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The operating system oftentimes breaks a file into fragments when there isn't enough continuous space on a hard drive where the file was originally saved. For example, if you started out with a 2MB word processing document and saved it on your hard drive it would take up a small amount of space on the drive. If you came back and edited the document later using extensive photos and graphics, the file size would increase and the original space allocated might not be large enough for the increased file size. Windows would then break the file into several smaller pieces, fitting the pieces into free spaces here and there. When this happens, Windows creates a record of the different areas where each piece is stored in the File Allocation Table (FAT) for FAT drives. When the file is required again, the operating system must query the File Allocation Table to piece the file back together again. When the drive becomes fragmented, performance suffers. A little computer maintenance such as defragging the hard drive should be done. If your PC gets heavy use, you'll need to defrag it more often than one that is used lightly. How to DeFrag a Hard Drive: First, go to the Start Button, choose All Programs, then choose Accessories, next click on System Tools, and finally, choose Disk Defragmenter. You'll see a screen such as this when you first open the utility. 
The utility lists any hard drives found on your system and calculates how much free space you have. Click on the Analyze button to see estimates of disk usage before and after the defragmenting takes place. 
The graphs are a visual representation of how your files are broken up across a hard drive. Red indicates fragmented files, blue shows contiguous files, green shows unmovable files and white shows free space. Notice how these colors are scattered all over the graph in the before bar? The report indicates that this drive is extremely fragmented and should be defragged. Simply click the Defragment button and let the utility do its job. You may need to disable screensavers and other programs that start automatically as they sometimes interfere with the process and cause it to start over from the beginning. The utility analyzes the hard drive once again and begins to compact the files. The "after" graph will at first look like the "before" graph but you'll notice as the defragger works, the graph will update periodically to show the progress being made. In addition, a bar at the bottom of the screen shows the progress. The progress bar starts out white and as the program works, a line of green slowly takes over. When the progress bar turns completely green, the process is complete. 
In the screen above, you'll see the progress bar at the bottom of the screen and a message indicating the progress is only at 2%. Be patient, this is a time consuming job. It may take several minutes to several hours or more depending on the size of your disk and the amount of fragmentation. In this case, after 15 minutes, the job is only 2% complete. This process will likely run for hours. It's best to run the DeFrag utility at night and go to bed. Otherwise, you'll be tempted to watch as the graph slowly changes. This is about as exciting as watching the clothes go around in the dryer. 
After the process is complete, you'll see a screen with the final graphic display such as shown above. In some cases, some files may not be able to be completely defragmented. Viewing the report will show you what files are still fragmented and give you an overview of the system results. Your PC should gain performance now that the hard disk is defragged. |
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