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Defragment Your Hard Drive

WinXP. Under the Tools tab in your drive's Properties window, click Defragment Now. Next, select a drive in the Volume column and click Analyze. Disk Defragmenter will display your drive’s data allocation as a group of colored lines; a legend explains what each color means. It will also recommend defragging or not defragging. Click Defragment to start the procedure. Your PC will feel slow until the defragging is done.

Vista. Follow WinXP’s instructions, but click Defragment Now twice instead of once. By default, Vista automatically defrags your drive at a time you can set. With Run On A Schedule (Recommended) selected, click Modify Schedule. Specify a time when your PC will be turned on, but you won’t be using it.

Win7. Use WinXP’s directions. Win7’s verbiage differs only slightly from WinXP’s and Vista’s; its Configure Schedule button corresponds to Vista’s Modify Schedule.

Even in the Win7 era, third-party defrag utilities tend to speed up PC usage better than Windows’ built-in defragmenter. Most can also do this using less processing power, so they won’t disrupt your productivity. Finally, some can run even on drives that are nearly full, unlike Windows’, and may be better at slowing down future fragmentation.

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