Defragmenting

Ok heres a dumb question but im going to ask it anyway. what does defrag do to your hard drive, i know in windows xp it says that it makes programs run faster. how does this work.

When a computer stores info on your hard drive, it just randomly puts it anywhere it can. Defrag goes through and consolidates all these randomly placed proggies into one general area on the hard drive. Arranges them so they are easier to find, the hard drive doesn't have to search as long for them. Also cleans the sectors and removes most of the impressions left by deleted progs. It is very beneficial to defrag quite often, unless you don't do a whole lot on your computer. The more you store info and erase info, the more you would want to defrag. In simple terms, it helps keep everything straightened up and clean. I'm sure there are more technical ways to explain this, but I kept it simple for ya.

thanks for the clear up.

Windows defrag looks to your "applog" directory for how and what files are accessed during a "normal" day of work... example: you open netscape and it will load the first 4k of that main file then go to another file, etc. When you run defrag, it moves that first 4k(or whatever the size may be, and program) to the beginning of the drive... essentially optimally fragmenting your hard drive. That's for 9x. But overall, when a file spans non-consecutive clusters on your drive, it pulls that file together... outside of your applog.

So, if you install an os, and defrag, it won't necisarily help you browse faster, check email quicker until you have used the machine some.