What?
If you're not familiar with it, defragmenting is like organizing the paper file folders in a file drawer alphabetically.  For just a dozen file folders it doesn't matter much.  But with a hundred or more file folders, things need to be alphabetized to have a chance of finding something.

Why?
Today's PCs manage upwards of 75,000 files (We happen to have over 200,000 on a heavily used workstation) and if those files are not in an optimized order they will be harder to find, and the hardware will have to work harder to find them too!  That's the essence of why it's helpful to regularly defragment.  We do it at least twice a week on a heavily used workstation, but lighter PC users can do it less frequently.

How?
There are FREE defragmenting tools inside every current version of Windows. 

• In Windows 2000 and Windows XP it's part of the 'Computer Management' tool, (Select [My Computer]-->[Properties]-->[Manage] and then look under the [Storage] branch for [Disk Defragmenter]), or
• In Windows 98 and Windows ME find it under the [Start]-->[Programs]-->[Accessories]-->[System Tools] menu.

We often find that the best way to fully defragment a PC is to run the procedure to completion several times, in order to fully optimize the hard disk. Once optimized, the easiest way to keep it optimized is to continue to run a defragmentation procedure routinely.  We like to help clients monitor defragmentation visually using the System Doctor tool in Symantec's SystemWorks software which also includes it's own and they say "Better than Windows" defragmenter called 'Speed Disk'.  Speed Disk takes a bit longer to work, but presumably does a "longer lasting" job.  Unfortunately we've found the scheduler feature inside the SystemWork's - Speed Disk tool to be inconsistent at best, so we don't use it.

If you appreciate the value of keeping your hard disk defragmented and want to automate the task we have used Executive Software's Diskkeeper with consistent success.  With a little persistence we can usually find Windows XP compatible versions (9.0 or later) on eBay for under $40.00.  Once installed selecting their built-in 'set-it-and-forget-it' feature practically ends the need to monitor disk defragmentation.  It just works!