defragmentation

my friend has a P4 2.4Ghz 512mb RAM with a 120GB HDD .. I formatted the hdd a few weeks ago which was the first time in 2 years. there are 3 user accounts and apparently the computer is running a bit slower than it should... would defragmenting the HDD help ? or there is no need when you format a HDD ?

 

It certainly wouldn't do it any harm, especially if you've installed a lot of stuff on it since formatting.
You may want to look into wether there is any malware making it run slower as well. There's a great thread about protection from spyware etc here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=44525

 

Yes defrag should only improve overall sys performance. One tech expert who hosts his own newsletter (langa.com) sets his sys up to defrag nightly to maintain stability and speed. If you go to his home page and type in defrag in the search window you will find heaps of good sound advice. I read (either on this site or langa's) that the defrag app that comes installed on your sys is very inefficient (has taken me 6 hours at times) and that there are a lot of 3rd party apps that are a lot more efficient (12 minutes!). The more often you do it the quicker it will be.

Here is a free app:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207

"It still won't defrag the MFT or paging files. If you have WinXP, 2k or 2003, you need PageDefrag for that:

http://majorgeeks.com/Pagedefrag_d603.html" (Green Knight 2006)

 

I just recently installed XP on a brand new 300 GB hard drive. After installing many applications (including the multi-gig Everquest 2), my hard drive was severely fragmented even though the 100GB partition had over 60GB free. I would suggest defragging.

 

ok thanks , a lot of useful information there . I just thought that with the processor 2.4ghz and 512mb memory that it should generally run at a decent speed especially straight after it's been formatted.. But i'll defrag it and hopefully that'll improve the speed .. thanks