Defragging Your Hard Drive - MaintenanceTip of the Day

Thursday, January 15, 2005

 

Your hard drive is made of stacked platters, somewhat resembling CDs or records. Each platter is divided into sectors, like pieces of pie. These sectors get filled up with all your data and programs.

But over time, the files on these platters tend to break apart and various pieces of what was once a very cohesive file, could scatter to different places on the platters. This happens with normal wear-and-tear, or when you shut down your computer improperly, etc. In other words, your files get fragmented, and they need to be DEFRAGGED!

The Windows operating system provides a tool for this. It's got a very official name - the Disk Deframenter. You should probably run it every couple of months or so. It could help your computer run a bit more efficiently. Also, in the event your hard drive starts to die, (and, shame on you, you haven't made regular backups of your data), defragged files could make it easier for your neighborhood techie to get your files off intact.

There are two ways to get to the Disk Defragmenter:

1. Click on Start, then All Programs, then Accesories, then System Tools, then Disk Defragmenter.

2. Double click on your My Computer Icon (or click on Start and click on My Computer). Right Click on the "C" drive (your hard drive), and left click on Properties. Next click on the Tool tab in the box, and you'll see a "Defragment Now" button.

However you get there, either click on the Disk Defragmenter in the first instance, or click on the Defragment Now button in the second.

Click once to highlight the "C" drive in the box that pops up. It should turn blue. Now click on the Defragment button.

 

The tool will now take its course. You'll probably soon see a bunch of swatches and lines of different colors. This is supposed to be representative of your fragmented disk.

Leave the tool alone to do its thing. You probably shouldn't try to do anything else on your computer while this running. It could take up to a couple of hours, so pick a time to do it when you don't plan on using your computer. (Such as when you leave the house to run errands or when you go to sleep.)

When the Disk Defragmenter is finished, it will let you know by saying it is "complete" or "finished", or something of that nature.You will probably see more and thicker swatches of colors, and fewer lines at this point. This means your files have been brought back together again and are happily reunited.

Go ahead and close out of the program when it's finished. You're done!