Whereas sometimes our computer freezes and when there is no response, we have no choice but to shut the system down forcibly. But, have you ever wondered about what force shutdown does to your machine?
I mean, there must be some reason why the companies offer the shutdown facility and not advice to unplug the system abruptly.
That's something we are going to talk about in this story.
So, without further ado, let us discuss what happens when you shut down your computer and what if you don't do it properly.
What happens when you shut down your PC?
Before knowing the effect of improper PC shutdown, let us know what's actually happening during the shutdown. During the shutdown process, the system is halted, background processes are stopped, files are flushed from cache to the disk, all the users are being logged out and finally, the ACPI shutdown signal is being sent.
Now, let us discuss the effects of improper PC shutdown.
Files may be written incompletely.
When you abruptly turn off the system, the files that the system has been writing may be incomplete resulting in loss of data. This happens because you didn't allow the system to complete the process. Even if the writing is being done to the registry, the data loss may occur.
May lead to data corruption.
All those unsaved data and programs can lead to data corruption. Sometimes, the PC cannot access the data which is affected by force shutdown, and it may even cause problems to the data that was already written on the hard disk. The files can become wholly unusable or behave incorrectly. Even the files present in the cache can get damaged or corrupted.
But, there are some benefits to the modern systems.
The modern Windows systems use New Technology File System (NTFS), which has better performance and improved data structures. It has a feature called journaling, which keeps the log of changes in data to reduce the risk of corruption or data loss. But, this doesn't ensure that you will not face data corruption if you do not shut down your PC correctly.
Even forced shutdown during updates can cause damage to the system.
Another reason behind people forcibly shutting down their PCs is system updates. But if the user does this, then there are chances of the system facing issues while booting due to incomplete registry files or corrupted system files.
Final word:
Shutting down PC forcibly can result in severe data loss and corruption which can make you reinstall the operating system again. So, it is better to turn off the system as per the standard procedure even if it takes some time.
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