data will be safe. You might loose any unsaved information for the program you were working on but you are going to lose that no matter how you reset the computer.

If the computer is so locked up that you cannot get it to respond by using control/alt/delete, you are going to have to do something aggressive but don't reach for the hard reset button just yet. The start menu is always available on the bottom of your computer screen. You can shut down the computer by clicking on start and selecting "turn off computer". You will then get options for switching users, turning off the computer, or restarting the computer. Select restart and see what happens.

If things have gone so far south that you are not able to restart the computer from the start menu, it might be time to push the hard reset button. Different computers come with different configurations as far as the power buttons go. Look at your machine and try to find a smaller button somewhere near the power button, now look to see if it says "reset". There are some computers that don't come with reset buttons. On these computers, you might just have to push on the power button and turn the whole system off. This is hard on the computer and you are likely to lose data so don't take this step before you have tried everything else.

Read your owners manual to find out the specifics about doing a hard reset on your machine. There are different consequences for different systems and you might be unpleasantly surprised at how your system works. Take, for example, the HP iPAQ. Doing a hard reset on the iPAQ is easy but the consequences are dire. A hard reset completely clears all of the memory on the device and restores it to the state it was in when it came from the factory. These devices are used as organizers so you can image that losing all of the information can be quite traumatic.

On desktop and laptop computers, you will probably be fine doing a hard reset. However, do not try a hard reset on your pocket pc without consulting with the owners manual or tech support for the device. Many of the handhelds and pocket pcs reset to the "factory defaults" when you do a hard rest. Definitely, definitely check before resetting or you may end up losing everything.

If you do have to do a hard reset on your computer or on your modem, it is a good idea to unplug the power sources for at least a couple of seconds. If you have to do a reset, you want to make sure that it is good and resat.

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