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Defragmentation Questions

How often should I run defrag?

This is a commonly asked question with a difficult answer as every computer and computer user is different. We generally recommend that defrag be ran at least once every 2-3 months. If the computer begins to run slowly running defrag will also often help with performance issues.

Will running defrag a lot cause physical problems?

Defrag is a software utility designed to arrange the data on the hard disk drive. Defrag will not cause any physical problems to the hard disk drive regardless of how many times it is run.

Which versions of Microsoft Windows have defrag?

Defrag was first introduced in MS-DOS 6.0 and was also available in all versions of MS-DOS after this version. Users who had these versions of MS-DOS with Windows 3.11 could also run defrag. Defrag was also available in Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Although each version of Windows has their own version of defrag because of the different file systems and properties of the operating systems.

How do I run Windows defrag?

Additional information about defrag as well as how to run it can be found on our defrag help page.

Defrag seems to lock up at 10%.

This is normal as long as it continues to work, because of the data structure many computers spend a good amount of time at or around 10%.

Defrag restarts and never completes checking the hard drive.

This issue is caused when other programs or files are being accessed in the background as defrag is being ran. If defrag detects any type of a file change while being ran it will restart.

To resolve this issue make sure all other applications are closed and that any TSR programs are also closed. Additional information about TSR programs can also be found on document CHTSR. If doing this does not resolve your issue you can also run defrag through safe mode. Additional information about how to run defrag through safe mode can be found on document CHSAFE.

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