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Thanks for visiting my blog. Hope you find some helpful hints for organizing your time and space. My passions are to help you make home a refuge instead of a crisis center, and to help you function in peace rather than chaos - at home or at work. I have switched my main blog to 1-2-3 ... Get Organized on WordPress, so please visit me there.



Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Save Time by Cleaning and Defragmenting Your Computer Disks


I have been having some computer issues for a while. They are not over yet, but I’ve discovered how to speed up my computer, thereby saving time. As I’ve told you before, I’m not technical, and I’ve probably done this before, but I didn’t remember it.

While spending hours on the phone with technical support, I learned how to defragment and clean my disks. This process gets rid of all those extraneous files that slow down your computer.


For those of you who are computer geniuses, I’m sure you’re laughing at me right now, but I figure if I didn’t know/remember how to do this, there may be others out there who need this info.

It’s very simple:

- Click the Start button
- Go to “All Programs” at the bottom
- Go to Accessories
- Go to Systems Tools
- Go to Disk Cleanup or Disk Defragmenter
- Click “C”
- Click Defragment or OK

I did both cleaning and defragmenting on my computer, and it took several hours for each during which time I could not use my computer. The tech person said it should be done every two weeks or so. Obviously, it had been a while for mine!

Anyway, just thought I’d pass along what I’ve learned.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually defragging doesnt delete anything, it puts file fragments back together contiguously improving data access speed and performance. A good alternative to manually defragging is to install an automatic defragger like Diskeeper. It also defrags the system files unlike the built in tool and does a decent job with even as less as 5% free space.

Andy said...

And while you're at it, figure out your backup strategy. What would actually happen if your hard drive just went kaput and you couldn't get anything from it. Precious photos? Important documents? There a bad hard disk away from disappearing forever.