Imagine your hard drive is like a book, with many pages of text. When you delete files from your hard drive, it is like erasing scattered words or paragraphs throughout the book. These deleted files may be spread around on different pages and in different chapters. On your computer, these are different locations on your hard drive.
When you add (save) new files to your hard drive, the computer attempts to fill those scattered erasures with the new files. If the new file doesn’t fit into the “hole,” the computer breaks up (or fragments) the file up and puts the rest of it into the next available space. Because files are constantly added and removed from a hard drive, over time the files become fragmented.
Imagine how much longer it would take you to read the book if a paragraph were fragmented with a few words on one page, a few more words on another page, and the rest of the words on yet another page. It would be easier for you if the sentences were rearranged in order. It's easier (and faster) for your computer if the fragmented files are rearranged in order too.
The computer automatically keeps track of where the files are and how they are divided. But imagine how complex the situation becomes when hundreds and hundreds of files are fragmented and scattered over a large hard disk. The reason you want to defragment is because the hard drive works longer and harder to read files that are scattered in different locations.
A Disk Defragmenter comes with Windows. - Go to the Start Menu and choose Programs
- Go to Accessories and choose System Tools
- Then choose Disk Defragmenter.
- In the next dialogue box that appears, choose the drive you wish to defragment (usually C:)
- It takes a while. It depends on the size of the disk and the amount of fragmentation. It checks the hard disk for errors and then defragments.
Defragment every two months or so. If you frequently add and delete files, you should do it more often. Sometimes programs running in the background, such as anti-virus programs, even screensavers, can interfere with the defragmenter completing its job. If this is the case, you need to make sure all programs running in the background are shut down before starting the defragmenter.
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