Computers Drag Without Defrag
Is your computer running noticeably slower than it did when you first bought it? Is your computer “crashing” with no obvious reason for it? In the middle of tasks do you get a blue screen that counts down? When your computer starts do you get a blue screen asking it if you would like to check the integrity of the hard drive?
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All these symptoms could all be due to a poorly maintained hard drive. Every time you open a program Windows needs to open up some space on your hard drive to use the program. When you have finished with the program Windows puts it back where it got it from but not entirely. It leaves a little bit of the program where it was because the program is slightly bigger than it was before. The result is what we call “file fragmentation”. Windows opens up several programs that you don’t see every time you start up your computer. So the more you use your computer the more fragmented your computer gets. Programs are made up of little blocks called “sectors”. The bigger the program the more likely the sectors are going to be out of place if your hard drive has not been defragmented often enough.
In order for Windows to defragment successfully it needs 10% free space on your hard drive. It is a good idea then to keep your hard drives at MAXIMUM 75% capacity. To check this click on “My Computer” (or computer in Vista) this will tell you about your hard drives. All we are interested in is the “c” drive. So we will RIGHT click on “(C:)” it may have a name next to it. Then you will see a menu appear. Right down the bottom of the list you should see “Properties”, click on that. Now you should see a new window with a big circle, blue is used space and pink is free space. Your typical XP drive should take up around 15GB of storage without data, pictures, movies or big programs like games, whereas Vista should be around 30GB.
Windows XP was released in 2001. It's predecessor Windows 2000, surprisingly enough was released in early 2000. Windows XP was based on Windows 2000 which completely changed the file format of the operating system. Windows Vista was released in late 2006, but as this was a totally new file format and appearance to XP there were a lot of bugs to work out and a lot of bad press. Windows 7 however was adopted almost immediately because Microsoft seemed to have ironed out all of the kinks from Windows Vista and re-released it as Windows 7. All versions of Windows except Windows 7 and Vista need defragmenting manually. Microsoft finally figured out by 2006 that it was a good idea to have Windows defragment your hard drive automatically. But checking this and doing a manual defragmentation (defrag) is the safest bet, seeing as though you need to set the schedule manually.
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Most computers I work on in customers’ homes are still running Windows XP. You can almost guarantee that if a customer calls me with complaints about their computer running really slow it is due to the hard drive needing defragmentation. So here is a quick guide how to defrag your computer so as to save a callout and potentially saving a couple of hundred dollars.
How to defragment your files:
- Click on “Start”
- Click on “All Programs”
- Click on “Accessories”
- Click on “System Tools”
- Then finally click on “Disk Defragmenter”
- A window will pop up with a list of the hard drives installed on your computer. The first column will be named “Volume”. If you do not see “(C:)” you may have to expand the volume column by hovering your mouse next to the “volume” label and the arrow will turn into a double ended arrow. Once it does that drag the column to the right.
- First of all click “analyse”
- This process could take several minutes, but once it is done you should see blue lines and red lines. The red lines are files that are fragmented and the blue lines are programs that are complete and all the sectors of the program are in correct order or “contiguous”
- If you see red lines appear then click on “defragment”. This process could take a few hours. The defragmenter will “analyse” again and then you should start to see the lines moving around and eventually end up with mostly blue. A few red lines are OK but as long as you let the program run till it is finished you should be OK.
Sometimes Windows components do not work properly, and the defrag process in Windows Vista and 7 does not have a graphical representation to let you know what is going on so there is no actual way of making sure it is doing it’s job. If you suspect that your defrag program is not working, and you are using a later operating system like Vista, you need to install and run a third party defragmenting tool. A really good program and one that I use on a regular basis for my vista and 7 customers is “Defraggler” found here:
Defraggler:
http://download.cnet.com/Defraggler/3000-2248_4-10752905.html
Once the program has been installed:
- Click on “Start”
- Click on “All Programs”
- Click on “Defraggler”
- Then finally click on “Defraggler”
- A window will pop up with a list of the hard drives installed on your computer. The first column will be named “Drive”. If you do not see “(C:)” you may have to expand the drive column by hovering your mouse next to the “drive” label and the arrow will turn into a double ended arrow. Once it does that drag the column to the right.
- First of all click “analyse”
- This process could take several minutes, but once it is done you should see blue squares and red squares, (as opposed to lines with Disk Defragmenter). The red squares are files that are fragmented and the blue squares are programs that are complete and all the sectors of the program are in correct order or “contiguous”
- If you see red squares appear then click on “defragment”. This process could take a few hours. The defragmenter will “analyse” again and then you should start to see the squares moving around and eventually end up with mostly blue. A few red squares are OK but as long as you let the program run till it is finished you should be OK.
One thing different with Defraggler as opposed to Disk Defragmenter is that you can click on any one of the squares and it will tell you exactly what files are in that square. You can also defragment individual squares. One of the more advanced features of this program is a powerful search facility that allows you to search for a specific file name, size, defragmented or not. Then you can click on the file and Defraggler will show you where it is on your hard drive.
There are three files that should not be defragmented because they are windows system files and are compressed;
The files are:
Hyberfil.sys
Pagefile.sys
System Volume Information
There are also files that are natively compressed that will also take a very long time to defrag and are not really necessary to defrag, they are:
The files are:
Video Files
Audio Files
Zipped or Compressed Files
I hope this tutorial has helped you, saved you frustration, time and money.
Mike Griffiths
any comments questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to drop us an email. helpdesk@seecureit.com
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