MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-270): Installing ...

Lesson 5 Maintaining Disks with Disk Defragmenter, Check Disk, and Disk Cleanup
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Lesson 5: Maintaining Disks with Disk Defragmenter,
Check Disk, and Disk Cleanup
Windows XP Professional saves files and folders in the first available space on a hard
disk and not necessarily in an area of contiguous space. The parts of the files and folders
are scattered over the hard disk rather than being in a contiguous area. This scattering
of files and folders across a hard disk is known as fragmentation. When your
hard disk contains numerous fragmented files and folders, your computer takes longer
to access them because it requires several additional disk reads to collect the various
pieces. Creating new files and folders also takes longer because the available free
space on the hard disk is scattered. Your computer must save a new file or folder in
various locations on the hard disk.
Temporary files, Internet cache files, and unnecessary programs also take up space on
your computer’s hard drive. Sometimes there are file system errors, and sometimes sectors
on your hard disk go bad, which can cause you to lose data that you have stored
on your hard disk. This lesson introduces three Windows XP Professional tools—Disk
Defragmenter, Check Disk, and Disk Cleanup—that help you organize your hard
disks, recover readable information from damaged areas on your hard disk, and clean
up any temporary files and unnecessary programs taking up space on your hard drive.
After this lesson, you will be able to
■ Use Disk Defragmenter to organize your hard disks
■ Use Check Disk to search for and repair file system errors and to recover readable information
from bad sectors
■ Use Disk Cleanup to remove unnecessary files from your hard disks
Estimated lesson time: 60 minutes
How to Analyze and Defragment Disks with Disk Defragmenter
The process of finding and consolidating fragmented files and folders is called defragmenting.
Disk Defragmenter locates fragmented files and folders, and then defragments
them by moving the pieces of each file or folder to one location so that each
occupies a single contiguous space on the hard disk. Consequently, your system can
access and save files and folders more efficiently. By consolidating files and folders,
Disk Defragmenter also consolidates free space, making it less likely that new files will
be fragmented. Disk Defragmenter can defragment FAT, FAT32, and NTFS volumes.
You access Disk Defragmenter by selecting Start, pointing to All Programs, pointing to
Accessories, pointing to System Tools, and then clicking Disk Defragmenter. The Disk
Defragmenter dialog box is split into three areas, as shown in Figure 10-21.