To defrag your hard drive is one of the easiest ways to speed up your computer. Unfortunately the default utility that is included with Windows XP is not the best one available, but there are some free alternatives out there for you to use.
In my last post, Removing Hotfix and Service Pack Uninstall Files Safely, I wrote about removing a bunch of files totaling about 500- 750MB. After removing all of those files I want to optimize the performance and distribution of files on my hardrive using a defrag utility. I am going to set my system to do a defrag over night with a free new defrag program called O&ODefrag 2000. It should do a much more thorough job than the one built into Windows XP. Unfortunately you can’t actually download the software from the site, but I downloaded it here, FreewareWeb – Freeware: O&O Defrag 2000Freeware.
The documentation doesn’t mention that it will run on Windows XP, but the site that I found it on says that it works without any problems. You can read that article here, LaptopLogic.com: Essential Utilities.