Defragging your computer keeps it running smoothly

Well, help is at hand. Within this site you will find an ever-growing selection of tootorials and handy tips to keep your system running smoothly.

So... let’s take a look at de-fragmenting your hard drive.

What does it do?
Imagine my desk for a minute. Actually, don’t; it’s usually in a bit of a state, cluttered with paperwork, countless CDs, empty cups and assorted bits and pieces relating to my work. After a while, it gets so crowded that it becomes hard for me to find things. That’s when it’s time to de-fragment my work-space, organise all the paperwork, tidy the CDs back into their rack and wash-up the cups.

The same goes for your PC. As you’re using it, files get saved all over the place, new programs get installed, Windows updates itself, and your computer generally gets cluttered with all sorts of things in a pretty random fashion. Running the ‘Disk Defragmenter’ puts everything back into its rightful place, and makes things easy for your computer to find when you need them.

In ‘Windows XP’™, click the ‘Start’ button, at the bottom left of your screen. Now click on ‘All Programs’ and from there, move your cursor over ‘Accessories’ and then ‘System Tools’. Now click on ‘Disk Defragmenter’.

In the window which pops up, first click on ‘Analyze’, to let the computer figure out what sort of a state the hard drive is in. This can take 10 minutes or more, depending on how big the hard drive is, and how cluttered it has become.

Once this is done, you’ll see a colour-coded breakdown of what’s in your computer’s memory, with all the fragmented [cluttered] files shown in red.

Now click on ‘Defragment’ to let Windows tidy itself up. You may want to let this run overnight, since it will usually take a few hours.

Job done!