General PC Maintenance & Troubleshooting

4. Defragment the Hard Disk

When windows is first installed, files are placed sequentially on the hard disk. As applications, documents etc are placed on the disk, the disk space gradually increases. When files are removed, it leaves "holes" in this sequence of files. When additional files are added, these files do not get placed on the end of the sequence, they are placed in the first available spot, usually in the holes. After a period of time, files will be scattered across the hard disk, even individual files will be split across different parts of the disk. The defragmentation utility which comes with Windows 95/98/ME/2000 will put these files back into a more efficient sequence allowing the files to written and retrieved faster.

On Windows 2000 PCs:

> Go to the START button
> Select Programs menu
> Select Accessories menu
> Select System Tools menu
> Select Disk Defragmenter
> Select the Defragment button

This process can take between 5 minutes and 3 hours to run and should be run when nothing else is happening on the computer. Typically, run this as the last thing you do before going home for the evening. It is also important to switch off Screen Savers and shutdown all programs before beginning this process. However the process, can be stopped at any time and restarted at a later date.

On Windows 95 /98 /ME;

> Go to the START button
> Select Programs menu
> Select Accessories menu
> Select System Tools menu
> Select Disk Defragmenter
> From the SELECT DRIVE Window, hit the OK button

This process can take between 5 minutes and 3 hours to run and should be run when nothing else is happening on the computer. Typically, run this as the last thing you do before going home for the evening. It is also important to switch off Screen Savers and shutdown all programs before beginning this process. However the porocess, can be stopped at any time and restarted at a later date.

On Windows NT 4.0 this functionality is not available with the standard product.

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