Free to Defragment Hard Drive on Windows PC

Data stored to internal hard drive of Windows PC is not always stored together, but it may be stored to different clusters. In other words, when you write a file to internal hard drive on your computer, a part of the file might be stored at the begging of the hard drive, while the rest part of the file might be stored at the end of the hard drive. Along with more and more files being written to the hard drive, it produces lots of fragments. Too many fragments on a hard drive might lead your computer to run slowly because system spends time retrieving the fragments from the whole hard drive.

This article shares free methods to defragment hard drive on Windows computer.

Free to Defragment Hard Drive with Windows Defrag

Every Windows operating system has built-in defragmentation tool, which makes it easy for hard disk defragmenting on any Windows computer. For all Windows platforms including Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10, you can run Windows Defrag tool for partition defragmenting by following the guide below:

Step1. Open My Computer (or This PC on Windows 10). Right click the partition you want to defragment and select Properties.

properties

Step2. Click Tools tab and then click Defragment Now button.

defragment now

Step3. Click Analyze button to analyze the selected partition to show whether you need to defragment it or not.

analyze
Step4. Click Defragmentto defrag the selected partition.

defragment

Pay attention:

1. Do not write data to the partition during defragmenting.

2. Do not frequently defrag hard disk partition. If it says there is no need to perform defragment after analyzing, you had better not defrag the selected partition.

For different versions of Windows OS, it has some different methods to launch Windows Defrag tool to defrag hard drive.

Free to Defragment Hard Drive Windows XP

If your PC runs Windows XP operating system, you can run Windows defrag utility to defragment hard drive by following the steps below:

Step1. Click Start button > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

disk defragmenter

Step2. Select the drive you want to defrag and click Analyze button to see if the partition needs to be defragmented.

select drive to analyze

Step3. Click Defragment

defragment

Free to Defragment Hard Disk Partition Windows Vista / 7

To run Defrag tool on Windows Vista or Windows 7 for partition defragment, please follow the steps below:

Step1. Open Control Panel and select System and Security

system and security

Step2. Click Defragment Your Hard Drive

defragment your hard drive

Step3. Select the drive you want to defrag and select Analyze disk to analyze to see if it needs to be defragmented.

analyze disk windows 7

Step4. Once the analysis is completed, click Defragment disk to defrag the disk.

defragment disk windows 7

Free to Defragment Hard Drive Windows 8 / 10

On Windows 8 or Windows 1, you can start defrag utility to defrag hard drive by following the guide below:

Step1. Open Control Panel and select System and Security

system and security
Step2. Click Defragment Your Hard Drive

defragment your hard drive
Step3. Select the drive you want to defrag and select Analyze disk

analyze disk windows 8
Step4. Click Optimize

Free to Defragment Hard Disk from Command Line

In addition to Windows defrag utility, you can also run Command Line to defragment hard drive on your computer.

Follow the guide below to defragment hard disk partition with Command Line:

Step1. Open Command Line on your computer

==> Related Article: How to run Command Prompt>>

Step2. Type defrag.exe x: /a to analyze if the partition needs to be defragmented (x refers to the drive letter of the partition you want to defrag, e.g. defrag c:/a).

analyze from cmd

Step3. Choose an option for partition defragmenting.

==> To get more detailed steps to defrag hard drive from Command Prompt, please go to this page – Defragment hard drive from command prompt>>

Defragment Disk Partition with Freeware

You can use a free partition tool to defragment disk partition on Windows. IM-Magic Partition Resizer is a freeware which has the ability to defrag any disk by following the guide below:

Step1. Right click the partition you want to defragment and select "Defragment" option.