Defragmenting Your Hard Drive...

If your PC is running Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP Operating Systems, you may notice over time that programs start slower, booting up your pc may take longer, programs may actually crash. A simple procedure you can perform yourself, with utilities already installed on your machine will help tune your file system and also save wear and tear on your hard drive(s).

A brief explanation may be in order. As you write datafiles to a disk, files may not always be saved in the next adjacent location, but somewhere else on the disk. As data files accumulate and become spread across the disk, you'll notice your PC seems slower accessing data. You may notice your hard drive light blinking more often for example. This is where the Disk Defragmenter utility comes in. Following the procedures listed below, you'll be able to maintain disk fragmentation.

Step # 1). On your desktop, right click on My Computer.

Step # 2). Then click Manage.

Step # 3). Expand Storage.

Step # 4). Select Disk Defragmenter. You'll notice that the display changes in the right window pane. You'll now see a list of drives associated with your system, and below that the controls for the Defragmenter utility.

Step # 5). Select the first drive listed, by clicking it. The Defragmenter refers to your drives as volumes, notice the Volume header. Once you've selected the drive/volume to defragment, Click the Defragment button. The drive will be analyzed, and then defragmenting will begin.

Depending on the severity of fragmentation, this process may run for several minutes. Once the process is complete, you may chose to View a Report of the results. Or you may choose to continue defragmenting any other volumes listed. Simply select any other volumes one by one and click the Defragment button as before.

If you would like to check if a drive needs to be Defragmented, click the Analyze button after, selecting a drive/volume.

If you follow these procedures carefully, you should be able to safely defragment your systems hard drive, and maintain fragmentation. Your system will run better and you will increase your productivity. You will save wear and tear on your disk, because the data is stored contiguously, as opposed to fragmented across the drive, therefore it is read more efficiently.

This procedure may need to be run repeatedly, I typically run these procedures on my system every two weeks or so. Notice the signs, which suggest it's time to defragment, or to take the mystery out of it, use the Analyze button as discussed to determine if it's time to defragment.

I assume no responsibility for damages you may suffer following these procedures. Use them at your own risk. But let me also say, I've followed these procedures hundreds of times, without any negative consequences.