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CheckDisk (ChkDsk) and Disk Defragmenter are two
utilities Microsoft provides with its operating systems for routine maintenance
on drives. Check Disk is a disk analysis and repair program you can
use to check your hard disk for logical and physical errors. ChkDsk
checks and fixes problems in the following areas:
- File Allocation Table (FAT).
- Long file names.
- File system structure (lost clusters, cross-linked files).
- Directory tree structure.
- Physical surface of the drive (bad sectors).
Make a backup before running ChkDsk. To start ChkDsk,
click Start, then Run. In the
Open box, enter cmd, then click
OK. A terminal window will open. At the prompt,
enter chkdsk, then press the [Enter]
key. If there are errors after the check is completed, contact the Computing
Help Desk at 646-2999 or your department's
computing support office. If there are no errors, enter
exit, then press the [Enter] key to close the
terminal window.
Disk Defragmenter is a utility that defragments files that have
been spread over a hard drive in non-contiguous sectors. This can significantly
increase the speed of your computer. You cannot defragment network drives,
assigned or substituted drives, or drives compressed with utilities other than
DriveSpace or DoubleSpace. You should make a backup of your
files before running Disk Defragmenter.
To start this utility, click Start,
Programs, Accessories, System
Tools, then Disk Defragmenter. Select the drive you
want to defragment. The utility shows you how fragmented the drive is, and
tells you whether defragmenting is recommended. Click Start if
you want to defragment the drive. This can take a long time! However, the
defragmenting can be stopped at any point.
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