A computer professional has told me that defrag really isn't necessary and that in fact that defraging can expose problems that can create havoc when you defrag. His contention is that defrag is only desirable when your computer is so full that you need the file space. Is this perhaps true of XP and newer systems or of all? Please give my your comments. This person is suppose to know what they are talking about as they work in the field. Thanks

balony. a defragger brings files that are scattered back to the folder they are installed in. this helps the computer run a little faster, since the processor can get those files to the screen mucho faster. one should/must run the scandisk first always, since it repairs any errors the might exist on the harddrive. that way, the defragger won't overwrite over any possible errors

professional doesn't know what he is talking about. anytime you add or delete a file or program from/to harddrive it leaves empty spots on it which causes hd head longer to gather info you want. defrag consolidates all your files/program in almost like alpahabetical order making it easier & faster to find info your looking for & might extend life of hd as it doesn't have to work as much david

Teabag, FWIW, seems like my machine runs faster after a defrag. Might not have to? Dunno. Can only say that it seems to help me, so I will continue to do it. Bumble bees can't fly either! Just ask an Aeronautical Engineer. HTH. Ed in Texas.

Tests over the past few years by computer magazines have demonstrated that defragging really does not speed up your computer. I don't think that means you shouldn't do it. Even if speed differences are imperceptible due to modern drives, it seems to me that if all parts of a file were contiguous the drive would do less "work." I think a computer reading a fragmented file is like us reading a newspaper where not only sections are in different rooms of the house, but that even parts of articles are all over.

yes you should do defrag in m.e for sureevery month or less! and in xpig if not done in a month or more had one cpoy of xp i was doing defrag on that was not done in a year ran like pig was not mine! ••• Resistance is invigorating!••• kill spyware

Defrag is less necessary on XP systems. But still useful. Frequent Defrag does not help system speed that much, unless you do a lot of program installing and removing, or you use programs with large databases that get updated alot. How much it helps depends on how you use the system. If you are getting ready to install or remove several programs or update a lot of files, then it is useful to do a scandisk and defrag both before and after. Your expert may be concerned about disk read/write errors showing up during a Defrag and causing problems, or file system errors causing problems. This is why you should at least run ScanDisk first in normal mode, and if it has not been ran for several months, run ScanDisk in Thorough mode (takes hours) before doing the Defrag. The second concern, if there are a lot of file system errors and you let ScanDisk fix them, it can corrupt files that are otherwise useable. But if you run ScanDisk and Defrag weekly, these types of errors should not build up to the point that they can not be safely fixed automatically by Scandisk. It is often useful to run the Disk CleanUp utility also, after running ScanDisk, as it cleans out some temporary files and allows you to run Defrag quicker. The Microsoft Maintance Wizard sets up ScanDisk, Disk CleanUp and Defrag as scheduled tasks. So that is a clue that you really need to run all three programs. However, it is best to run them manually when you have the time and not use the scheduled task.