How to Defragment a Mac Hard Disk

When files get saved, changed, and erased, file attributes can get split up, or "fragmented," in your computer's disk space, slowing down your system. You can defragment your hard disk to get things up to speed again. The article refers to Mac OS 9 and earlier. If you are interested in Fixing File Permissions in OS X, please visit see related eHow in the Resources field.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Zip Drives (Iomega)
• Mac Hard Drive
• Mac OS 9.0

1. Copy the contents of your hard disk (usually just the documents) to an external drive, such as a Zip or optical drive.

2. Verify that the files have been copied safely.

3. Trash the files you copied.

4. Copy the files back from your external drive. They will come back to your hard drive defragmented.

Tips & Warnings

• Defragment your drive unsafely and you could lose data. It's a good idea to have backups of your important documents, whether or not you defragment.

Resources

• Fix file permissions on a Mac