Crash

In the computer world, a crash is generally a condition in which a specific application or a part of the computer’s operating system stops performing its specific functions and will not respond to keyboard commands. A crash may manifest itself in any of several ways, up to and including a complete freeze, where the cursor is locked into a specific place on the screen. When an operating system kernel is involved, this is often called a system crash. Depending upon the severity of the crash, a restart may be all that is required, but large scale crashes usually require restarting (rebooting) from a system disc or specific software that is designed to go in and and find the problem. Today crashes are less destructive than in the early days of personal computers, when a fresh reinstallation of the entire contents of the internal hard drive was often required.