Home
FAQ: Defrag your hard drive
Have you ever admired a librarian in your local public library who, when asked where to find an exotic book, leads you directly toward the appropriate shelf and points the book out for you?
That's because librarians keep their books in perfect order.
A computer doesn't behave this way. When it's saving data, it stuffs bits and pieces of the file wherever it finds an open spot on your hard drive. Sometimes it cuts up the file and places the fragments in different locations. When you want to open the file later on, the hard drive has to look all over the place and assemble it. This can take time.
That's why there is a tool called a defragmenter. It tidies the hard drive up, finding the individual fragments, rearranging the hard drive's space, and putting the individual fragments where they belong.
Defragmenting takes time, so if you choose to run this routine, you might as well go and do the dishes, and vacuum, and clean your cat's litter box, and watch your favorite television show. When you come back, your computer will run faster.
It is a somewhat involved operation and your computer may run into glitches from time to time - but that's what you have Cyberwalker's answers to frequently asked questions about defragmentation below.
Featured Articles
How to defragment your hard drive
Your computer files become disorganized over time, slowing things down.
How to defragment your computer's hard drive
Part of your computer housekeeping should be to run Disk Defragmenter regularly.
How to fix Windows disk defragmenter if it stalls
Defragmenting your hard drive is recommended maintenance for your computer.
Defragment your hard drive
Defragment? How do I do it and how often?.
What to do when defrag says there's not enough memory
Cyberwalker explains the problems behind a mysterious error message you might get when launching Defrag or Scandisk.
Latest Forum Posts
Recommended System Tools
Top 5 Software
It keeps your drivers up to date for your PC, to keep it running safe and secure.
Download Today!