What Is Hard Reboot?
Has your computer ever frozen, forcing you to reboot it, and it completely shut down instead of restarting? If so, you've probably experienced a hard reboot. An operating system or software malfunction may require users to physically reboot their computer rather than resume it from operating system controls. A hard reboot is restarting a computer manually, physically, or any other method besides continuing it from operating system controls. A hard reboot may also be a hard restart, cold or cold restart. A soft reboot is the opposite. You restart your computer using software controls like those in your operating system. There will be no loss of power to any device connected to the PC because nothing turns off during the process. Keep your computer from getting away with a soft reboot when you need a hard one. You know how it is: you're working on an important document, and suddenly everything freezes up. The cursor won't move, the screen stays dark, and the mouse won't respond. You try hitting keys on your keyboard, but nothing happens. You try hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart the program, but nothing happens. It's like being stuck in a time loop—except it's not a time loop! Your computer refuses to do what you tell it to do. So what do you do? The first thing is to try restarting your computer… manually. That means pressing the power button until it shuts down completely, then pressing it again to reboot the system from scratch. Don't worry about losing any unsaved work or having programs lose their state; most modern operating systems will remember where they left off and restore their previous state when rebooting them this way (unless they have been damaged by viruses or other malware). If that doesn't work, unplug your computer from its power source and wait ten seconds before plugging it in.
Related Terms by Operating Systems
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