Www.AdviserXP.

com - Microsoft Windows XP Maintenance – Defrag

STOP ERROR TUTORIAL

December 13th 2007

By Ian Stuart Rutter - A+, N+, MCP

© 2007 Ian S Rutter All Rights Reserved

http://www.adviserxp.com/XP-maintenance.html

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Defrag locates and consolidates fragmented boot files, data files, and folders on local volumes of hard
disks.
It's always a good thing to defrag your hard disk or disks. When you save an image or a file or install a
program, Windows splits that file or program into small bits and places them on any free space that you
have on a hard drive instead of keeping the file or program together. That is why sometimes opening a
file or program can take a long time, because Windows is searching for the split parts so that they can
be loaded.
Defraging the hard disk tries to bring all those parts together or as close to each other so that loading
times are sped up.

Here are three ways of using Defrag.

Click on START, Run and type in the box dfrg.msc

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Now you will see the Defrag screen.

Highlight the Drive you want to defrag.
Click Defragment.

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Once you click defrag, it will analyze and then start to defrag the drive.

As you can see different colours mean different things.

You can analyze first, but you will usually choose this if this is the first time, or it has been a
long time since the last defrag operation. If you choose the Analyze option, then XP will tell
you if you need to perform the defrag action or not.
The whole operation may take sometime, depending on the size of your hard disk. (Now is a
good time to go off and make that fine cup of tea you have been promising yourself.)
.
After finishing you will see this.

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You now should notice a difference in speed when opening up programs.

(As he writes with confidence and a quick look to heaven.)

The second way of opening defrag is this.

START, Programs, Accessories, System tools, and Defrag.

You will then be presented with the defrag screen. Again you will be given the option on
which drive to speed up. Once chosen just click Defragment.
The third way of opening defrag and probably the way that gives you more screen for your money
than the others.
Go to My Computers and right click it. On the menu, choose Manage.

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Now this screen gives you all sorts of information. (Very exciting!)

On the left in the panel, you have System Tools, Storage, and Services and Applications.
Under Storage, click on Disk Defragmenter.

Easy! You just do as the first part of this tutorial explains.

If you keep up with this basic maintenance, then you will keep Windows XP very happy and your
system up and running.

Extra stuff!!
If you choose Start, Run, and type cmd you will have a black screen open up, this happens to be a
simulated DOS window environment.
In the old days, before these fancy Graphical User Interfaces, we only had black screens and white
letters to play with, but, it was FUN! (Sorry. Thinking of the good old days.)
Here you will see C:\Douments and Settings (you Logon name) and a flashing line. That is what we call
the cursor. (No. Not some bad luck attached to your system.) This C:> is telling you where Windows
XP is installed, the C Drive.

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From here you can start to do some extra stuff with the program.
Do you see what I have written to start the utility off. Do the same then choose the syntax you want.
Remember, this command line you can add some syntax commands.
(The /a /v /f syntax commands are just showing you how to
type them in.)
These are:
defrag volume volume is the hard drive or partion letter. C:, D:, E: F: etc
defrag volume [/a] Analyzes the volume and displays a summary of the analysis report.
defrag volume [/a] [/v] Displays the complete analysis and defragmentation reports.
defrag volume [/v]
defrag volume [/f] Forces defragmentation regardless of whether it needs to be defraged.

/a : Analyzes the volume and displays a summary of the analysis report.

/v : Displays the complete analysis and defragmentation reports.

When used in combination with /a, displays only the analysis report. When used alone,
displays both the analysis and defragmentation reports.

/f : Forces defragmentation of the volume regardless of whether it needs to be defragmented.

/? : Displays help at the command prompt.

Remember
To defrag, you must have at least 15% free space on the volume for defrag to completely and
adequately defragment it. Why? Because Defrag uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments.
If a volume has less than 15% free space, defrag will only partially defragment it. To increase the free
space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk.
Defrag will not defragment volumes that the file system has marked as dirty, which indicates possible

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corruption. Run chkdsk first on a dirty volume before running defrag. You can determine if a volume
is dirty by using the fsutil dirty query command.
By default, defrag displays a summary of both the analysis and defragmentation reports if you do not
specify the /a or /v parameters.
You can send the reports to a text file by typing >filename.txt, where filename.txt is a file name you
specify. For example:
defrag volume /v >filename.txt

To interrupt the defragmentation process, at the command line, press CTRL+C.

Enjoy!
Stuart – A+, N+, MCP
www,adviserxp.com