Speed Up Windows Vista by De-Fragging Your Hard Drive with Disk Defragmenter

What I like about Windows Vista is that it comes with a built-in application, called Disk Defragmenter, which will allow your hard drive to neatly and tidily organize all of the files that you have stored and scattered throughout your computer into a much more optimal fashion - allowing your PC to benefit from a very welcome speed increase during your everyday computer use. Just to clarify though: this feature was also available in Windows XP.

Why should I de-frag my hard drive?

I know, I know, you like your files just where they are but fortunately you don't have to worry about your everyday Microsoft Word, Excel, Spreadsheet and general business files suddenly vanishing and appearing in a different, unknown location that you have to track down. Oh no. Window's Vista Disk Defragmenter is so smart that it can move your files and organize them to a much more optimal standard and you won't even notice it has! As if by magic!

However, the reason why you should consider definitely defrag your hard drive is because when your hard disk attempts to read information located on your disk - it uses a 'head' to scour the disk for the necessary files it needs. If the files it requires are not organized properly then the hard disk will take longer to find the files because they will be located in different areas meaning that it could potentially have to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth across the disk and spend much more time tracking down the files it needs to.

What does Disk Defragmenter do?

Disk Defragmenter kindly goes to through of arranging files in a much, much more manageable fashion; making it a much easier task for your hard disk to access the files it needs and essentially speeding up your computer system by a massive extent.

Here is a snippet from the Windows Vista Help and Support page which further details just how Disk Defragmenter works:

Improve performance by defragmenting your hard disk
Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your hard disk can work more efficiently. Disk Defragmenter runs on a schedule, but you can also defragment your hard disk manually.

How do I run Disk Defragmenter / de-frag my hard drive?

So glad you asked. Simply click on your Windows Vista Start button and go to All Programs > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter as show below:

Upon doing so you will be presented with the following Disk Defragmenter prompt screen located below, simply select Defragment now and you're good to go!

It says it's "Defragmenting hard disks...", now what?

Provided you've followed all steps correctly - and I don't doubt you have - you should hopefully be looking at the screen which confirms that the hard drive defragmentation process is currently under way:

It could take anywhere from just a few moments to a few hours before the hard disk de-fragmentation process is complete. I'd recommend you go ahead and get comfy in front of the TV with a nice up of coffee while you wait. However, you're more than welcome to continue working on your computer if you wish - it is completely safe. Windows Vista will happily continue de-fragging your hard drive while you carry on surfing the internet, finish your homework, or complete that last detail of your business work without worry.