In this article, we will look at defragmenting hard drives in Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Defragmenting the hard drive every time after a while is very important because over time, as your computer reads and writes small and large files, the files may end up being written to inconsistent parts of the disk. When the OS needs to read information from a disk, it will have to go to different parts of the disk, which slows down the process.
You may have noticed that when you first buy a computer, it runs very smoothly and quickly. But over time, after you install and uninstall apps, download music, delete videos, etc., the computer starts to lag and becomes slow. This is because when the drive is initially empty, any new data placed on it is written in the same class continuous block. Therefore, when the operating system needs to read data, it can find everything in one place.
Eventually, however, you uninstall the app or some music files, and those empty areas are now between other pieces of data. When something new is written to disk, it fills up these various empty spaces and breaks up into separate chunks on the hard drive. Now, when the computer starts reading data, it has to jump to different positions on the disk, and obviously to load more data.
Running the utility Defrag will take all the files that are split and merge them back into one piece. It will also take up all the free empty space on your hard drive and make one block of free space. This will make it much easier for the operating system to find and load data.
In Windows XP, you will have to manually defrag your computer because it is very old and has never been configured that way. In Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8, hard drives are automatically serviced on a schedule. In fact, Windows 7 and Windows 8 are smart enough to disable Disk Defragmenter if you have solid state drives (solid state hard drives) installed. Performing defragmentation on solid state drives will actually shorten their lifespan.
Open Disk Defrag Utility
1. the easiest way to get to defragmentation : Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop, select Manage, and then click Drive Defragmenter .
2. You can also access the Defrag utility by clicking Start – All Programs – Accessories – System Tools and Defragmenter .
3. In Windows 8, simply go to the Start screen or open the charms bar, click Search and type Disk Defragmenter.
Windows XP Disk Defragmenter
Windows XP Disk Defragmenter
Click the Analyze button to get a report on how much of your hard drive is currently fragmented. The summary report will tell you if you need to defragment .
Also note that before defragment your computer, all programs must be closed, especially firewalls and anti-virus programs. The defragmenter will continually restart if antivirus software the software works because it constantly accesses files on the hard drive that the defragmentation program is trying to move.
It is recommended that you try defragment your computer once a month. If you use your computer intensively to transfer large amounts of data, large files, it is recommended more than once a month.
Here are some of the limitations of the defragmentation utility on Windows XP :
• It can defragment only local volumes.
• It can defragment only one volume at a time.
• Unable to defragment one volume while scanning another.
• It cannot be planned. If you need to schedule defragment the disk, use defragment . exe command line tool.
Defragment will keep your XP computer running smoothly and quickly. Of course, you really shouldn’t be using XP anymore, but if you’re stuck on a corporate computer or have some other reason to run XP, make sure you defragment it at least once a month. p>
Windows 7 and Windows 8 Disk Defragmenter
In Windows 7, you can get into the Disk Defragmenter by clicking the Start button and searching.
As you can see below, the user interface is completely different from the XP interface. In fact, they completely removed the graphical representation of the disk when clicking the Analyze Disk button. Instead, it just analyzes and shows the percentage of fragmentation.
By default, defragmentation is scheduled once a week at 1 am, so if you don’t turn off your computer every night, your hard drives will be defragmented without any action. in Windows 8, the interface is slightly different, and now it is called not disk defragmenter, but disk optimization.
Again, this is scheduled on a weekly basis and you really don’t need to change anything unless you want to manually trigger the optimization.
Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314848
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