Disk Defragmentation

[ramseytheii]

I have never run a disk defragmentation on my computer, but heard it takes forever, though it is helpful.  Can anyone give advice?  Do I need to download a program (Windows XP)?  Is it worth it?  Is it potentially harmful, ie will I lose any files?

Thanks for your input!
Walter Ramsey

[thalbergmad]

I regularly do a defrag.

My understanding is that it frees up space on your hard drive and helps your computer to run faster. I guess if you do it regularly, it won't take so long.

I have never lost any files myself.

Thal

[le_poete_mourant]

You won't lose any files. 

The idea is that your hard drive, when it saves files, doesn't always save the same thing in one place.  So, in order to read the whole file, it has to skip around a little bit.  If you defragment your disk, it combines the saved parts of movable files so that they are together, and more easily accessible.  This allows your computer to run faster. 

It takes a while, so run it at night when you're sleeping, or when you're out for a while. 

It won't destroy your files. 

With Windows XP, you should find it under: start menu > all programs > accessories > system tools > disk defragmenter. 

[Bob]

You should do an error check before you defrag.  If there is a bad spot on your hard drive, the defrag may move files onto that bad spot -- You get messed up files.

There is an "error check" in that window that has the defrag stuff.

[Waldszenen]

Defrag your hard drives overnight and suddenly in the morning you'll have a faster PC

[ramseytheii]

Great! I am going to try it. Thanks all

Walter Ramsey

[ramseytheii]

What other things can one do to improve computer performance?  I've had mine about 4 years now, and I noticed that on turning it on, or on rebooting it, the process seems to take an abnormally long time.  I will defragment once I get the time, but is there anything else I can do?  For instance cleaning the Registry, whatever that means.
If there are any free programs to download let me know!
Thanks
Walter Ramsey

[bench warmer]

Fooling with the Registry yourself is like doing brain surgery; one false move & the patient is braindead. There are utilty programs that will do this for you and they will help your computer start-up faster. Don't try doing it w/o one these utility programs.

De-fragging disks should probably done fairly regularly. It's similar to taking a deck of well shuffled playing cards & putting them all back in sequential order so if you needed to find say the  10-of-diamonds it would be a very quick search & not looking thru a scattered deck.

[nicco]

go to www.torrentspy.com and get advanced system optimizer

[allthumbs]

What other things can one do to improve computer performance?  I've had mine about 4 years now, and I noticed that on turning it on, or on rebooting it, the process seems to take an abnormally long time. 

I leave my computer on all the time and will only shut it down if I go away on holidays.

One thing you can look at is the number of 'Processes' that are running in the background. Some use up alot of the computers memory resources that will slow the computer performance down.

You can either get more RAM or try closing un-needed processes down.

If you hit Ctrl-Alt-Del buttons simultaneously it will bring up the Windows Task Manager, go to the Processes tab and it will show you all the ones running and how much memory usage for each one.

See if there are any ones you recognize that you don't need running at the moment and shut it down.

Be careful though, some processes need to be running, so I would only shut one down at a time to see how it affects your computer after rebooting it.


Cheers

allthumbs