Reference sheet prepared by Jolene M. Morris, District Technology Director, Grand Co. School District
Files on a Hard Drive
When you install a program or save a document on your hard drive, it is stored on the first available space. The next program or document is stored on the next available space. But when you delete (erase) a program or document, it leaves an empty space. So the next time you save a document or program, it goes in that space that was used by the deleted program.
If the new document or program won't fit in the available space, part of it goes there but the rest of it is stored elsewhere on the hard drive -- wherever there is more space. After saving and deleting several files, parts of documents you later save are stored in pieces all over the hard drive.
When you have one or more documents or
programs stored in separate places on the hard
drive, the hard drive is said to be fragmented.
A fragmented hard drive has 
to spin many more
times to operate than a hard drive that is not
fragmented. Thus, you can wear out your hard
drive much sooner and your hard drive runs
much slower when it is fragmented.
How do you Unfragment?
If your hard drive is fragmented, you'll want to unfragment it. The process of unfragmenting a drive is called optimizing or defragmenting the drive. To optimize a hard drive, run a program written especially to clean up the fragmentation.
There are several commercial programs which will optimize your hard drive. The program we use in Grand County School District is Speedisk by Symantec.
How do I use Speedisk?
Speedisk should be on your computer network. It is generally loaded as an office application. Log into ICLAS and add Speedisk to your ICLAS menu.
To launch Speedisk, simply highlight the Speedisk menu item and press the Enter-key. After Speedisk optimizes your hard drive, it will return you to your ICLAS menu.
Speedisk gave me an error
Occasionally, Speedisk will notify you of an error. The screen will have a red window (box) on it which says something like this:
If you get an error message, contact your
sysop. This means that some data on your hard
drive is a little "sick". The error message
appears for many reasons; but the most
common reason is that you didn't completely
exit programs properly before turning off your
computer. Always be sure to return to the
ICLAS menu and (L)og out of the network
before turning off your computer.
You can still use your computer if there is an allocation error. You won't want to use it very long; but if the sysop can't help you immediately, continue using your computer.
How often should I optimize?
A home computer should be optimized about once a month. A computer used heavily (like computers at work or school) should be optimized every week.
If it takes longer than two minutes to
optimize your hard drive, you should optimize
more often. It doesn't hurt to optimize your
hard drive daily or even twice daily -- although
weekly should be sufficient in most cases.
