Defragging...?

Question

I've been told that I should defrag my computer to help it run better, except I have pretty much no computer knowledge.

What exactly is defragging?

What does it do (does it remove programs? old documents?)?

How would I go about doing it?

Any knowledge you could give me would be great. Even if something seems obvious feel free to share :-D Thanks so much!!!

Answer 1

when a computer pulls a file for you to use - and then puts it back - it just thows it in the hard drive - and does not file it, like we would in a file cabinet - -

so after a while - your file cabinet looks like my desk - and you have no clue where ANYTHING is - and the computer takes longer to find it

e.g. (for example) Hospital; near us with 500 beds - got a new computer for pharmacy drug distibution. In 6 months the complaint was that our NEW computer is running so slowly -
so have you defragged or disc scan for bad sectors??

What's that? - - - -my friend showed them - took 2.5 hours to run both - and their new puppy ran like a scalded dog afterward. now they do it once a week, to keep fit.

You and I can get away with once a month. Here's how~!

************************

START
My Computer
right click – Local Disc (C:)
left click – Properties
choose 2nd tab – TOOLS
error Checking – click CHECK NOW
put check marks in both boxes
click – START (NOW- you will probably get a message saying you need to restart your computer – because this program wants to be the BOSS! – click YES)

also from here
Defragmentation – click Defrag Now
Click – Analyze – within seconds it will tell you if you need to - - if it says you are ok – FINE – if not – defrag – this will put
files back into closer proximity to make them work faster – when complete

restart your computer to make Scan Disk work

Best of Luck
and
Merry Christmas

Answer 2

I'll simply repost what I wrote for another thread about what defragmentation is. Hope you don't mind.
------------
To understand defragmentation, we must first look at fragmentation.

Windows does not necessarily write all the files in a contiguous block to the disk. Instead, it may split up the file into pieces i.e 'fragments' and fit them where ever it finds free space first, ie. some fragments can be in between other files, while the rest are together in some other location on the disk etc.

Therfore, when reading the file, the drive has to do more work picking up these scattered fragments from all over the disk and it takes more time. Because of all this, overall system performance decreases and the PC slows down since the hardrive is usually the slowest component of the PC (it's mechanical) and fragmentation makes it even slower.
------------------------------
DEFRAGMENTATION (de-'fragmentation') gathers up these file fragments and arranges them in order in a single block for each file. When it does this for the whole drive, it can take a long time to defrag if the drive is heavily fragmented.

The best solution for defeating fragmentation is automatic defragmentation which runs in the background. The software automatically analyzes the drive and defragments without bothering the user; but it does so in such a way that the user's computing activities are NOT interrupted. The defrag usually occurs during system idle time when there are sufficient free system resources to defrag.

The automatic defragmentation method is superior to outdated manual or scheduled defrags because it tries to keep fragmentation on the drives low, continuously. The user also has to do nothing once the software is installed and the automatic defrag enabled.

With scheduled defrag, after a few hours of usage, the drive become fragmented again and remains fragmented until the next defrag, so the benefits are short-lived with manual/scheduled defrag.

A defragmented drive improves system performance, reduces battery power consumption for laptops (less work for the drive, remember) and increases the harddrive life.

Answer 3

When your computer writes information onto your hard drive, it does not always write information in the same location on the actual hardware. A section of a file can be written near the beginning of the disc, whereas the rest of that file could be written near the end. This causes programs to run slowly, as the computer spends time in retrieving these file clusters from all over the disc. Defragmenting your computer sorts all of your files [as well as free space] in an orderly manner, in effort to reduce loading time.

An alternative to defragmenting is the use of a program called Diskeeper. It is very useful, since it can defragment your computer while your screen saver is running. You can work (or play) on your computer when you're defragmenting because it has a technology called I/O smart, where if your computer is doing something big, it will pause until your computer is finishing. You can also set the priority for defragmenting so that it won't pause every time that you do something little.

Answer 4

Assuming you have Windows, click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, choose Disk Defragmenter. You might want to run this program when you are not going to use the computer cause it might take awhile. No, defragmenting doesn't remove old files and programs. Overtime, files get scattered throughout the hard drive, taking the computer longer to find them. Defragmenting simply rearranges the related files so they are next to each other, making it faster for them to launch. Under System Tools, there is Disk Clean up that suggests and removes old files to free up hard drive space. To remove unused programs (games, etc), click on Start, then Control Panel, and Add/Remove Programs, it list them all, and the last time they were used. You can click on the Remove button if you don't use them anymore. When in doubt about the program, do not remove it.

Answer 5

Your hard drive (where all your programs, pictures, games and files sit) can become fragmented because games and pictures take up different amounts of space on your drive. So your drive can deliver awesome performance, it will simply store your files in the first place it can. As you can imagine, it is like throwing trash in one big heap without regard to the space it does not fill.
A defragmenter will fill up the spaces between files so your drive can perform better, freeing up usable space that would otherwise be part of a non-continuous heap.

To run defrag in Vista, you need to be an administrator and run the Defrag tool.
For other versions of windows, you may be able click Start>Run and then 'Defrag'.

Answer 6

Over time when Windows stores files over your HDD, it gets stored as non sequential peices scattered across the drive. This is called fragmentation. For Eg:

3 files stored initially
AAAABBBBBCCCC

The second file removed
AAAA-----CCCC

A 4th file saved- as fragments
AAAADDDDDCCCCDD

When the drive is fragmented, the HDD head has to mechanically 'go'to each fragment and read it, increasing the time taken to access the file, which leads to slow opening of programs etc. If this were only for a couple of files, the difference may not be noticed. But the problem with fragmentation is that once it starts, its like a spreading disease which leads to subesquent disarray and slowdowns. In severe cases, it can pose a potential threat to drive health and lead to hangs/freezes etc. The lesser the fragmentation, faster the PC. Imagine if you had to run a marathon with a knee injury, that would be the state of a fragmented drive.

In order to run the task, you need about 15% free space in case of the built in tool (third party tools work with much lesser free space) . Run diskcleanup since there is no point defragging stuff that you need to delete anyways and chkdsk if you need to and then run the task in Safe Mode so that no program interrupts (which may make it restart/hang).

Answer 7

A defragmentation of your computers main hard drive(usually C:) is a very good idea and should be done weekly.
What it actually does is realign your programs and registry files to be better accessed when you need them, in short , it makes it easier for the computer to find things when you are asking it to do tasks.
Think of it like a deck of cards,,if the cards all all in order by suit then you can more easily find the card you want, but if they are all shuffled it might take a lot longer.
Hope this helps, if you need help on how to actually run a defrag let me know

Answer 8

If you want to defrag use this one its way faster that windows defrag.


http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/index.php

Answer 9

go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System tools, Disk Defragmentor. It wont delete any programs