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Dear PC Doctor:
A friend suggested that I “defrag” my computer to make it run better. What does this mean? How do I do it? I am using a Windows 7 PC.
Thanks, Emily
Dear Emily:
Your friend is suggesting you run the “Disk Defragmenter” program. A hard drive stores data in fragments. Over time, your computer’s performance may slow down because it is searching all over the hard drive for fragments that are needed to work together. Running the “Disk Defragmenter” will reorganize information on your hard drive so that programs and files can open more quickly.
Here’s how to do it:
Click “Start.”
Select “All Programs.”
Click “Accessories.”
Click “System Tools.”
Click “Disk Defragmenter.”
Select the drive you want to defragment.
Click “Analyze Disk.” This will look at the drive and tell you whether it needs to be defragmented.
If the drive shows that it is more than 10% fragmented, click the “Defragment disk” button. This process takes quite a bit of time and you should not use the computer while it is running this process as it slows everything down, so do it during a down time for you.
Until next time… Happy computing!
PC Doctor
Posted: to Athol Library News on Fri, Mar 7, 2014
Updated: Fri, Mar 7, 2014