How to Disk Defragment in Windows 7 for Free?

Disk Defragmenter won’t open in Windows 7

“Help. Recently, I’m trying to defragment my hard disks in Windows 7. Instead of using any third-party defragmenter, I used the Windows built-in one. However, it won’t open at all! How do I do a disk defrag on Windows 7 after all? Thanks.”

Why disk defragment Windows 7?

Disk Fragmentation occurs when a file is broken up into several pieces to fit a disk. Because files are constantly being written, deleted, and resized, fragmentation is usually a natural occurrence. When a file is scattered on several spots, it takes longer to read and write. However, the effects of fragmentation are much more widespread.

To improve a PC’s overall performance in Windows 7, one way is to defragment the fragmented disk. During defragmentation, the pieces of files are put together and each of them is adjacent to each other. In this way, one can reduce data access time, expand hard disk service time to a large extent, and make it much easier to perform disk and partition management.

How to disk defragment in Windows 7 in 2 ways?

Generally speaking, there are 2 ways for disk defragmentation in Windows 7. One is to use Windows 7’s built-in defragmenter to perform the operation; the other is to resort to some sort of third-party software utility to get it done. In the tutorial above, you’ll learn the use of both of them.

Note:

Only in these cases, a disk needs to be defragmented:

1. A large number of files have been added,

2. Only around 15% of available disk space left.

3. A new program or a new version of Windows is installed.

4. Fragmentation exceeds 15%.

Method 1. Using Windows built-in defragmenter

Windows 7 has its built-in disk defragmenter with which you can easily analyze the disk, check whether it needs to be defragmented, and run defragmentation.

1. In the search box on the lower left of the desktop, type “defragment”.

2. In the popup results, select “Disk Defragmenter”.

3. Select the disk you want to defragment and hit “Analyze”. Wait until the analysis is over.

4. If the fragmented percentage is beyond 10%, you’ll need to start defragmentation by clicking on the “Optimize” button; Otherwise, you don’t need to do anything.

Method 2. Using free third-party software

How to defrag Windows 7? The Windows built-in disk defragmenter is really cool but some people still complain that sometimes, the utility can’t be opened. Thus, in the following paragraphs, another third-party disk management software utility will be introduced. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a both feature-rich and user-friendly disk manager.

On its intuitive interface, users can easily spot options of operations they want to perform including disk defragmentation, hard disk wiping, and partition wiping.  As for its disk defragmentation feature, users can use it to entirely defragment a disk in clicks. Unlike other counterparts, for example, Smart Defrag, this freeware contains no bundleware.

How to disk defragment in Windows 7? Free download this powerful third-party defragmenter to have a try!

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Then, right-click on the target disk and select “Disk Defrag”.

Step 2. Tick the target disk and click on “Analyze”.

Step 3. It'll take minutes for the analysis to be completed.

Step 4. After the analysis is done, the disk will be scored. Then, start the defragmentation by hitting the “Defrag” button.

Wait a short time before it’s done. When completed, the disk will be scored again.

Should I defragment an SSD in Windows 7?

Honestly, the defragmentation above is based on the fact that the hard disk is HDD. Should an SSD be defragged? The answer is negative. Here, I won’t explain why but I will still briefly introduce a way for SSD performance enhancement. By upgrading AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard to its Pro edition, one can enjoy the feature of 4K SSD alignment which can make the OS run better on Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11. Meanwhile, besides SSD 4k aliginment, you can also schedule defrag your hard drives to make the process run daily, weekly, or monthly.

Conclusion

How to disk defragment in Windows 7? If you’re still surfing on the internet, trying to figure out any clues, then, you’ve come to the right place. This post provided 2 practical ways – using the Windows 7 built-in tool or a third-party defragmenter – to help get it done without any hurdle. As for me, I prefer the latter one for it works when the first one fails. To use AOMEI Partition Assistant on Server PCs, please try the Server edition.