Defrag my Computer

Hard disks, even with the fastest in commerce (above 7200 RPMs) often constitute the main 'bottleneck' to the speed of a computer. The time to access a particular cluster on a hard drive can be, up to thousand times slower than access the same amount of memory on a RAM dimm. When the hard disk is empty, the file system is free to write the files on the hard disk to an optimal location, but after a few deletes and rewrites, what will happen is that data related to the same application will be saved onto non continuous clusters. This means the hard drive head has to move around more, to get to the data, making data retrieval and update much slower.

When you run a defraging program, it rearranges all the files in a contiguous and optimal way, so to minimize the access time by the hard disk, thus reducing the 'bottleneck'.

Defraging a drive takes about 30 minutes, during which time you will not be able to use your PC.

It is worth noting that if your hard drive is near to full capacity it will be more prone to fragmentation.

Why should I defrag my computer ?

1. A fragmented drive is slower to read than a non-fragmented drive. The speed difference can be significant.
2. Your hard drive will be less prone to breaking if you defragment it regularly.
   

How frequently should I defrag my computer ?

You should check it every 3 months. The defrag program will show you how fragmented your drive is. If the fragmentation is less than 1 % you do not need to defrag your drive.

Defrag in Windows XP

Click Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

Click on the drive that you would like to defragment.
Click on the analyze button to see if you need to defrag your hard drive.
Click on defragment to defrag the selected drive.

Vista

Vista has a built in defragmenter that runs automatically.
You can open it by clicking: Start > Programs > Select the Control Panel Home >System and Maintenance > Under the Administrative Tools section at the bottom, click Defragment


Got a Linux PC?

I recommend that you download e2defrag and use that to clean up your drive.

Got a Mac?

Apple computers don't come with a free defrag program like Windows PCs, you will need to buy a program like iDefrag, to defrag a Mac. It is worth noting that the Mac OSx operating system is very resistant to fragmentation. So you might not need to defrag it.

Computer Backup and Restore XP Vista

What is the registry:

The registry is a list of all the software installed on your computer. Whenever you run a program Windows looks at the registry, to see what data needs to be loaded into memory.

It also stores all the computer user profiles as well as the hardware profiles.

Clearly your computer would not run very well without the registry as a matter of fact you couldn't even boot it up.

Why backup your registry:

The registry can get damaged, which means it will either make your computer run slowly or it will cause a crash, when you try to run some of your programs. If this happens you have 3 options: you can reinstall Windows and all your programs, you can rollback to an older version of your registry or you can use a registry cleaner to fix your registry.

How does the registry get damaged:

Sometimes programmers don't do a good job of coding the software that adds and removes entries to the registry. So over time as you install and uninstall programs the registry becomes larger and contains a lot of irrelevant data. This makes running programs slower and slower. In this case you will need to use a registry cleaner. Rolling back to a previous version of the Windows registry won't help.

If your computer gets infected with a virus or spyware, they can intentionally damage your registry. Even after you removed the malicious software, your registry would still be damaged.

When to backup your registry:

I would do it every two months, as well as before you install anything. Especially if what you are installing is a large program or something that's a little dodgy.

Import the registry:

Safest:

1. Under the Start menu select Run
2. Open Regedit and select OK
3. In regedit go to the File Menu and select Import
4. The import window will open.
5. In this window navigate to your registry backup file and click on it.
6. Select Open

Backup the Registry:

1. Under the Start menu select Run

In vista, you’ll need to hit winkey+R to open the Run box.

2. Open Regedit and select OK
3. In regedit go to the File Menu and select Export
4. The export window will open.
5. Under export range select All
6. Under file name, put an appropriate name.
7. Save as file type Registration Files (*.reg)
8. Click save