Windows XP: POLL - How Often Do You Defragment and Why??

Defrag or not to Defrag

First let me point out that I use Diskeeper 9.0. It runs anytime the computer is idle. So pretty much if defrag every day.

Why do I use it or paid for this program? I have repair and service many computers. In the past, before spyware and virus, etc, people will call me asking me why their computer was slow. I will go and defrag their computer and it will run 50% faster. Of course this was before the 1.0 MHZ computer and large amount of memory and large hard drive. But this prove to me that is necesary. Now will fast CPU and large hard drive it is not very noticible, but still needed.

A hard drive is like a teenage room. All kind of stuff is throw everywhere and when is needed it takes a few minutes to find what they are looking for. Some people are neat and can find everything when needed. Some have to turn the house upside down to find the cars keys. Windows is like a teenage. Everything is pull from the hard drive to the memory when you request an action, but it never puts it back to the same place when you are done. So the next time you recall that file it will take an extra second to find it. Keep doing this without defrag and it will take longer and longer to get that file. I could explain with detail how this works and happen but it will take a long replay to explain it. But thrust me, defrag really, really help. But then some people does not like neat, they like chaos and it works for them.

(NT) Any advantage using safe mode?

Not true...

PCs can be defragmented in Safe or Normal Mode. Some say Safe Mode better compacts files, but it's much slower and involves running a command (Start>>Run>>msconfig), selecting Safe Boot from Boot files, shutting down and restarting, and Safe Mode boots up slower than Normal Mode, plus you have to repeat the command/shutdown/restart into Normal Mode to finish. You need plenty of patience and some skill to accomplish all this, and for all but the pickiest people, it's not worth the troulbe.

Oh, I forgot to mention...

I also run Steven Gould's free CleanUp program at least once a week. You would be surprised at how many Gigibytes this handly little program can recover over time (it keeps a running total of bytes saved).

ref: http://www.stevengould.org/software/cleanup/

Yeah, I know it has nothing to do with the poll, but if you are going to defrag, you might as well clean up your HD first!

how often to defrag in windows xp?

hi, normally if it is not done often it doesn't effect the operation of ur system.
but if defrag every atleast a fortnight/month then the disk space is utilised in a proper way,hence increase in disk space usage and better system speed.

As needed

If I make a DVD, especially if creating one from a tape, I'll perform a defrag because the program puts the video in a temp file during the process. Once it's done, it leaves a very large fragmented area if you believe the defrag analysis. If I uninstall a large program, like a game, I will also do a defrag.

I've done what I call tune-ups on people's computers. It includes cleaning out malware, temp files, TIF, removing programs from the startup group, doing a error checking/scan disk and defrag. After doing the defrag, I have noticed a slight improvement in performance if the computer is older with a slower processor or doesn't have adequate memory.