Backup for system volumes can be performed with a number of applications. However, retaining the self-booting functionality of a volume can be difficult to achieve using conventional tools. XXCLONE is an application for copying your system volume to another, while retaining self-booting functionality. Using this application, you can even boot your system from the clone volume by swapping the disks. This can be particularly useful for disaster recovery, when the primary volume may have become redundant. XXCLONE is capable of copying data to and from FAT and NTFS volumes. It even supports USB drives, PATA and SATA. You can perform periodic backups with XXCLONE, or opt for a one-time disk upgrade/migration. Since XXCLOE copies files and folders, therefore, you can remain logged into Windows during the cloning process and also perform other usual tasks on your PC. XXCLONE also provides additional tools for duplicating the Volume ID, to repair non-bootable disk, creating batch files, etc.

To clone disk, select a source and destination volume and select a backup mode (backup the entire volume by copying all files from scratch, backup incrementally, backup Windows key directories or transfer system registry without file backup). Click Start to proceed further. You can also enable logging and debugging from the Advanced Settings tab.

You will be provided with a warning message, and informed if your selected backup mode will delete the data in the destination drive. After you click Yes, the backup process will initiate.

You can also benefit from the various tools provided by XXCLONE, which allow you to create a bootable target volume, add a test boot file in the source volume, duplicate volume I.D., create batch files, schedule tasks and manage restore point options.

XXCLONE works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Download XXCLONE

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Disk cloning tools are designed to transfer huge volume of data from one disk to another. You can however manually copy drive’s data to other drive but disk cloning tools ensure that data will not be lost during the transfer process. HDD Raw Copy Tool, unlike other tools which use Windows Volume Shadow Copy technology to clone disks, implements low-level sector-by-sector disk duplication of disk to assure that all the data on the disk will be transferred to defined location. In addition to applying robust copy mechanism, it supports a wide range of local and removable storage mediums, including, SATA, SCSI, SAS, USB, FIREWIRE, LBA-48, Flash Cards, SD/MMC, pen drives, SmartMedia, etc., while having the ability clone SSD drives manufactured by Intel, IBM, Quantum, Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi, and Kingston.

Apart from creating Raw copy of disk, it can write compressed image of the entire media, including the service data (MBR along with other Boot Records) as well. HDD Raw Copy Tool could be used where you are trying to recover lost data from the disk; creating an exact copy through it and then recover data from copied version may help you recover more data while original disk will remain untouched. On main screen, choose the source disk which you want to clone followed by target disk drive.

Disk Management Console link on main interface is given for the distribution of data and logical drives on disks. Click Start button to begin sector-by-sector disk copying process.

HDD Raw Copy Tool works on client and server editions of Windows OS. Both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows OS editions are supported.

Download HDD Raw Copy Tool

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• Disk Space Fan Is Awesome Eye-Candy Disk Analysis Tool

Disk space usage analyzers are developed to quickly view all those folders and files which are taking big chunk of total disk space. Since it’s near impossible to check which folder or sub-folder contains hefty files manually, you must use an application which can instantly analyze specified disk paths for used space. Folder Size is not that much feature-rich compared to recently featured DiskFerret and rule-based DiskBoss, but takes a novel approach to analyze total disk space usage. It shows space usage of selected folder on dynamic Pie and Bar charts, making it easier for you to view heavy folders instead of reading space usage statistics off the screen.

Contrasting to other disk analyzers, it focuses more on giving space usage details in different data size units, including, Bytes, KB, MB, and GB. This enables user to promptly find out smallest files without having to scroll down the space usage report in order to view tiny useless junk files.

The application usage is simple. First, choose the drive from main navigation bar present in left sidebar, choose a folder which is to be analyzed and click play-imaged button on toolbar to start the space usage analysis process. It will start listing down underlying sub-folder and files in main window with histograms showing the total disk space usage percentage for each listed file and folder.  Underneath it, you will find chart area, where you can switch between Pie and Bar chart view. By default, the animated chart preview option is enabled, however, you can disable it to view chart without any animations.

Upon clicking folder part on Pie and Chart, you will see the all the contained sub-folders and files in main window, displaying the distribution of disk space usage of selected folder.

Apart from doing deep folder space usage analysis, you can quickly select any disk drive from pull-down menu present above the navigation bar to check which root folder is taking more than expected space.

Finally, you can export current folder and disk space usage chart image in JPG format from File menu. The Options window lets you enable or disable error logging and customize columns present in main window.

It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7.

Download Folder Size

You can also check out Disk Space Fan, a visually appealing disk space usage analysis tool.

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It often happens that suddenly a system stops responding, leaving users with no idea if the disk is running or something has ceased its working. Since Mac systems don’t have disk LED which can show the current disk activity, having a tiny application which can fill this void would certainly come handy. Disk LED is miniscule application which puts disk LED in Mac menu bar, so users can quickly check if disk is responding to requests or not. Disk LED can check the disk state in real time. Alternatively, you can customize the disk check update time and stretch the refresh interval rate to 1 second. By default, it checks only system disks but can be enabled for checking removable devices activity.

Once Disk LED is downloaded, it will put a small black icon in menu bar, showing the current disk activity. However, from Settings window, you can choose an icon set from the given list. The icons are highly dynamic in terms of showing the disk activity. Disk LED allows you to load custom set of disk activity exhibiting icons. Just click Load customer set and pick the custom icon set to replace the default icon set. It works on Mac 10.6.6.

Install Disk LED from App Store

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Running out of disk space? Maybe, it’s time to check which folder in local drive is taking more space than expected. If you don’t rely on Windows native Disk Cleaner, go for a disk space usage analyzer to get an overview of folders used space, so you can delete the superfluous content from enormous sized folders. RidNacs is a one-click disk space analyzer which integrates with Windows right-click context menu, allowing you to analyze space consumed by any selected folder with a single click. It compiles an analysis report to review the used space of specified folders with an option to save report in HTML, CSV, TXT and XML format. It can also be used to verify space usage of remote locations in order to know which folders are taking space on server.

Once installed, you can either right-click any folder and select Analyze Disk Space Usage With RidNacs option to view detailed folder space usage or choose to specify folder which is to be analyzed for disk space usage from main interface.

The main screen shows all the contained files and sub-folder(s) of specified folder with histogram for each file / subfolder, exhibiting the total space acquired. A right-click on file/folder presents Windows native right-click context menu to perform actions over it, including, cut, copy, delete, send to, etc.

Once you’ve performed the operation over selected files and sub-folders, click refresh button in toolbar to re-check the disk space usage of folder. By default, it groups files which are less than 1MB in size. However, from Preferences, you can define the file grouping method and change the Percentage bar style.

The application undoubtedly offers a quickest way of analyzing disk space usage. If you’re looking for a tool to view disk space usawge on macro level, try Disk Space Fan.

Download RidNacs

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Want to know which local or remote drives and folders are taking more space and analyze the disk space allocation report by variety of parameters? Try out DiskSavvy. It is an advanced disk space analysis tool with many features to give in-depth file/folder and drive space analysis report. In the past, we have featured some nice disk space analyzers with major focus was on performing quick analysis of specified locations with eye-candy UI, one prominent example is Disk Space Fan . DiskSavvy capitalizes more on giving user insight into the space which are being consumed by folders and drives. What sets it apart from previously covered tools is the fact that it can analyze disk space by several parameters, including, by Extension, File Size, Access Time, Modification Time, User Name, Type and so on, with an ability to generate report in both pie and bar chart to visually analyze disk space by any of selected parameter.

DiskSavvy is also loaded with some useful plugins to create disk space classification report for performing simple operations like copy, move and delete folders quickly according to the consumed space.

To begin analyzing the folders and disks, click Analyze button on the toolbar to specify locations (local and remote), disks and folders. Before clicking Start button, move to Exclude and Options tab to exclude any special locations which you don’t want to be analyzed and to set processing speed, resultant report title, and method (Sequential or Parallel) respectively.

Once the settings are in place, click Start to begin analyzing the disk space. While the analysis is being performed, it shows the number of total files along with total space of selected locations, processing time and overall performance of analysis operation.

After the analysis is finished, it will list down all the underlying folders with histograms showing the total space consumed by each folder. From the bottom pane, click the pull-down menu to categorize listed folder by aforementioned parameters.

The application comes with various classification plugins to classify the folders which you’ve analyzed. On the main toolbar, click Classify, choose the plugin, and hit OK to view the classification report. Moreover, you can instantly create backup or move the hefty folders from the original location to external storage drive, view classification in chart form and delete the selected folders.

Coming back to main interface, the detailed report of disk analysis can be viewed by clicking Chart button. You can copy the report to clipboard to share it with others, visually scan the space consumption by disk space and number of files per directory, and switch between Pie and Bar chart.

The free version is limited to 100,000 files or 1TB of storage. The pro version can remove this limitation and costs $10. It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Download DiskSavvy

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Benchmarking tools help user in testing several internal and external peripherals of computer system. Finding one complete benchmark tool which can test all the hardware and software specific capacities is a bit difficult, as many benchmark tools come with a different set of tests and configurations. As far as system testing is concerned, you must not be worried about more than 3 computing abilities, which are, CPU speed, memory, and data transfer rate. QwikMark is developed to test these basic computer abilities. It enables you to check CPU speed, CPU Flops, Memory bandwidth and Disk transfer rate while showing information on CPU, Main memory, and GPU memory under one window.

There isn’t much to talk about QwikMark, suffice to say that it can show basic system details with an option to measure CPU, memory and disk performance. Just launch the application to get information about the CPU family, type, speed, cores, installed RAM, current OS version, etc. Underneath it, there are some performance test listed that you can conduct separately. However, you can test all the functions in one go by clicking Run All Tests.

To start a separate test, click Run button which is present next to each benchmark testing option, including, CPU Speed, CPU Flops, Mem Bandwidth, and Disk Transfer. For Disk Transfer test, you have option to choose the disk that is to tested for checking transfer rate. The results are shown in the output field adjacent to each benchmark option.

We reckon that data transfer test of large disks must be conducted in the end, as it might take much of your time. It works on Windows, XP, Windows Vista, and Window 7.

Download QwikMark

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Do you have enormous collection of movies, music, or TV shows which you want to keep track on? Users having such a large collection of disks will tell you how difficult it is to manage and keep track on them. In most cases, one forgets which disk was lend out to family or friends, making it further difficult to find it.

My Disk Collection is a small application to keep track of your physical media which solves the exact problem mentioned above. It also allows you have a quick overview of your media collection.

There are built-in entries for the disc types and status which helps user manage the collection faster. You will find nine different entries for Disk Types – DVD, Blu-ray, HD DVD, UMD, Laser Disc, VHS, CD-1, CD, and Other. On the other hand, there are three entries for status of each disk type – In (which you already have), Out (which have been lend to family and friends), and Ordered (which you have ordered).

Items can be added or deleted by using simple buttons provided at the bottom right of the main interface. You can export the data to spreadsheet or in HTML format so that one can easily use the database with programs like Excel. It also shows informative statistics about your media collection.

It comes with some skins which are not too good if you ask me (stick with the default one). It runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download My Disc Collection

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We have covered material regarding Disk defragmentation in the past, you may check one of the important posts for Windows 7 disk defragmentation here. No doubt Windows 7 has many added features in comparison to Windows Vista and XP, one of them is the Advanced Disk Defragmentation feature, now you may easily perform common disk defragmentation tasks from the command line as well.

Now first of all launch the command prompt by clicking Start and then type cmd and press Enter. The command prompt will be loaded, now you may run the defrag command to perform the necessary operations. But you will need to use different switches with the defrag command in order to perform different tasks relevant to defragmentation. Simply type defrag and hit enter, Windows will then list down all of its available options(also called the switches).

Now let me tell you some of the common options which you may use with the defrag command to perform disk defragmentation.

defrag  /r    Defrags multiple drives simultaneously

defrag –a     Performs the disk defrag analysis

defrag –v     Prints the defrag results

defrag –w    Defrags each and every thing

defrag C: -v –w    Defrags the whole C drive

For example, here I executed the disk defragmentation analysis command (defrag -a) on my C drive successfully.

The core benefit of performing the disk defragmentation via command line is that the speed of the disk defragmentation process is exceptionally fast. Enjoy!

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The defragmentation process searches your disk partitions and makes sure that the stored files are in one contiguous piece which results in better system performance. If you want to maintain your file system then the easiest and perhaps the most important way is that you should routinely defrag your drives. The windows 7 has improved disk defragmentation utility which gives users more control over defragmentation tasks. The most important features of Windows 7 defragmenter is that it lets you safely terminate the defrag process any time without any adverse effect and can defrag multiple volumes at the same time.

Note: Also check out a 3rd party advanced tool called Auslogics Disk Defrag, it is much faster and performs better.

Lets explore how to do it in Windows 7. Launch it from Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defregmenter.

By clicking Defragment Disk you will be able to start defragmentation of the disk. You can also schedule the defragmentation process by clicking Configure Schedule. Specify the Frequency, Day, Time and Disk and click OK to configure scheduled defragmentation.

Once defragmentation is complete, you will be able to see considerable change in your system performance. Enjoy!

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Your hard disk is one of the most important resource in your system and proper analyses of disks lets your system run smoothly. There are many disk analysis tools and most operating systems has some by default too. Ubuntu has a default tool for disk usage analyses, called Disk Usage Analyzer. It details all available and used disk space, you can scan local and remote disks and can also view scan results graphically for a more clear picture.

Using it is very simple, load it from Applications > Accessories > Disk Usage Analyzer.

On the Main page, it will show your total and consumed disk space.

Now, lets explore how we can scan disks or folder for disk usage analysis. You can scan your home directory by using Scan Home option, scan overall file system by using Scan Filesystem and scan Remote directory by using Scan Remote Folder option. Lets see following screenshot to get an idea of how it displays scan results.

To scan remote folder, click Scan Remote folder and enter FTP details for the remote location.

It is an easy-to-use tool and facilitates almost all basic operation regarding disk usage analysis. Enjoy!

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QQlabeler is a free graphic tool to design and print optical disk labels. You can add objects and custom background to create a unique label. There are various design tools available, such as, Barcode, Line Tool, Background, Image Frame, and many others. These design tools can be accessed easily from the left sidebar. You can also set the Guideline/Grid easily and choose various unique colors for your fonts.

It is a powerful tool that will appeal to both graphic designers and amateurs alike. If you want to record and sell your own disks, you can add custom barcodes too(see screenshot above). Apart from it’s basic functions, you can also:

• Add background, text, images, line art and geometry objects to your optical disc labels.
• Arrange object layers in front of or behind each other.
• Make barcode, date and serial number fields.
• Create database linked fields for automatic text and graphic insertion for individual customized disc labels.

Once you have created the disk label, you can Preview it by going to File > Print Preview. You can also save the disk label as either Bmp or Jpeg image format. The only downside is that it takes quite a lot of system memory(75Mb in my case), depending on the amount of work done on the disk label. It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Enjoy!

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Are you looking for a free but easy to use software for burning your DVD, CD, or Blue-Ray disks? BurnAware, if you haven’t heard about it before, is a cool little burning software that is idle for basic disk burning needs such as backup, creating data, audio, MP3 music, DVD-Video discs and burning disc images.

The software is so easy to use that it seems that it was developed keeping in mind the novice computer users. You just have to select the type of disk you are burning from the left sidebar, it supports Compact Disk, DVD, and Blu-Ray.  Select any one of them and choose the type of disk you want to create.

Now since I want to create a Data DVD, I have selected Create Data DVD given under Files and Folders. Now it will show a new window(see screenshot below) where you can add files, create new folders, change disk name, choose the type of DVD disk and much more.

After you are done adding all the files and folders, click the Red button on the top-right side to start burning a disk instantly.

You will get used to this software after using it yourself for a few minutes, in the end you will have to agree with me that it is the most easy to use software out there. The only drawback is that it doesn’t support creating a bootable ISO image file, making exact copies of DVDs and CDs, and write to multiple drives simultaneously. These features are mainly for advance users and are not needed if you want to burn normal disks. Enjoy!

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With Windows 7 / Vista many standard applications such as Windows Firewall got a face lift, the Disk Defragmenter interface changed to a dialog box with an added task scheduler support to schedule defragmentation of your hard drive. Since now it works on scheduled time, it automatically starts defragmenting as soon as the scheduled time is missed, which can cause disk thrashing and computer to slow down. Instead of letting Windows 7 /  Vista to decide when to start defragmentation you should decide when and how it should run.

The new Disk Defragmenter interface looks like this:

It offers only three options in Modify Schedule which are how often, what day and what time, that doesn’t give us more control over when and how it should be performed.

To fine tune disk defragmentation schedule open Task Scheduler, click Start and type Task Scheduler in the Search bar.

In Task manager application, navigate to the following:

Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Defrag

How To Optimize

To start optimizing the schedule, double click on ScheduledDefrag, now click on the Triggers tab and double click on the Weekly trigger, which will open the Edit Trigger dialog box and allow you to edit the schedule.

Here you can change either to run defrag or to disable it completely. You can also control how it runs by using the Advanced settings, to start automatic disk defragmentation other than on scheduled time, click on the Begin the task drop down and make selection that best fits when you want to start defragmentation.

After you have made your changes on the Trigger tab, click OK.

How To Stop Unexpected Defragmentation

To stop disk thrashing at unexpected times, click on the Conditions tab.

From here you can control how to auto defrag at idle time (idle time denotes the time when there is no activity on the Computer). You can see the default three minutes of idle time is a little quick and will start defragmenting the drives when you are least expecting it. This is one of the reasons why you see disk activity at odd times.

How To Control Defragmentation Behavior

To control the behavior when the scheduled time is missed, click on the Settings tab.

This tab lets you decide when to run the task if the scheduled time was missed, if it failed to start, and when to stop it after a long period of time. After you have made your changes on the Settings tab, click OK.

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If you are experiencing hard drive errors such as Read / Write errors and noisy sounds, its time to check your hard drive because these errors may effect the overall performance of your computer. Windows comes with built-in utilities to check hard drives, scanning your hard drive using Error Checking can help diagnose and even correct a wide range of hard drive errors. Hard drives that are formatted using the FAT32 file system should be checked for errors about once a month.

Before proceeding to further steps it is recommended to close all open programs and save your data.

To access the Disk Error Checking Tool, go to My Computer and right click on the disk partition you want to check, Choose Properties from the list.

This will pops up Local Disk Properties Box. Click on the Tools tab as shown below.

Now you will see the Error Checking Tool, Defragmentation Tool and Backup, click on the Check Now box in the Error Checking section.

There are two options in this utility, the first one eliminates system errors and is the recommended choice for most users, but if you are an advanced user and wants to check on every error before this utility fixes them than you can leave this option unchecked.

The second option scans for bad sectors in the hard drive, it won’t fix the hardware issue but will try to move the files from the bad sector.

In order to proceed, schedule the Disk Checking to the next system startup by clicking Schedule disk check box.

Using Command Prompt

You can also check your disk for errors from the command prompt.

Go to Start menu, open Run, type in chkdsk and hit enter.

If you want Chkdsk to automatically fix errors too, type in chkdsk /f instead of chkdsk. Running this utility using the command prompt doesn’t require a re-boot.

Alternate Solution – Ariolic Disk Scanner

If you don’t want to use built in utility, than you can use Ariolic disk Scanner which has a nice visual interface, it is a portable application which you can easily carry on USB or pen drive, but the only gripe is that this software only checks for the errors on hard drive unlike built in disk checker which also fixes the errors.

Sometimes disk checking is started automatically upon abrupt shutdown or power failure, as annoying as it seems, its good to let this utility do its job which prevents future data loss and disk corruption.

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Creating a Windows 7 / Vista password reset disk can really come in handy if you forget your account password more than often. With it, you can easily reset your password and get right in to Windows 7 / Vista. While there are ways to recover lost passwords without a password reset disk, they are often complicated and time consuming. Be proactive by creating a password reset disk today. With a password reset disk, forgetting your password will no longer be a problem.

Click on Start and then Control Panel.

Click on the User Accounts and Family Safety link.

Now select User Accounts from the control panel.

In the task pane on the left,  select Create a password reset disk link.

When the Forgotten Password Wizard window appears, click Next. You will need a portable media before being able to create a password reset disk. This means that you will need either a flash drive or a floppy disk drive.

In the I want to create a password key disk in the following drive drop down box, choose the portable media drive to create a password reset disk on. Click Next to continue.

With the disk or other media still in the drive, enter your current account password in the text box and click Next.

Windows Vista will now create the password reset disk on your chosen media. When the progress indicator shows 100% complete, click Next and then click Finish in the next window.

You can now remove the flash drive or floppy disk from your computer. Label the disk Password Reset and store it in a safe place.

How To Use Password Reset Disk

Plug in the USB drive you used to create the reset disk, and boot Windows Vista normally, at the login prompt click Reset Password and click Next at the Reset Password Wizard.

On the next screen, select the drive letter next to The password key disk is in the following drive list and click Next.

Type a new password, and type it again in the confirm field. Also type a hint that will remind you of the password if you forget it, click Next then click Finish to close the wizard.

Now log on to Windows 7 / Vista with the new password.

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Editor’s Note: After lot of comments from the users, I have now changed this post’s tile and made some changes in the content. And I will have to agree that saving hard disk space does not increase the computer’s performance. So my readers have won after a short protest Just kidding.

I will now(in a few days) write about how to increase performance that will in fact focus on two things, CPU and RAM.

Did you ever get tired of your hard disk that is always full? Do you want to increase space on your hard disk by removing any useless junk? There are many ways to speed up your computer without purchasing more memory or upgrading your CPU.The following easy steps are simple to follow and almost guaranteed to increase the hard disk space of your computer!

Disk Cleanup

After a lot of use, your Computer’s hard disk should be cluttered up with unwanted files that you’ll never need. Instead of having to manually go through and delete every unwanted file, your Computer has an easy-to-use built-in method of getting rid of these unwanted junk files.

Open My Computer, Right-click on one of your Disk Drives, and Select Properties Select Disk Cleanup.

When you click this, a small box should pop up that tells you that it’s calculating the amount of disk space it can clean up. This can take several minutes depending on how much clutter you have on your computer.

Once it’s finished, a small box should pop up, giving you a few options of what you would like to have cleaned up.

Compress Old Files- Simply compresses all your old files and folders that you don’t use anymore. Don’t worry, it doesn’t get rid of them. If you want to access your old files, it will only take a little extra time before you can open it up. The amount of space that this cleans up is massive.
Temporary Files – Just gets rid of all the temporary files that you accumulate while browsing the internet. Your computer most likely saves these so that you can re-enter the pages faster next time, but the amount of space it takes up is great enough that the time-saving is practically non-existent.

These two are your biggest space-hogs and take up space that you could be using for much more important things.

Now click OK and wait while your computer cleans up that valuable space.

Defragmentation

Another way to improve the performance of your computer is to defragment your hard drive.Basically, defragmenting is putting files back where they belong. With the files in the proper order, your computer will run more efficiently. It’s just simple to do, so you don’t need to hire a computer expert to defragment your computer. You just need to plan ahead, because if you have a lot of files on your computer, it could take a while. And it’s best not to use your computer while defragmenting.

Open My Computer, Right-Click on your Disk Drive and  Select Properties.

Select Tools and Select Defragment.

This will open the defragmentation window and will begin to put your files back together. This may take several minutes to even an hour depending on how frayed your files are and how long it’s been since you last defragmented . As it defragments, be sure to leave your computer alone, as the opening of a file or folder will cause it to start over again. When it is complete, it may require you to restart your computer for the effects to take place.

It would be advisable for you to do this about once every 6 months.

Cleaning Your Recycle Bin

A surprising amount of the problems involved with computer speed are involved with the Recycle bin. When you delete unwanted files and folders, they go to the recycle bin. But where from there? Once a week, old files and folders MAY get routinely deleted, but for that time span, they just sit around and take up space. In order to get rid of those old files.

Right-Click on Recycle Bin Select  Empty Recycle Bin.

A box will pop up, asking you if you really want to get rid of those files, simply click Yes.

And those files are gone!

Disabling System Restore

Editor’s Note: Don’t do this if you are a beginner in using Windows XP, System Restore is important when it comes to restore your lost settings. Make sure you know what you are doing before turning off System Restore.

Right click My Computer, and then click Properties. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab.

Click to select the Turn off System Restore check box. Or click to select the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box. Click OK.

When you receive the following message.You have chosen to turn off System Restore. If you continue, all existing restore points will be deleted, and you will not be able to track or undo changes to your computer, Do you want to turn off System Restore?

Click Yes to confirm that you want to turn off System Restore.

Clearing Internet Explorer Cache Files

All those files stored in your cache take up space, so from time to time, you may want to clear out the files stored in your cache to free up some space on your computer.

On the Internet Explorer Tools menu, click Internet Options. The Internet Options box should open a General tab.

On the General tab, in the Temporary Internet Files section, click the Delete Files button. This will delete all the files that are currently stored in your cache.

Remove Old Programs

Chances are, you still have those old programs on your computer from years ago. That old game demo you tried, that software that never seemed to work out, and others. Chances are, those programs are still on your computer, taking up valuable space. Get rid of them for good.

Click on Start Menu, Go to Control Panel, Open Add/Remove Programs, Select Sort By Size on the upper menu of the Add/Remove Programs page, Select Uninstall on all programs that you recognize and no longer need.

That’s all for today, if you think I have missed any tip, feel free to mention it in the comments.

Update: Also have a look at this useful tip to remove useless startup programs “How To Manage Your Startup Programs Easily, An Easy Way To Increase System Performance”

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Nobody wants to setup their hard drive as one giant data dump. Dividing your drive into multiple partitions makes mutitasking easier. Keeping different types of data such as work documents, mp3s, video files, etc in a partition separate from the operating system can greatly increase your computer’s performance. And if you are planning on using multiple operating systems then you will absolutely need multiple partitions.

What Is Partitioning ?

A partition can be assumed as a container, like one drawer of a file cabinet. Each partition uses a file system to store and name data. Windows 98 used FAT32 which allowed greater maximum partition sizes and stored data more efficiently than the FAT16 file system of DOS and Windows 95. Windows NT introduced NTFS file system, which offers better data security and efficient memory handling. Windows 2000 and XP can read and write to both NTFS and FAT32 partitions.

Partitioning Your Hard Drive Using FDISK

Follow these simple steps after runnning FDISK command in command prompt to partition your harddrive:

1. First, to view a list of all drives available on your system select (5).
2. Press (4) to view partition information on the drive, then select the new hard drive.
3. Select (1) to create a partition, then on the next screen choose (1) to create a primary partition on that drive.
4. Select (y) if you wish to use all the space on the drive for this one partition(which we don’t want to), or (n) if you wish to make more than one partition on the drive now or later. If you selected (n), enter the amount of space you wish to use for the primary partition.
5. By selecting (n) it means that you do want to create multiple partitions, you must now make a secondary partition using the rest of the free space.
6. Press (1) to create another partition, then (2) to create an extended DOS partition. While it gives you an option to use less than full amount of space on the disk here but any space which is not allocated now can no longer be used by FDISK unless you erase the existing partitions. So accept the default (maximum available) size for the extended partition, then press ‘ESC.’ This will take you to the menu for creating logical drives in the extended partition.
7. To create a logical drive which are represented by drive C: or D: etc, simply fill in the amount of space you require the drive to have.

After you finished performing all this procedure, Exit from FDISK, reboot to windows.

Partitioning Your Hard Drive In Windows 2000/XP

To start partitioning in Windows 2000/Xp environment, right click My Computer and select Manage, once you enter into the Manage screen, from here select Disk Management.

This main screen will show you the existing drives with the new ones. At this instance Windows usually open up a wizard to help partition and format your new drive. If it does not, right click the new drive in the lower pane and select initialize drive.

Now you can partition your drive by following these steps.

1. Right click on the new drive and select new partition, then it will launch the partition wizard.
2. In this step it will then prompt you how much drive space you want to allocate to the new partition.
3. If you choose not to use the full amount of space for the first partition, you can create additional partitions in the same way up to a maximum of four partitions per disk.
4. Now it will ask for a drive letter which Windows will use to represent partition as C: or D: etc.
5. Once you’ve created the partitions, you’ll have to format the newly created partitions which Windows will prompt to do automatically.
6. Once formatting is complete, reboot your computer, and you’re done.

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