Disk Defragmenter - Open and Use

How to Use Windows 7 Disk Defragmenter​

   Information

Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Removable storage devices such as USB flash drives can also become fragmented. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your disks and drives can work more efficiently. While Disk Defragmenter can run on a schedule, this will show you how to open and use Disk Defragmenter to manually analyze and defragment your disks and drives in Windows 7.

   Note

• If the disk is already in exclusive use by another program, or if the disk is formatted using a file system other than NTFS file system, FAT, or FAT32, then it cannot be defragmented.
• Network locations cannot be defragmented.
• If a disk that you're expecting to see under Current status is not showing up there, it might be because it contains an error. You should try to repair the disk first with Disk Check, then return to Disk Defragmenter to try again.

   Warning

Solid State Drives (SSD) and USB flash key drives do not need to be defragmented. Doing so may shorten the lifespan of them.

OPTION ONE

Using "Disk Deframenter" in Windows 7

1. Open the Start Menu, and double click on to expand All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and click on Disk Defragmenter. (See screenshot below)
A) Go to step 3.
OR

2. Open the Start Menu, then type dfrgui into the search line and press Enter.

3. To Anaylze a Disk
NOTE: This will anaylze the selected disk to see what percentage fragmented it is. If the number is above 10%, you should defragment the disk. A) Select a disk, and click on the Anaylze disk button. (See screenshot below)
4. To Defragment a Disk
NOTE: Disk Defragmenter might take from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size and degree of fragmentation of your hard disk. You can still use your computer during the defragmentation process. A) Select a disk, and click on the Defragment disk button. (See screenshot below)
B) You will now see the disk being defragmented. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You can abort the defragmentation of the selected disk at anytime by clicking on the Stop operation button.
5. When finished, click on Close. (See screenshot below)

OPTION TWO

Run Defragmenter from Drive's Properties Page

1. Open the Start Menu and click on the Computer button on the right dark side.

2. Right click the hard disk drive that you want to check, and click on Properties. (see screenshot below)
3. Click on the Tools tab, and click on the Defragment now button. (see screenshot below)
4. You can now do either step 3 or 4 in OPTION ONE above.

OPTION THREE

Run Defragmenter in a Command Prompt

1. Do step 2 or 3 below for how you would like to run the defrag command.

2. To Use an Elevated Command Prompt in Windows 7 A) Open an elevated command prompt.

B) Go to step 4.
3. To Use a Command Prompt at Boot A) Open a command prompt at startup.

B) In the command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter.

C) In the command prompt, type list volume and press Enter.
NOTE: Make note of the drive letter that you want to run defrag on. The drive letter for the drive will not always be the same at boot as it is in Windows 7.

D) In the command prompt, type exit and press Enter.

E) Continue on to step 4.
4. In the command prompt, type in the following command below followed by one or more switches (flags) that you would like to use below with a space between each switch and press Enter.
NOTE: For example, the most common command to run defrag on your C: drive is:

defrag C: /F defrag [drive letter]: [switches]

   Tip

If you would like to defrag more than one drive letter at once, then you can just include as many separate drive letters in the command like below for the ones you want to defrag. For example, with drive letters C, E, and H.

defrag C: E: H: /F

Switches:
NOTE: The ones in red below are new to Windows 7.

• /A - Perform analysis on the specified volumes.
• /B - Boot optimization to defrags the boot sector of the boot volume (ex: Windows drive). This will not work on a SSD.
• /C - Perform the operation on all volumes.
• /E - Perform the operation on all volumes except those specified.
• /F - Forces defragmentation of the volume when free space is low.
• /H - Run the operation at normal priority (default is low).
• /M - Run the operation on each volume in parallel in the background.
• /R - Performs partial defragmentation (default). Attempts to consolidate only fragments smaller than 64 megabytes (MB).
• /T - Track an operation already in progress on the specified volume.
• /U - Print the progress of the operation on the screen.
• /V - Print verbose output containing the fragmentation statistics.
• /X - Perform free space consolidation on the specified volumes.

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Turn the Windows 7 Disk Defragmenter Schedule On or Off
• How to Run Disk Check in Windows 7
• How to Add Defragment to Context Menu in Windows 7 and Vista

 

[mistamontiel]

QUICK question. Yes, I am about to defrag the primary C:\. Amazing how I turned up 21% fragmented tonight. All the time I would only see a measly 2% not close to 10%. But 11% or over, defrag, I heard this

But..what's this SYSTEM that's listed in the GUI ?

 

[Brink]

Hello Alex,

SYSTEM appears that is may be another one of the factory recovery partitions. You could look in Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to help see more details about the partition though.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

Sorry to sneak in here Shawn, but I've been trying to help Alex, and was thinking it might be a proprietary OEM recovery console partition? Is that a possibility, as it is a mere 100MB

http://i.imgur.com/FTnQo.png

Also His C: boot drive is at like 95% full so obviously can't shuffle the defrag, so I advised he cleans house, with lots of suggestions, but I know you have a good tut somewhere about win 7 cleanup I referenced a day or two ago.

Thanks,
Mike

[EDIT] make that 98%+ full!

 

[sle3pingz]

when i analyze , is 3% Fragmented, 3% need disk defrag?

 

[Brink]

Hello sle3pingz,

With only 3% it's not really required or needed, but you still could defrag if you wanted to. Usually around 10% or more is a good amount to defrag with.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Isisflamedancer]

How EXACTLY do I type that command? I type it like I see it and all I get is "Microsoft Disk Defragmenter Copyright (c) 2007 Microsoft Corp."

 

[Brink]

Hello Isisflamedancer, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If you wanted to do this for you C: drive, then you would type this below in a elevated command prompt and press Enter. OPTION THREE in the tutorial can give you more details.

defrag C: /F

defrag[space]C:[space]/F

You could also use OPTION ONE or OPTION TWO to do the same thing if you didn't want to use the command prompt.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Isisflamedancer]

I tried to do that an it still isn't working. I can't run it normally because my computer is freezing unless I am in safe mode and I am trying everything to get it to work

 

[Brink]

You might see if you may be able to do step 3 in OPTION THREE to run it in a command prompt at boot.

In addition, you might also create a new thread about your computer freezing issue to see if we may be able to help with that. For now, you might see if the tutorial below may be able to help troubleshoot to see what may be a cause for the freezing since it runs fine otherwise in Safe Mode.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html

 

[joaodiogo321]

Hi everyone!

Im about to defrag OS HDD and have 2 doubts about what to put in the Command Prompt.

I already did the "defrag c: /b /h" (dont really know if you need the "/h"...)

Now i wanted to know if could use "defrag /c /x /h /w /v" or if I had to use:

1st- "defrag /c /h /w /v"
2nd- "defrag /c /x /h /v"

Thanks in advance.

 

[Brink]

Hello Joaodiogo,

You could use those with the switches you like, but I would also add /f as well. You might consider doing this at boot so the HDD will not be in use and prevent some areas from being defragmented. If you do it at boot, then you will not need the /h switch.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[joaodiogo321]

Hello Joaodiogo,

You could use those with the switches you like, but I would also add /f as well. You might consider doing this at boot so the HDD will not be in use and prevent some areas from being defragmented. If you do it at boot, then you will not need the /h switch.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks for the information.

What I really wanted to know in my second question was if I could use the /w and the /x at the same time and if it would perform both switches. For example, defrag /c /x /w /f /v

Does the /w include the /x?

 

[Brink]

Joaodiogo,

There's really no point in using the /w switch in Windows 7 though. The /w switch is described as "Performs full defragmentation. Attempts to consolidate all file fragments, regardless of their size." This implies that file fragments larger than 64 MB will also be optimized, but this is simply not the case in Windows 7 which ignores the larger chunks. You can read all about the benefits of this change in design in the Microsoft MSDN blog link below.

I would just use /x since /w will basically just be the same now in Windows 7.

Disk Defragmentation

 

[joaodiogo321]

Ok.

Thanks for your help. Very appreciated!

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[sle3pingz]

Brink, i want ask a few question , maybe it's weird ...
1. you say this before, do the defrag maybe at 10% +++ , if i do at 1 ~ 9% there's will be a problem ?
2. when i on defragmented process, can i plugged in charger? because my notebook is Low Bat / 7%, it will damaged our hardware or system if we plugged in when do a process like this (maybe defrag it's a hard process , i mean heavy process)

Thanks

 

[Brink]

Hello sle3pingz,

Q1) It will not cause a problem to defrag at 1 ~ 9%. You can if you like, but it's just more of a waste of your time since it's really not defragmented enough to spend time defragmenting it.

Q2) It makes no difference wether you are on battery or plugged in when you defrag. It would be preferred to be plugged in if it will take a long time to defrag though. You don't want the battery dying in the middle of defragging the HDD since that could cause issues.

Hope this helps.

 

[sle3pingz]

about Q2 , i don't see the battery, and i do the defrag, when the defrag almost done, i see the bat already appear warning at Low bat at 7% , that will damaged my HDD , Hardware or System if i plugged in the charger when the middle of defragging process? i mean by plugged in the charger is when middle of defragging process, not before the defragging, sorry for my poor english

 

[Brink]

Nope. It will not hurt anything at all.

 

[sle3pingz]

Nope. It will not hurt anything at all.

ok thanks, you understand about my Question right? i don't know how to simple explain, you know right? about my Q2 ?