If you're running out of space on your hard drive or your computer is running painstakingly slow it's time to clean it up. Your operating system needs virtual memory to operate efficiently. If your hard disk becomes nearly full there is not enough virtual memory available and your computer will slow right down. There are two simple tasks you need to perform to clean up your hard drive-a disk clean up and defragmentation.

It is wise to regularly perform both tasks before your computer starts warning you of problems. You must perform a disk clean up before your computer runs out of adequate virtual memory. Windows Vista requires several gigabyte of hard drive space to operate efficiently and Windows XP needs at least 200 megabytes. Keep an eye on your memory to make sure that it does not get below these levels.

If you use your computer often and are regularly deleting and creating new files it is recommended that you perform a disk clean up and defragmentation weekly. In Windows Vista you can set defragmentation to run on schedule. It is best to set this task for a time when you don't usually use your computer such as when you are sleep. This way you won't have the task slowing your computer down when you are trying to use it for other applications.

DISK CLEAN UP:

A Disk Clean up deletes the unused files stored on your computer. This includes files you have deleted to the recycle bin, error log files, temporary Internet files and other unused files.

Every time you delete a file it is recycled to the recycle bin. Until the recycle bin is emptied this file is still taking up room on your hard drive.Every time you click on a page when searching the Internet a file will be saved to your computer. Every time you receive an error message this is saved to your computer. Over time these files take up a lot of room and need to be cleaned up.

To perform a disk clean up in Windows Vista or XP:

-Open up the My Computer screen.

-Right click on the hard drive you wish to clean up eg. Local Disk C.

-Select properties.

-A box will appear. Click on disk clean up. Your computer will search for files which you can safely delete such as temporary Internet files and the recycle bin. Bear in mind when deleting temporary Internet files this will delete files which in effect save Internet options such as your login information for websites. You can choose whether you want to delete these files or not by unchecking the box before committing to the clean up. It is sensible to delete these files every so often though.

DEFRAGMENTATION:

Imagine writing on a piece of paper. You might delete words from one area, add a few to another. Your piece of paper might have several spaces left, but many might be small gaps that could not fit a full sentence or paragraph in. Therefore the percentage of useable space will be a lot less then the actual space. Your hard drive operates in the exact same manner.

Defragmentation is a process which removes all the gaps, placing the files back to back, leaving the overall free space completely able to be accessed and used.

To perform defragmentation in Windows Vista or XP:

-Open up the My Computer screen.

-Right click on the hard drive you wish to clean up eg. Local Disk C.

-Select properties.

-You will see several tabs across the top of the properties box, select the tools tab.

-A section will appear called defragmentation, Click on Defragment now.

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