what is a fragmented file what does it mean?

Answer 1

It's a file on your computer too big to store in the place on the hard drive where it was originally created. So it gets cut up and spread out into various places. Naturally, it will take your drive longer to use the file because of the need to do multiple operations to open the file.

Periodically it's good to "defrag" the hard drive. If you've never done it, it may take a long time the first time. But if you do it regularly, such as once a month, it's a lot faster.

In case you are not aware, in Windows XP, you'll find the Disk Defragmenter under All Programs - Accessories - System Tools.

Answer 2

A file is fragmented when it occupies more than one contiguous section on your hard drive. The larger a file is, and the more files you've created and deleted in the past, the more likely it is that the file will be fragmented. Fragmentation happens when a new file is being stored and there is no single contiguous empty section on your hard drive big enough to store the entire file, so instead the file is broken up into pieces small enough to fit into the multiple empty sections that *are* available. The operating system keeps track of where all the pieces are, so you don't see anything different going on whether there is a lot of fragmentation, a little, or none at all. Fragmented files are normal and nothing to worry about. A long time ago when computers were slower, the more fragmented your files were, the slower your computer might run. But that really hasn't been an issue for at least a decade in my experience; I haven't seen defragmenting make any difference since then. All defragmenting does is move around all the pieces of files to try to get each file to occupy a single contiguous section of the hard drive, which means that (in theory anyway), the file can be read from the hard drive more quickly than before.

Answer 3

A fragmented file is simply a file which, in physical terms, is in pieces and is scattered all over your hard drive. When you access this file, your hard drive read/write heads run all over the platters quickly reconstructing this file in a matter of milliseconds. Although milliseconds doesn't seem like a very long time, doing this operation on a large scale that involves many files can take some time. Fragmented files can slow down your computer but not by much.

You can speed up your computer slightly by running Windows Disk defragmenter by clicking Start>Run and typing in "dfrg.msc"

Answer 4

Definition Of Fragmented

Answer 5

It is a file that is scattered on your hard drive.

Lets say you save a 5 megabyte file. your computer puts one megabyte in five different places. Fragments of the file are scattered on your hard drive in "fragments".

The theory is it takes longer for your computer to gather the file up when you want it because it has to find all the parts.

In practice this doesn't seem to be the case unless there is very extreme fragmentation. Benchmark testing does not show much difference in speed. It isn't really a major factor.

I still defrag my drive but I do it a lot less then I used to.

Answer 6

A fragmented file occurs because the hard drive does not write things to its disk sequentially. It always heads for 'empty space'. This causes programs with large files to get broken up, or fragmented. If left too long, this can slow down your computer a lot.

Defragmenting puts these scattered files back together, and keeps them in one contiguous area on the disk. This permits faster access, and smoother function of your system.

If you work with large files, like video or photos, you will want to defragment your hard drive more often- at least monthly. Most of the time, people can go about six months before needing to defrag their hard drive.

When you run disk defrag the first time, it'll seem to take forever. So, schedule a defrag when you are not going to be using the system for other things.

Answer 7

Define Fragmented

Answer 8

When you delete a file a space is created on your hard drive. A fragmented file developes when you download a new program/software and the computer uses the space left by the deleted file for part of that program. Programs are often split into several "pieces" but still run just fine as the computer knows where all the pieces are. Fragmented files can be reassembled by using the disc defragmenter. Open the disk defragment tool from the start menu. Go to programs- then to accessories- then system tools and finally disc defragment. Once you open the disc defragment tool, click on the analyze button and the tool will calculate if you need to defragment or not. In cases when your computer is running slow, this procedure can pick the speed up again. You will also notice that there is a disc clean up tool listed with the defragmenter. You can use the clean up tool to clear out old deleted files and temporary folders used for websites. This tool will also work automatically.
One last thing, if you do need to defragment....make sure you have plenty of time to do so. The more memory used on your computer the longer it will take for the process to complete. I have used about 63% of my computer's memory and it takes just over an hour to defragment. I set it up to defrag and then go to bed.

Answer 9

A fragmented file is a file which is saved in pieces on your hard disk drive. Some parts can be at one end of the HDD and others at the other end. This happens when you do not defragment you HDD and keep adding files and removing files from your HDD.

Fragmented files are longer to acces because the HDD has to look for the different fragments before it is able to open it...

Answer 10

It doesn't mean much practically - they will work as expected. Files are stored on hard drives in pieces (fragments) if there is no room to store the whole thing in one big chunk. The operating system uses a filesystem (there are lots, like FAT32, ntfs, extfs etc) to track file info like name, size, folder info and location on disk.

Fragmented files just take a tiny bit longer to look up than non-fragmented, so defragmenting your hard disk helps keep the speed up.