The Dangers of Defragmenting the Disk Drive on a Laptop. Laptop hard drives are prone to the same defragmenting risks as desktop computers, except a few factors change in the severity of the risks.

As files become increasingly fragmented on a hard drive, the machine's overall performance can take a hit. That's where Windows' defragging comes in.

Defragmenting your computer helps organize the data in your hard drive and can improve its performance tremendously, especially in terms of speed.

Search "defragment" and select "Defragment and Optimize Your Drives." Choose the drive you want to scan and click "Analyze." Click "Defragment Disk" to defragment your hard drive.

If Disk Defragmenter isn’t able to run at, say, 1 a.m. Wednesday, it will kick in the next time your computer is idle. 3. You should never defragment a solid-state drive (SSD).

In my last tutorial I introduced you to Windows 2000's Disk Probe, a utility that lets you modify almost anything on your system's hard disk on a sector-by-sector basis. Now it's time to start ...