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Hard Drive Fragmentation:

Applies to: Win XP Win 2000 Win Me Win 98 Win 95
Fragmentation of your hard drive occurs when you have installed, uninstalled, moved, or added files. Windows will look for the first available space on the hard drive for any of this kind of activity and put as much of the file as it can in that space. If there is any part of the file left over, it will look for the next available spot and put some more there, etc.

Hard disk space becomes available when you delete a file. As you can see, if this happens often, your files become fragmented.

The 'Defrag' program will gather up all the bits and pieces of each fragmented file and store it all back together. It makes room for this by selectively moving and shifting every file on the hard drive. On a large drive, this can take considerable time if not done often. The more often 'Defrag' is run, the quicker it does it's job.

How to run 'Defrag':

  1. Click 'Start' on your task bar.
  2. Click 'Programs'.
  3. Select 'Accessories', then 'Systems Tools'.
  4. Click 'Disk Defragmenter'.
  5. Make the appropriate decisions, depending on your version of Windows.
  6. Click 'OK'
  7. Go and do something else until 'Defrag' is done.

NOTE: It is good practice to shutdown all the programs indicated by the icons beside your clock on right side of the task bar, before starting 'Defrag'. This will prevent interference during the operation. Windows 98 'Defrag' has a bad habit of restarting if there is any activity on the hard drive.