As your hard drive becomes fragmented, it slows down your computer!
Whenever you use your computer, your hard drive is busy accessing and creating new files. Over time a single file can get broken up and be scattered throughout your hard drive. Think of it this way: when your hard drive is creating a file, it will start creating it wherever there is room, and when that section fills up, it will go to the next empty space it finds and starts writing again. Eventually, your file system is in a state of chaos and disarray, and every time you want to access a file your computer has to search through your entire hard drive to find all of the bits and pieces of a single file. This is frequently the cause of a slow Windows computer, and of overall computer lag.
Good news! Windows comes with a free defragmentation tool. Simply click on Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Defragmenter. Before doing this, I recommend closing down all programs and disabling your screensaver, as it should run without any background processes. Depending on the size of your disk and how fragmented it is, it can take many hours, so I would suggest running it at night or when you are away from your computer.
I would recommend defragmenting your computer now, and then running it perhaps once a month in the future to keep your disk defragmented. This will result in increased computer performance and less frustration when your computer takes a long time to do a simple task. You have learned how to defragment a computer!
Often fragmentation is just one of many causes of a slow computer, so it is important to address all of the root problems. I have written a guide that addresses many of the causes of a slow computer, and how you fix these problems. If you want to speed up your slow windows computer, I would suggest reading Speeding Up A Slow Windows Computer
Andrew Summits is an IT professional and computer enthusiast/hobbyist. He can address your questions if you email him at asummits@gmail.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Summits
