Dell Inspiron One19 Dell™ Technology Guide - Page 132

Defragmenting Your Hard Drive You can improve the performance of your computer by defragmenting your hard drive. This action enables your programs to run faster and your files to open more quickly. HINT: Why defragment a hard drive? A fragmented hard drive stores fragments of files in many different locations on the disk. The computer must search throughout the disk to retrieve the complete file. Disk Defragmenter combines all the parts of a file that are fragmented into one location. This reduces the time your computer spends to locate all the parts of a file and open it. Before defragmenting the hard drive, Windows analyzes the disk to determine if you need to defragment it. You should perform this procedure at least once a week. NOTE: If you perform this procedure regularly, the defragmenting process should take only 5 to 10 minutes. 1 Click Start → All Programs → Accessories → System Tools → Disk Defragmenter. The Disk Defragmenter window opens. This window lists the hard drives on your computer along with the storage capacity and the amount of free space. 132 Maintenance Tasks (Enhance Performance and Ensure Security)