As a drive is used and data are written to it and deleted from it, the contents of individual blocks of data can be scattered over the surface of the disk. This slows down access to those blocks of data. Defragging removes blank spaces and consolidates this information. The frequency of defragging varies with the amount of writing done to a hard drive. If large amounts of data are frequently added or removed, the drive should be defragged more frequently.
If you are using Windows XP, you can defrag your disk by going to Start|All Programs|System Tools|Disk Defragmenter. Optionally under XP you can defrag your hard drive as a schedule task which can run when you are not using the system using the procedure shown
here.
Denny Denham
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Posted May 21st, 2005 14:00
As a drive is used and data are written to it and deleted from it, the contents of individual blocks of data can be scattered over the surface of the disk. This slows down access to those blocks of data. Defragging removes blank spaces and consolidates this information. The frequency of defragging varies with the amount of writing done to a hard drive. If large amounts of data are frequently added or removed, the drive should be defragged more frequently.
If you are using Windows XP, you can defrag your disk by going to Start|All Programs|System Tools|Disk Defragmenter. Optionally under XP you can defrag your hard drive as a schedule task which can run when you are not using the system using the procedure shown here.