Doing a correct defragmentation!!.. is this step-by-step guide correct?!..

[Dance123]

Hi,

I have an old PC over here that runs Win95 and I want to do a good defragmentation on it, so please let me know if following steps are correct (I have also added some questions):

1. Clean up hard disk: what should be deleted? Are there things that HAVE to be deleted first? Do I really have to delete cookies cause if I delete them I will have to retype things when visiting sites which is annoying. Is it OK not to delete them?

2. Remove the swapfile: OK to restart or not?!

3. Disable running applications
4. Turn off your screen saver and remove your background
5. Run Scandisk.
6. Run defragmenter: is the win95 defragmenter good enough (it always says I got only 4% fragmented but I think it should be more after all those years, should I trust it or use another defragmenter)?!

Note 1: After defragmenting is done, should I best do a restart before resetting the pagefile and re-enabling the screensaver and background or not? What's the best procedure here?! Please explain..

Note 2: Can you regain harddisk space with a defragmentation or not? Please explain..

Note 3: sometimes my pc accesses the harddisk continiously for like a minute (rattling noise). Can a defrag do something against that cause I already have set my min. and max. disk cache to the same value using Cacheman.

Thanks to anybody who can help with all the above questions! 🙂

 

[Savarak]

1. ok not to delete
2. yes restart, it'll take a lot longer if you have less htan 128megs of ram
3. well, most running apps
4. screensaver off ok, no need to remove background
5. run scandisk
6. run defrag, should be ok
7. after defrag, reset pagefile is fine before or after restart... no real diff there
8. sometimes you regain some space(but not much... you're only regaining fragments of clusters)
9. not sure... more ram would help if the hd's accesses are for the pagefile...

I suggest going to WinXP... even a pii300 wiht 128 megs of ram can run xp faster and more stable than win95(trust me, I know.... my old laptop, even with a 4800rpm drive, works great with xp when properly tuned)

 

[Dance123]

Thanks for the info!

Actually, what is the point of defragmenting a drive if you won't regain harddisk space with it for instance? I've always been told to do this from time to time, but what does defragmenting really do/improve?!

By the way, how come after all those years not defragmenting the program still says only 4% is fragmented and I don't need to do it right now? Is the program correct and shouldn't I do a defrag cause it takes alot of time, but what will it improve?!!

 

[darktubbly]

Defragmenting doesn't save space, it just consolidates files on your disk so you can access them faster. If it's only 4% defragmented, don't bother.

There's a bit more information here.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

if a file is sequentially stored on a disk, it can read it very quickly. when space gets low on the hdd, it starts to store fragments of the file all across the disk. then when it needs to read that file, it is seeking all over the disk which can slow things down considerably. the defragmentation rearrages all the data to make as much of it as sequential as possible. the reason it recommends you have some free disk space when you start is so it has some wiggle room and temp space while it is shuffling the pieces.