Scandisk/Defrag and Windows Xp
You may have noticed that Scandisk and Defrag are no longer on the System Tools menu in Windows Xp. So how do you maintain your hard disk?
Follow the instructions for Scandisk below:
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Double click on My Computer.
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Right click on the C:\ drive. (Or whatever drive you wish to scan.)
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Click on Properties
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Click on the Tools tab.
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In Error-checking, click on Check Now…
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Another window will come up.
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Put click in both so that they are marked.
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Now click on Start.
At this point Windows will tell you that it needs exclusive use of the certain files and that the only way to do this is to restart the computer. “Do you want to schedule the error checking to start the next time you restart the computer?” Answer Yes.
Restart the computer at this point and you will get a blue screen that is the scandisk/error-checking.
Note: This will take some time depending on the condition of your computer. 20 minutes to 1 hour if you have do this regularly. The first time may be longer.
Defrag
As you can see from the above picture you can from this same window execute the Defrag command. This is also a time consuming venture if you have a lot of deframentation. If you have a relatively clean drive then the Defrag Utility will tell you this. Please follow the on screen prompts for Defrag after you have clicked on the Defrag button.