Defragmenting a Disk
Defragmenting a Disk When files are stored on a hard disk, they are broken into pieces (or fragments) and individually written to the disk. Files on your hard drive can sometimes become spread out, or fragmented, across different sectors of the drive. Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Defragment the hard drive aligns the pieces of those files in one sector, which increases the efficiency of the operating system to open the files. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your disks and drives can work more efficiently. Disk Defragmenter runs on its own schedule, but you can also analyze and defragment your disks and drives manually. To defragment your hard disk: Open the Tools tab in the Disk Properties window ( as we did in the previous process). In the Defragmentation section , click the Defragment now… button to open the Disk Defragmenter window. Select a drive and click Analyze Disk to see if the disk needs defragment...