Defragment your hard drive to make your system run better,

Is your PC slower than molasses? Do most files take forever to open up? If you've answered yes to either of these questions, then your computer could have a case of the fragmented blues. Luckily, Chris Pirillo knows the cure.

We recommend a Windows application called Disk Defragmenter to increase performance, reliability, and speed.

The more you use your computer, the more scattered files become as they get rewritten to your hard drive. Disk Defragmenter will optimize your hard drive by efficiently reordering the data. Once started, the utility will run by itself for a few hours, so don't plan to compute during this process.

To run Disk Defragmenter, follow these directions:

  1. Single-click the Start button, mouse-over Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then single-click Disk Defragmenter.
  2. Select the drive you'd like to defragment and hit the Settings button.
  3. On the Disk Defragmenter Settings menu checkmark "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster" and "Check drive for errors." Hit OK to go back to the first screen.
  4. Hit OK to begin the process.
  5. For a graphical representation of how it works, hit the Show Details button.
  6. Come back in a few hours after the process is finished.


If you use your computer often, run Disk Defragmenter every three months.

Troubleshooting
If the process keeps starting over (one to five percent progress, then starts over), you need to run Disk Defragementer in Safe mode. Read this article to find out how to get into Safe mode.