On Windows Vista or 7, look for a program called Disk Defragmenter. However, you can still run it manually if you want. Beginning with Windows 7, Microsoft has built automatic defragmentation into the Windows operating system, so you don't have to worry about running it yourself. When we received your question, Neila, we realized that we couldn't even remember the last time we defragged a computer. Running a defrag will reorganize everything. This will make the computer start to run slow as it searches through your data. This works well, but things can become really messy after a while. You would never be able to find anything if you did that, but your computer can keep track of where it put things even if they are all over the place. Imagine opening a file cabinet and just throwing paperwork into it. When your hard drive stores data, it puts it anywhere there is space available, so it may sometimes put pieces of the same file in several different places instead of right next to each other.

When you defrag a hard drive, you're basically re-organizing the data on it so that it will run faster and more efficiently. Neila asks, 'How do defrag a computer running Windows 8.1? I can't figure out how to do it on my new laptop.'įor those of us who have been using personal computers for the past 20 or so years, defragmenting your hard drive used to just be part of life.

How to defrag in windows 8