LostInTechnology

Schedule Hard Drives to Defragment Automatically

Posted on 25. Jun, 2009 by Brian.Ross in How To, Windows

Have you ever noticed that the more you add and subtract videos, documents, MP3s, pictures, games, and so on to your computer the slower it gets?  This is partly due to what known as fragmentation of your data.  Windows does a few funny things with your files when you uninstall and install programs all the time.

The easiest way to get your computer back up to speed is to defrag it.  Performing regular defragmentation of your hard drive will certainly improve your file and application load time.  However, in the hurry of our daily tasks we often forget about doing this, so here is a way to schedule your PC to do do it for you.

WARNING:  It is not recommend, nor is it necessary to defragment solid state drives, which includes flash drives.  Doing so may cause damage to the drive.

Scheduling an Auto Defrag in Windows XP

Open the Control Panel from the Start Menu, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click Scheduled Tasks.

Double click Add Scheduled Tasks to open the Schedules Task Wizard, and then click Next.Click Browse, navigate to the Windows folder, then the system32 folder, then double click on the defrag.exe file.  Use the wizard to set a schedule for when to run the defragmentation program.Check the box for Open advanced properties for this tasks when I click finish.  On the run line, add the drive letter for the drive to be defragged.  This will already be set to defrag drive c: by default.  Add others if necessary. Click ok.

Scheduling an Auto Defrag in Windows Vista & Windows 7

Open the Start Menu and in the white search box at the bottom type taskschd.msc and hit enter.  In the left pane expand the Task Scheduler Library, then expand Microsoft, then Windows, and finally click on the Defrag folder.

In the middle pane right click on ScheduledDefrag, then click Properties.  In the General tab check the Run with highest privileges box.Click the triggers tab, select the task and click the edit button to set the schedule time.Click the action tab to select more than the default C: dirve. Click ok.

(By) Brian Ross is technology enthusiast that can be found on Google and at his PC repair business.

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Tags: defrag, defragment, hard drive, schedule, windows vista, windows xp