
How to Fix Hard Drive Problems with Windows
Author: Amit Mehta
If you're working on a Windows operating system, especially if you've had your PC for a few years, you're bound to experience hard drive problems at some point or another. Computer lag or PC slowing and overall decrease in performance are good signs that your hard drive needs to be spiffed up to get your PC running like new again. This article teaches you how to fix hard drive problems with Windows operating systems.
Getting Started Fixing Windows:
First off, let's delve a little bit into why your PC's hard drive gets so cluttered and disorganized after years of use. Every program or software you install or download onto your computer is saved onto your hard drive. All of the files, subfolders, and components are saved in their own folder on your default hard drive (usually the C: drive).
When you uninstall or remove a program from your PC, smaller files are often left behind while main components are removed. This leaves gaps in the space on your hard drive (like removing random books from a shelf at a library).
The next program you install on your PC then has to be broken up, or fragmented, to fit into these spaces because your hard drive does not compress files as they are removed and added. This leaves gaps and fragmented files littering your hard drive, as well as unneeded and unused files.
Purging Files:
To purge unneeded files from your PC and remove unused programs, you will be using the Disk Cleanup Windows utility. To access Disk Cleanup, go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. This tool will first scan your PC's hard drive and locate all unused, unneeded, and duplicate files for you to delete as well as old files that can be compressed to safe disk space.
Cleaning up your Hard Drive:
To clean up your hard drive, you will be using the Disk Defragment Windows utility. To access Disk Defragment, go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragment. The Disk Defragment tool will defragment files on your hard drive, organize all whole files, and then compress the files into one contiguous space where new files are added to the end and are not broken up into the gaps formed during defragmentation.
After completing these steps, your hard drive will be nice and clean, you will have more free space, and your PC will be noticeably faster and overall performance will have increased.










