Improve Your PC Speed - Step 3
Defragment Your Hard Drive
This is one of those things that most people do not think about or even know about their computer doing. As time goes by, you hard drive starts to fill up. After a while your computer tries to make the best use of the space that is available by breaking your files into small chunks and fitting them next to other files that don’t fill up all their available space. After a while, your computer has to go to several different parts of your hard drive just to open up a single file. This is called fragmentation, and it can really slow down your system.
Fortunately, there is a solution - the Windows Disk Defragmenter tool. This tool scans your hard drive looking for files that have been split up and tries to place the pieces next to each other on the hard drive. This can take quite a while to run, so it is something that you would generally do while you take your lunch break or just run it over night.
- Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, then Disk Defragmenter.
- You will see a window listing all of the hard drives on your system, but typically you will only see one.
- Make sure your primary hard drive (the one where Windows is installed) is selected and click the ‘Defragment’ button.
- Walk away, take a nap, grab something to eat, come back in a couple of hours.
- When the process is complete, you will see two displays, on your screen - before defragmentation and after defragmentation. The continuous files will be marked in blue, the fragmented files in red. Hopefully there is a lot of blue on your screen. **
** Not all files can be defragmented - some system files will always be locked, so they can’t be changed. The only way to completely defragment a primary hard drive is to remove it from the computer and defragment it with another computer - not the easiest thing in the world to do so we don’t cover it here.
When in doubt, contact an expert - we can help you get your computer up and running quickly in the comfort of your own home. To schedule an appointment, call 1-888-201-4131 or email info@verticalpenguin.com and someone will contact you about your request. To get the full guide and sign up for automatic maintenance reminders go to http://verticalpenguin.com/pc-speed-reminder.html
