Process run Checkdisk
and Degragment Windows XP
XP
includes basic disk checking and defragmentation software. These can help to
maintain the performance on your computer.
To
run these, perform the following steps:
- Go to
Control Panel and double click on Administrative Tools.
- Double
click on Computer Management.
- This
will put you in a screen like the following, and which you can single
click on Disk Defragmenter to see your drives. See the following picture:
- Select
the drive you want to work on, eg C: as shown
above
- You
have two options, you can check the Disk and/or
Defragment it. It is not uncommon for Windows to decide that it needs
checking before the Defragment starts. This is nothing to worry about.
- This
part is optional. Click on Analyze to check the disk. It may determine
that you do not need to Defragment, but my experience is that it is worth Defragmenting
anyway. After the Analysis, it can provide a report telling you which
files are most fragmented.
- To
defragment, click on Defragment, as shown above, and the display will
change to look like the following:
- Wait
for it to finish. It may take some time.
- While
it is defragmenting, if you screen saver starts up, this seems to make the
defragmenting restart. This is due to file activity on the disk. This is
not a problem as it is happy restarting over many times, and will
eventually finish, but if you want to avoid it, you can turn your screen
save off, while you are running process.
- If
you run out of time, or for any reason want to stop it, just use the Stop
(or Pause) button. The process is quite happy being interrupted, but just
make sure it finishes the actual file it is currently defragmenting,
before closing the program.
- When
finished, simply close the window to exit the program.