A Fragmented drive is the one in which files are stored in a non-contiguous manner. When you go through normal routine tasks like copying, deleting or moving around your files, or installing and removing programs not all the files are stored on the hard drive on a contiguous manner. The files are scattered through the hard Drive which in turn can make your computer run slow because accessing these files will take a bit more time. So it is necessary to defragment your drive on a regular basis.

Windows comes with a built in utility called “Disk Defragmenter”. To use this utility follow these steps

Step 1:

You can open this utility in the following ways

• Go to “Start” -> “All Programs” -> “Accessories” ->” System Tools” -> “Disk Defragmenter”.

Open “Control Panel” and click on “Administrative Tools”, a window will pop up. Here you can see an option for “Computer Management”, click on it. Another window similar to the following will open, where you have to click on “Storage”.

Once you do so another with a variety of will open and here you can find “Disk Defragmenter”, click on it.

• Click on Start button. When you do so a warning box will appear informing you that all data will be erased due to formatting the disk

Click on Start button. When you do so a warning box will appear informing you that all data will be erased due to formatting the disk

Step 2:

Click on the drive you want to defragment. And then press the button “Analyze” in the bottom. Windows will analyze whether you drive needs this process or not and will prompt you back. If your drive yes really defragmented then you will be asked to defragment the drive, and click on “Defragment” when asked.

A defragmentation process will start and you can see that on the window. At the bottom you can how much percentage of the defragmentation is finished. You will see two colorful images which are quite self explanatory. The meaning of each color is explained below, but if you are just a regular user like me then leave all these and just wait till the process finishes. Sometimes depending on the size of the partition this process can take more time. So don’t be scared if it does.

Once it is finished you will prompted with two options “View Report” and “Close”. If you don’t want all that technical details then just go for “Close”.

And now that you have successfully defragmented you hard Drive, don’t forget to do it again next month!