Does anyone perform routine maintenance on Data?

Question

On the Enterprise-D, the Engineering department try to make sure that most (if not all) machinery are working efficiently by conducting routine checks and maintenance. Data is also technically a machine, does anyone ever check him?

I'm assuming he has sensors which would indicate if something was wrong which he could then decide to repair himself or go to Engineering. But the sensors could somehow malfunction and say that all systems are go when in fact it is not. Isn't there someone that does a routine check on him just to be extra sure that Data is fine?

Answer 1

Data performs his own maintenance

Data's Day

DATA [OC]: I am rarely in need of Doctor Beverly Crusher's professional services as my bio-mechanical maintenance programme is self sufficient.

The Star Trek Encylopedia explains the biomechanincal maintenance program as:

Software incorporated into Commander Data's positrnoic network. It kept him physically healthy and rarely in need of Dr. Crusher's professional services

A Fistful of Datas

DATA: And I will perform a self-diagnostic

As is later seen in that episode (A Fistful of Datas) we see that Data can connect to the computer which can perform a diagnostic on him also.

The quote from Data's day, however, does seem to indicate quite strongly that, unless something is seriously awry (as Xantec points out, was the case when Geordi performed a diagnostic on Data in *Clues), Data performs his own routine maintenance.

Because I anticipate someone asking, no Dr Soong did not perform maintenance on Data in Brothers; you will note he does the same thing with the teeth to Lore and straight after both instances, both Data and Lore are 'awakened' if you will, from their unconscious state.