Repairing disks.

I think you all know about repairing the disks on the computer, but I didn't know until yesterday and maybe one or two members are like me about such things. My Son was setting up my new printer and he asked me how often I repaired the disks, needless to say I didn't know what he was talking about. He explained (labouriously) that all the information becomes out of place after a while and has to be sorted out, if you don't do this every Month or so the computer starts to slow down and it takes longer to act. I had noticed it taking it's time to change pages, however he showed me how to do it and everything is tickity boo now.
Like I said everybody knows how to do it, but maybe someone doesn't and is wondering why their machine is acting sluggish.

Re: Repairing disks.

What your son was referring to is hard drive defragmentation, a process of putting all your ducks in a row. The only way your hard drive becomes fragmented is when you erase a bunch of stuff. This leaves blank spots where those deleted files came from. The next time you write/save something to your drive after erasing, the computer fills in the holes and "fragments" the data. The more fragmented areas the longer it takes your computer to find stuff.

Re: Repairing disks.

Thanks a lot Bob, I'm learning a little more every Day.

Re: Repairing disks.

Excellent explanation Bob, ever considered writing a book?

Re: Repairing disks.

I got in on the ground floor with personal computers while working for McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, Missouri. They were assembling an initial task team to help computerize the entire company and train the 80,000 employees. That was in 1978. I've been a bit of a computer nerd since then, building my own systems and training folks how to use them.

Re: Repairing disks.

Like most people I've used computers for years, but I have never had much interest in how they do what they do, just accepting the fact that they do. I'm pretty much the same with anything electrical though, it all seems like the black art really!

Re: Repairing disks.

Disc fragmentation depends on the age of your computer and the size of your hard drive.

If it is old and has a small, around 10/20/50 Gb hard drive then you will notice it more than if your computer is newer and has a hard drive around 160/200 Gb, I have over 2000 Gb so I will never feel the defragmentation for a long while.

Like Bob says, the defragmentation takes place when you delete/write/download things to your hard drive.

A Hard drive smaller than 100 GB needs to be defragmentated on a regular basis, about a month as your son says.
My computer is now 3 years old and has never been defragmanted but I just did a analysis and it is 1.6% fragmented.

Do a Disk Defragment check ( Start-accessories-system tools- Disk defragmeter) and if it is above 8/10 % on a drive of up to 150 GB then defragment it.

Another way to speed up your computer is to have an external drive(they run slower by the way)and keep your music,photo's etc stored on it so that your computers hard drive will run faster when starting up.

For a back up keep your files photos etc on a memory stick, a 8Gb will store thousands of files Depending on the size of them.

Re: Repairing disks.

Thats a good idea AB...putting some of my stuff on a memory stick, I bought two 8gb sticks recently at Lidi and have not used them yet. An external drive would only take up more desk space and have more wires, the Wife is always complaining about all the wires around the place.
Enter the Dragon.

Re: Repairing disks.

Nah - I haven`t defragged for years. Just get a bigger hard disk.
To speed up your PC first check how many programmes are running in the background (go to Programme Manager). It`s amamzing how much stuff gets installed by mistake.

Re: Repairing disks.

Think I could be wrong but from Vista onwards your computer does it automatically.

Other thing is to delete your TIF at least once a week