Self Computer Maintenance: Part 3 Using the Defragmentation Tools

Greeting to all, to continue on this series another way of accessing the scan disk tool is by pointing your mouse on the my computer picture or icon then double click to access the item of the icon, then select the hard disk drive you want to be fixed. After selecting the hard disk point the mouse on the disk and press the mouse right button or just press the right click button. From here a menu will appear from that menu select the properties tab at the bottom of the menu and the dialog box for the my computer icon will appear. Then select the TOOLS tab which contain the Scan-disk, Defragmentation and Back-up tools. Then select Scan-disk and press start. Again if it needs to be scheduled then just followed the instruction on the screen.

Now after finishing the repair and diagnostic of the scan-disk, your hard disk is now ready for the defragmentation tools. Now you may ask, what the heck is that tool and what does it do. First of all your hard disk files tend to be fragmented from all those usage day in and day out. You sometimes notice that the response time of your computer has become increasing slow this past days, weeks and months. And your wondering what is going on with this computer, it seems fine, it boot-up well there was no error or problems encounter in its operations. But when i try to access my files they seems a bit slow and yes it boot up well but its a little bit slower compare last week or last months.

So what is going on inside there. Remember your hard needs to spin in order to work and to access data, during that operation sometime your file tend tend to be separated from its component. What????, well actually your file is compose of several parts which i not go into to detail because it will become to technical and will defeat the purpose of this blog. Just know that a file store on the hard disk has many parts okay, and this part seems to be separated from the whole because when where using our computer, some other files is also being used. And there are plenty of them. The job of the defragmentation tool is to correct this error so that you can access your files much faster or same as before. Its put the file most used in the hard disk location where is can be accessed easily and can be loaded mush faster, the other files that is not being used much is put on the farthest part, well something like that. The fragmentation of the hard disk as a whole and your files as well is also fix.

Image by jmehre via Flickr

Well anyhow before is actually begins the fixing of the problem, it first analysis your computer hard disk drive to see how large is the fragmentation. After doing this it will display a report about this in percent like telling you that your hard drive is 50% fragmented and its recommendation of proceeding with the used of the tool to correct this error. Oh i need to mentioned that when your going to this, you cannot used your computer while deffragging is going on. So this one need to be scheduled as well. Now how long will it take to do this stuff. Primarily it defends on your hard disk size and how much files is there to check. If you have a very large amount of files to check.

Image via Wikipedia

You can do this before you go home, set-it up and start the tools, of course leave it alone once it has begun to work. Just turn off the monitor of you computer and let it be. Another thing If this is your scheduled you report this to you Tech Support Staff so that they will now what your doing and can monitor your machine first thing in the morning. If  your going to do this on your home computer then scheduled it before you go to sleep. Just do as mentioned above and check it the next day to see if its done. I hope i was able to help you in this little way on how to used this tool which is available to you. You don't need buy other tool and software for maintenance purposes. This two will suffice. But again for a more serious problem you need to consult a qualified technician to help you out on your computer problem.

The Hard Disk Drive Part 2

As i mentioned on part1 of this blog. Your requirement is important in determining the size of your hard disk. I also mentioned the term IDE, EIDE and SATA, well this are just some of the technology involve in a total hard disk makeup. The other technology is the RPM or Revolution Per Minute.The WHAT?????. You see there are plates inside the hard disk, this circular plate is coated with a certain material that make it able to store your data. Now what is that material, you may ask. I will try to give a less technical explanation of that as i can. I need to maintain a less technical look for all this technical stuff so i can reach out to all the other people who does not need to understand a more technical terms and approaches. Now lets go back to the RPM. You see the plate inside the HDD needs to spin around in order to save and/or access the data or your information. If for somehow it cannot spin well then your hard disk is in a lot of trouble there something wrong with it and it needs to be replaced.

IDE Drive connector

The higher the RPM of your HDD the faster it can get your data. For example a hard disk with a 5400 rpm is slower than a 7200 rpm and vice versa. Other hard disk can have an RPM of 10,000. The standard rpm for regular hard disk is 7200. Also their is cost related, the higher the RPM the higher the cost of the hard disk. Yup that the truth of it, You may ask,what the different of a slower RPM than a faster RPM. Well in small files or simple application usage let says playing solitaire then there is not much differences in terms of performance of your hard disk. But as your requirement grows then you will begin to  notice that it taking a bit longer than the usual to get that files to run may favorite games or software, my music player suddenly takes longer to load, my computer seems a bit slower than before, and also a whole lot of things, you begin to notice.

Inside a typical Hard Drive

The RPM of the hard disk is also a factor in determining the overall speed performance of your computer. Its contribute to the the time your computer "BOOT" meaning the moment you press the ON switch on your computer it will do a self check. It examined itself to see if all the necessary parts for it to work properly is there and that they are working fine. Its check the keyboard if its connected and working properly, that why when you see the lights on your keyboard blinks it means its checking it and same  is true with your hard disk, because the hard disk is where the software the control the hardware that your computer to see if the hard disk is working fine and is properly configured. As soon as all of this is done, then its load the software that would control or use the hardware. Without the hard disk or if something is wrong with the hard disk on your computer then, the software will not load properly, but this is just one aspect of it. Whewwww there are a lot of them out there.

Okay back to the RPM of your hard disk, the size of the file or files that your intend to use is also a factor for a faster or slower RPM. You see the bigger the files, software and others, the slower its appear on your screen. This is the moment you click on that file the hard disk access it from the hard disk location. When it finds it then it load from the hard disk to the memory and then it appear on your screen. That the only time you can use that file. The faster it can access that location where your file is located the faster it can be loaded to the memory and the faster it will appear on your screen.

I hope i was able to help you in understanding the RPM and process the take place inside your hard disk and your computer when a files is accessed and how the RPM can contributes to the overall speed performance of your computer.