Defrag

By Joshua Erdman and Jesse Franklin
Digital Foundation, inc.

Defrag is a commandline utility that comes with Windows XP. It is very simple to use just type in the command and then the drive letter you want defragmented. Keep in mind that you must have some free space on the drive for this to work.

You can also use the Disk Defragmenter Windows Tool that also happens to be an MMC snap-in. Before you run this feature you will see an option to Analyze. This will allow you to see just how fragmented your computer is. After seeing this you will understand why it could take up to three hours for your system to defrag.

One thing that you might notice while using the Defrag utility is that you may have a message that will pop up every few minutes. It will say that your computer is currently running other processes that cause the Defrag to restart. Since Defrag changes the bits of data on your hard drive, it does not allow other programs to run at the same time. This is why it is always good to run Defrag in 'Safe Mode'.

Safe Mode is a state that your computer can run in with nothing else running except the critical system files and drivers needed for your operating system. When you boot your computer in safe mode you will see the words .Safe Mode. written in all four corners of your screen. The only way to get out of safe mode is to restart the computer. To boot your computer in safe mode you will need to first, either turn on your computer or restart it if it.s already on. For Windows 98 and 2000 booting in safe mode is done by pressing the F8 key before Windows begins to load.

Diskeeper

Diskeeper is an advanced defragmentation utility. It comes with Scheduling, Push Installation, and is much faster.
Read the article.

Contig - SysInternals

For you NT4.0 and Win2k users there is a free defrag utility made by SysInternals.com called Contig. It will run on NT4.0 and newer but not any of the Win9X platforms. With it you can be more grangular in the files you want defragged instead of just specifying a drive letter.

contig -a -s *.*
Contig will analyse all files and subfolders on the current harddrive and display a fragmentation summary.

contig -s *.*
Contig will defragment all files and subfolders on the current harddrive.

Article last reviewed: 11/15/2005

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Created by: Digital Foundation, inc.

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