How to Track the Disk Defragmenter in Vista
The Disk defragmenter program is an excellent computer optimization tool in Windows. As files get moved and deleted, disk space gets clogged up, slowing down disk access and making it more difficult for new files to be written to the disk quickly. Disk defragmenter cleans up these file fragments, but on large drives this can take a long time.
On older versions of Windows, you could display a graphical representation of the disk and watch while colored squares were moved around. Since this display added little value and actually slowed the process down, Microsoft has eliminated this display. It is, however, still possible to track the progress of the disk defragmenter in Vista.
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Instructions
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Start Disk Defragmenter by clicking on the "Start" button in the lower-left corner of the screen. Choose "All Programs," then "System Tools" and finally "Disk Defragmenter."
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Highlight the drive you want to defragment and click "Defragment Disk." Wait while the disk is analyzed and Disk Defragmenter begins.
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Look at the display under the heading named "Progress." This will show the number of passes and percentage of the disk that has been defragmented. The first two passes should be fairly quick, so wait until the third pass to get a good sense for tracking the defragmentation. Each pass will go through a process of relocation, defragmentation and then consolidation. If you stop the process at any time, you can see the amount of fragmentation found on the drive.
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Tips & Warnings
Click on "Analyze Disk" first to determine if the disk needs defragmenting, but it will go through the analyzation anyway. This process can be scheduled to run during the night by clicking on "Configure Schedule."
Depending on the disk size and level of defragmentation, this process can take a long time and will slow the computer down. It is best done during down time.
References
- Photo Credit Rigid computer disk. image by Yuri Bizgaimer from Fotolia.com
