Defragmentation

• Defragmenting your hard drive is one way to improve your computers performance. A hard drive consists of a number of double sided platters (similar to a music record album) stacked together inside the drive. A head (like the record needle) moves from a parked position, and moves between the platters to the location of the imformation on the drive.
  
  
• A Hard Drives Performance Is Measured By Two Significant Factors:
  
  Access Speed
  The access speed is determined by the length of time tht it takes the head to position itself to begin aquiring the information from the platter. The access speed of a hard drive is measured in milliseconds, and the smaller the number the faster the drive will be, especially when the drive is very fragmented.
  
  Transfer Rate
  The transfer rate is determined by the drives rotational speed (measured in rpm). The faster a drive spins the higher the tranfer rate will be. The transfer rate is measured in KB/second and is only achieved in very short bursts on a very fragmented drive. The transfer rate of a drive may be limited by the computers bus speed, if your drive's transfer rate is higher than the computer's bus speed its performance can be slowed down.
  
  
• All computers have to transfer data from the hard drive to your computers RAM before you can run a program or work on any data files. If your computers needs to load a file from the hard drive and the entire file is located on a single side of one of the platters, the drive's access speed only comes into play once. When the file is scattered between various platters on the drive, the head has to move several times to retrieve the information, and the time it takes your computer to transfer the data into RAM can be significantly impacted by your hard drive access speed.
  
  
• How To: Analyze and Defragment a Disk in Windows XP
  This step-by-step guide describes how to perform maintenance on disk volumes on Windows XP-based computers. Analyzing and defragmenting disks can help to preserve the performance and general operation of the system.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;305781
  
  
• How to Use the Disk Defragmenter Tool in Windows 2000
  This step-by-step article describes how to effectively use the Disk Defragmenter tool in Windows 2000. The Disk Defragmenter tool that is included with Windows 2000 is based on Executive Software's full retail version of Diskeeper. This version provides limited functionality to maintain disk performance by defragmenting volumes that use the FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file system.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;318759
  
  
• Description of the Disk Defragmenter Tool in Windows 98/Me
  This article describes the Disk Defragmenter tool included in Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition (Me). You can use the Disk Defragmenter tool to increase the speed of programs on your computer
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;186171
  
  
• Defragmentation in Windows 95
  An article about maintaining your computer for Windows 95.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fsupport%2Fgames%2Ffeatures%2Fmaintenance%2Fdefrag.asp
  
  

• Error Defragmenting Drive <drive>. Windows could not access part of...
  Windows could not access part of the drive. Click Help and carry out the instructions for running ScanDisk. IMPORTANT: To fix this problem, you must run ScanDisk and choose the Thorough option.
  ID No: DEFRAG005
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q160043

• Error Defragmenting Drive <drive>. Windows could not access part of...
  Windows could not access part of the drive. Click Help and carry out the instructions for running ScanDisk. IMPORTANT: To fix this problem, you must run ScanDisk and choose the Thorough option.
  ID No: DEFRAG006
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q160043
  

• Your Computer Does Not Have Enough Free Memory to Defrag the Drive
  Quit one or more programs. ID# Defrag009.
  ScanDisk could not continue because your computer does not have enough available memory.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q229154

• Error Message: DEFRAG0026 Make Sure Disk Is Formatted
  Windows cannot defragment this drive. Make sure the disk is formatted and free of errors. Try defragmenting the drive again.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q155404

• "Windows Cannot Defragment This Drive now Because It Has Been Locked by a Disk Utility" When Using Disk Defragmenter
  Windows cannot defragment this drive now because it has been locked by a disk utility. Quit any utilities that may have locked this drive, and then try defragmenting the drive again. ID No. DEFRAG00105
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q286810

• Defrag Error Message: ID No:DEFRAG00205
  Error Defragmenting Drive C:
  Windows cannot finish defragmenting this drive because it has encountered a problem. Click Help and carry out the instructions for running Scan Disk, and then try defragmenting again. ID No:DEFRAG00205
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q238165

• List of Articles About the Disk Defragmentor Tool
  This article provides a list of Microsoft articles that relate to the Disk Defragmentor tool
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q286263
  
  
• How Disk Defragmenter Reports Fragmentation
  When you run Microsoft Disk Defragmenter a second time immediately after defragmenting your hard disk, it reports that a small percentage of fragmentation still exists. -or- Disk Defragenter reports that it is unnecessary to defragment your hard disk if the fragmentation level is below 10 percent.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q124917
  
  
• Disk Defragmenter Err Msg: Error Defragmenting Drive C
  Error Defragmenting Drive C. Windows cannot defragment this drive now because it has been locked by a disk utility. Quit any utilities that may have locked this drive, and then try defragmenting the drive again.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q128960
  
  
• DriveSpace 3 Operation Fails if Disk Defragmenter Is Running
  If Disk Defragmenter is running on one drive and you try to use DriveSpace 3 in protected mode to upgrade another drive from DoubleSpace or Drive- Space to DriveSpace 3 or to uncompress another drive, you may receive the following error messages:
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q135934
  
  
• Disk Tools Run by System Agent Pause for User Input
  When System Agent runs one of the disk tools (Compression Agent, Disk Defragmenter, or ScanDisk), the tool may pause for user input. Typically, the tool is prompting for the drive on which it should run, or is waiting for you to click the Start button.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q135962
  
  
• Disk Defragmenter May Seem to Stop Responding
  When you run Disk Defragmenter, the progress gauge may not move for a long time, even though it seems that the hard disk is being accessed. In some cases, Disk Defragmenter may seem to stop responding (hang). This problem frequently occurs when Disk Defragmenter is between 5 and 10 percent finished.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q136836
  
  
• "Drive's Contents Have Changed: Restarting..."
  Message When You Use the Disk Defragmenter Tool
  When you run ScanDisk or Disk Defragmenter, the operation may restart when only a small percentage of the operation is finished and then continue to restart repeatedly, or the operation may take a very long time.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;186978
  
  
• How to Determine the Programs Disk Defragmenter Optimizes
  When Disk Defragmenter optimizes programs, it logs information about this optimization in a file named Optlog.txt. The Optlog.txt file is located in the Windows\Applog folder.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q186020
  
  
• Disk Defragmenter Hangs After Choosing Disk to Defragment
  The Disk Defragmenter tool may stop responding (hang) after you choose a disk to defragment.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q218160
  
  
• Correct Instructions for Disabling Screen Saver During Defrag.exe
  You can set Disk Defragmenter not to allow a screen saver to start if Disk Defragmenter is running. If you follow the steps, the screen saver may still start when Disk Defragmenter is running.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q229057
  
  
• Information About Defragmenting the Windows Paging File
  This article contains information about defragmenting the Windows 95/98 paging file.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q240755
  
  
• APC PowerChute Plus Causes Disk Defragmenter to Hang
  This behavior can occur if you are using APC PowerChute Plus 5.0 or 5.0.1. These versions of PowerChute Plus are designed for Microsoft Windows 95.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q259030
  
  
• Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter Processes Are Not Completed
  The process may stop when it is anywhere from one percent to 50 percent complete.
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q264746
  
  
• Windows Stops Responding When You Run Disk Defragmenter
  When you attempt to run Disk Defragmenter in Windows, your computer may stop responding (hang).
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q309460