<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd'>; <html><head><title>Article Directory Online : Free Online Article Submission - Articleonlinedirectory | Hard Drive Maintenance</title></head><body><h3>Hard Drive Maintenance</h3><br /><br />By: <br /><br /><p>Files are often broken up and stored on various locations of the Hard Drive. How does this happen? Original files are written and stored unbroken, but as they are expanded, the additional parts are saved on the next spot on the disk. As old files are deleted, gaps appear in the files on the disk. When another file is stored on the drive, it is broken into pieces and stored in the gaps left by the old files. Hard drive must skip around to connect all the file parts causing undue wear and tear on the individual parts of the hard drive. Defragmenting the hard drive corrects this problem. The exception to these problems are solid state drives which have no moving parts. These solid state drives have a limited number of times that may be read or written. It is foolish to waste these times while defragmenting the drives. Therefore it is never advisable to defragment a solid state drive.<br /> <br /> The first step to defragmenting is to clean up the hard drive. If a file needs to be deleted, it should be deleted and have time and energy on its fragmentation. Eventually, when these files are deleted, their absence will lead to further fragmentation.The most popular way to clean a disk is select the properties of the volume in an explorer window or disk management. On the general tab, there is a button for disk cleanup. The system will perform a quick analysis and respond with a list of options that may be chosen to free space on the drive. The options are to delete files in various locations or possible to compress old files. After the choices are made, the user chooses to "clean up system files." Sometimes after this is done, an additional tab will appear to offer to remove old programs and all but the last restore point. These options may harm required functionality of computer should not be considered by the novice.<br /> <br /> Another important option is to perform housekeeping. The automated process run by the machine will not recognize the files the a user might understand as no longer useful. Often we download files that while important at the time, have resided on our computers much longer than their usefulness. While regular deletion of unneeded files may make for a clean desktop, the user's ability to find and delete the files specified in the automated process is nigh impossible. So it is best to run both of these methods.<br /> <br /> A user may also explore the drive and manually delete files one by one. This deletes files that would be missed by the automated process. This method is a great way to perform simple housekeeping but, it is important to understand that the automated process will often delete files that the user would never likely find. This method is labor intensive, but is often as important as the automated methods. Users often accumulate clutter that they felt important at the time, but has long outlived its usefulness.<br /> <br /> When all this is completed, the hard drive is ready to be defragmented. Defragmenting even has more than one way to be performed. Either real time or through task scheduler are acceptable for the command defrag.exe. It comes with many switches where options may be specified. The properties of the drive has a much more user friendly method. The tools tab contains a "defragment now" button. A new window will appear where the drive may be analyzed and, if necessary, defragmented. The appearance varies by operating systems but, is available on all Windows operating systems. The computer should not be used while it is defragmenting. Use of the computer during this time may complicate the process and lead to further fragmentation. A regular routine of these simple programs will extend the lifespan of nearly and hard drive.</p> <br /><br /><b>Author Resource:-></b> Heres a free video of me <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw36o0tnj2U>extending hard drive life</a> by performing these actions.<br /><br /><b>Article From</b> <a href='http://www.articleonlinedirectory.com/'>Article Directory Online : Free Online Article Submission - Articleonlinedirectory</a><br /></body></html>
