A utility included with Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000 that can rearrange files on a hard drive to free up contiguous disk space and improve performance. The screen capture shows the Windows 95 and Windows 98 Disk Defragmenter at work.
Disk Defragmenter examines a drive for fragmented files, which are files whose data is scattered over different parts of the drive. Fragmentation occurs as files are deleted and created on a drive. Fragmentation slows down read/write disk operations. Disk Defragmenter moves the pieces of fragmented files to a single, contiguous location on the drive. This allows the files to be accessed more efficiently.
Graphic D-30. Disk Defragmenter.
On machines running Windows 2000, you can use Disk Defragmenter to defragment FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS volumes.
Disk Defragmenter does not move files that have both hidden and system attributes or mounted compressed volume files.
The Disk Defragmenter tool for Windows 2000 runs as a snap-in for Microsoft Management Console (MMC).