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HOW TO USE WINDOWS XP: DEFRAGMENTING YOUR HARD DRIVE

To defragment your hard drive, you must be logged in to Windows XP with a Computer Administrator account. If you do not know what a Computer Administrator account is, see Windows XP: Creating Windows User Accounts.

Why defragment?

When your computer is using files, it will plunk them down, here and there, on the hard drive. If a file is too big to fit in a particular space, your computer will break up (fragment) the file and put the pieces in several different places. As the drive gets more and more cluttered, it takes your computer longer to find things, and the system runs slower and slower. Defragmenting your hard drive will reorganize all these files and pieces of files, making it easier for your computer to find them quickly.

Schedule enough time for the job

You shouldn't use your computer while the disk defragmenter program is running, and it may take quite a while if you've never used it before. Consider starting the program just before you go off to a meeting, or class, or lunch. We don't recommend leaving your computer on overnight. The more fragmented your drive, the longer the program takes to fix it. If you run disk defragmenter frequently, it shouldn't take long each time.

Defragmenting Your Hard Drive

  1. Make sure you're logged into Windows XP Professional with a Computer Administrator user account.

    2.  
  2. Click the Start button, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, then click Disk Defragmenter.
Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.
  1. In the top of the Disk Defragmenter window is a list of all the drives you can defragment. Click on the drive you want to defragment then click the Defragment button.
Click the drive then Defragment.
  1. The Disk Defragmenter will analyze your drive, then will begin defragmenting the drive. You can watch the process unfold in the status bar at the bottom of the window.
The Disk Defragmenter will analyze your drive.
  1. Defragmentation ends when there are no more fragmented files (represented by red lines) left on your drive, and when all of the contiguous, or non-fragmented, files (represented in blue) have been grouped together.
All of the contiguous files have been grouped together.
  1. A pop-up window will notify you when defragmentation is completed. Click the Close button.
Click Close.
  1. On the top menu, click File then click Exit to close Disk Defragmenter.
Click File then Exit.
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