Defragmenting a Hard Drive with Windows XP

When you save files to a hard disk, then delete them later, and save other files in their places, your hard disk can be come fragmented with small pieces of the files left over. When you delete a file, all that's deleted is an entry in the File Allocation Table of the disk that tells the computer where to go to find the file.

If a different size file is written over the old file, these old fragments may be left behind. Over time these fragments can cause the computer to run much more slowly.

Periodically it's a good idea to run both a disk scan (see scan disk instructions) and to defragment your hard drive. This keeps your computer running more efficiciently. How often you run these maintainence tasks depends on how often you save or delete files and programs to your hard drive: the more you save/delete, the more often you should run maintainance.

Note: It is possible to continue to work while running a defragmentation process although your computer will likely run slower.

To start the defragmentation process,

• Open up the My Computer window.
• Click on the C: drive icon to select it.
• Click on File, Properties, then select the Tools tab.

The second option is Defragmentation.

• Click on the Defragment Now... button.

The Disk Defragmenter window displays.

• Click on the Analyze button.

Your computer will run a quick scan to determine how fragmented the hard drive is and display the results. You may get a pop-up window letting you know whether or not you need to run the defragmentation process.

As the legend indicates, the red portions are the fragmented files. If you have more than a few lines of red showing, it's best to run the Defragment process even if the original scan said you don't need to.

• Click on the Defragment button to start the process.

A window will appear to let you know when the process is done.

Page last updated 07/21/04. Send questions or comments to helpdesk@cwu.edu