How to see if you have a hard disk or a SSD

If you are collecting data from a laptop and need to determine if the drive is a hard disk or a solid state drive, you can check using the disk defragmenter tool in Windows.

Simply press the Windows key + R to open run, and then enter: dfrgui.

A window will open that will give you the option to optimize the drive of the PC you are using and all drives which are attached to it. The dialog box will show the media type of the drives:

See the Tip of the NIght for June 11, 2020, for more information on the differences between solid state drives and hard drives.

Autoruns

Microsoft has a free utility for Windows called autoruns, which can be downloaded here. Autoruns will generate a list of all programs which run automatically each time the PC is rebooted.

You can easily prevent any program from running upon startup by unchecking the box next to it.

Monitor Network Activity with TCPView

TCPView is a Microsoft program which will list all transmission control protocols on your system. It can be downloaded for free here. Any server connected to your computer or network will be listed.

You can view the address of each TCP endpoint, and see how many bytes it is using. By right clicking any one endpoint, you can terminate it.

TCPView is particularly useful for detecting which programs running on your PC are accessing the internet. Simply shutting down your web browser and email client should reduce the number of running endpoints by a few hundred. What remains may be putting an unnecessary drain on your system, and could possibly be malware.