“May I ask how a computer cleans and defragments its disks? A laptop that has been in use for 4 years only has one mechanical hard drive (1TB), and the C drive is almost full. Now the startup speed is very slow, and the speed of opening files and software is also very slow. First, I want to clean up the junk files on the disk to increase free space. Then, I heard from a friend that disk defragmentation can improve the performance of a computer, and I plan to tidy up the disk after releasing some space. May I ask all the experts how to easily clean the disk and defragment? Thank you.”
“Help!! There are many files saved on the hard drive (mechanical) and it is already full. According to online reports, if the remaining space on the hard drive is too small, the speed of running applications will be slow, and disk defragmentation is also difficult. It is necessary to maintain more than 15% of available space. So, if you want to clean the disk and run the disk defragmentation program, how do you clean the disk and defragment it? Is there a detailed tutorial? Thank you!”
The hard drive is full
Disk defragmentation retrieves all parts of each file and stores them in the same location, putting together unused space on the hard drive. Disk defragmentation is like sorting and organizing items in a storage cabinet, grouping boxes of the same category together, and all boxes in the room are neatly stacked. Can read disks and retrieve required files faster, improving computer performance.
If the remaining space on the hard drive is too small, disk defragmentation is difficult and runs slowly. Before organizing disk fragments, we can first perform disk cleaning, delete useless files, and increase free space, which will speed up the defragmentation process. The following are methods for cleaning and defragmenting disks.
Stage 1: Cleaning the Disk
How to clean and defragment disks? We can clean up the disk to free up disk space through the following methods.
Method 1: Disk Cleanup
When the disk space is full, we can use the built-in “Disk Cleanup” application in the Windows system to clean up the disk space.
- Enter “Disk Cleanup” in the search box, and then click “Open”.
Disk Cleanup
- Select the drive you want to clean. Then click “Confirm”.
Select the drive to clean
- After selecting the items that need to be cleaned, click the “OK” button to complete the cleaning
Check the items that need to be cleaned up
Method 2. Empty the Recycle Bin
After deleting a file, it usually remains in the recycle bin and also takes up disk space. You can empty the recycle bin to free up disk space by following the steps below.
- Right click on the recycle bin and select “Empty Recycle Bin”.
- It will pop up a warning box asking if you are sure you want to permanently delete the item, click “Yes” to empty the recycle bin.
Empty Trash
Method 3. Delete hibernation files
Hibernation files may occupy a large amount of disk space. Therefore, in order to obtain more available disk space, you can delete the hibderfile.sys file. The following are the specific steps:
In the search box, enter “cmd”, right-click on the command prompt in the listed results, and select “Run as administrator”.
Run as administrator
In the pop-up window, enter powercfg.exe – h off and press enter.
Powercfg.exe – h off
Stage 2: Organizing Fragments
How does a computer clean and defragment disks? After cleaning the disk, this article provides two methods for organizing disk fragments. You can choose the appropriate one according to your needs.
✍ Note: Solid state drives (SSDs) do not require defragmentation, and defragmentation may affect the lifespan of SSDs.
Method 1. Windows comes with a built-in defragmenter
Windows comes with a built-in defragmenter that can automatically recognize hard drives and defragment mechanical hard drives, optimizing solid-state drives.
- Click on the search bar in the bottom left corner of the computer, enter “Defragmentation”, select “Defragmentation and Drive Optimization”, and click “Open”.
Defragmenting and optimizing drives
- Select the partition you want to defragment and click “Optimize”.
optimization
Method 2: Professional disk management software
Aomei Partition Assistant, a professional disk management software, can also help us organize disk fragments. Its “Disk Fragmentation” function has a simple and easy to understand graphical interface, which helps us easily understand and organize fragments. And it is also possible to enable regular automatic optimization of hard drives through scheduled organization settings.
Hurry up to the download center to download and install the Aomei Partition Assistant!
- Start the Aomei partition assistant. In the left menu of Aomei Partition Assistant, click “Disk Defragmentation”.
Disk Defragmentation
- After the disk defragmentation window opens, select the partition that needs to be defragmented, and then click the “Organize” button to defragment the disk and wait for completion.
arrange
✍ Note: If you are a solid-state drive, the software will pop up a message indicating that the solid-state drive does not need to be defragmented. You can click “Yes” and continue analyzing and organizing fragments, or click “No” to exit.
epilogue
The above is a solution to how to clean and defragment disks. I hope this article is helpful to you. It is recommended to regularly perform defragmentation. When defragmenting a disk, please close the screen saver and unrelated applications, and let the computer only run the disk defragmentation program to prevent data loss.
