Defragment your Hard Disk

Disk defragmentation is the process of gathering together the fragmented free spaces on your hard disk by compacting small files that have spread on your disk. This will allow your computer to process tasks at a faster speed.


Fragmentation occurs when the operating system is unable to allocate sufficient contiguous space to store a complete file as a unit and puts parts of it in gaps between other files (usually those gaps exist because they have previously stored file that has been deleted by the OS). Fragmentation can reduce the overall speed of your PC and decrease in performance

How to defragment your hard disk (Windows)

For Windows XP and other versions, the procedure is basically the same:

• Double-click My Computer, right click on the disk to defragment and then click Properties.
• Select the Tools tab and click Defragment Now

Using the command

It is also possible to run the defrag command line:

defrag c:-f

Tip: You can defragment faster forcing defragmentation pre-program:
1) Launch regedit
2) Go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

3) Right-click in the right window, "New"> "value chain"
4) Name it "Defrag"
5) Double-click it and enter: Defrag.exe c:-f
6) Restart Windows and log in.

Defragment only a file or directory

It is not possible to defragment a single file or a directory with freeware Contig from Microsoft:


For example, to defragment a file:
contig myfile.iso

This is useful eg for burning or for vmware virtual machines.

Defragment a directory (and subdirectories):
contig-s c:\windows\*.*

Defragment all files on the disk in the background (it does not slow down the computer):
start/low contig-s c:\*.*