Just here to update the freeware section.

Useful and Free defragmentor:


Auslogics Defragmentor:
http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/

www.filehippo.com is pretty good.

I'm just a little curious as to what this program does that the built in Windows defragmenter doesn't..

No advantage in eating up more disk space with something you already have

Curiousity killed the cat lol.

Windows defragmentor on vista is very poor.

I dont know if you have used it spinner but it fails to display any details, instead the user just begins the deafragmentation of the disk and then after about 3 hours it says "Defragmentation Complete".

With this tool you can see your file information and the amount of defragmented files before deciding whether to degrament or not...

Was useful for myself as a Vista user as well as an XP user.

Excellent, just what i wanted to know. Haven't run a defrag in Vista yet

Added to the list.

Glad i could help out.

http://www.Sourceforge.net has a lot of open source downloads

Edited at 08:43 Tue 4/09/07 (BST)

Can someone detail a step by step account on what a defragmentor is, and how it works?

Much appreciated!

If your computer seems to be running a little slower than normal, a disk defragmenter is one possible way to speed it back up. A disk defragmenter isn't a miracle cure, but it does have the power to take care of some nagging little problems that sometimes slip through the cracks. It's a minor bit of maintenance that can make a real difference.

I cant fit it all on so look here

When your computer stores files, it doesn't put them all in one place. Regardless of whether the data is a part of the operating system, a program that you just installed, a program that came already installed on the computer, or a file you just saved, the computer puts one piece here and another piece there. To the computer, it doesn't matter where the files are physically located on the hard drive; as long as it knows where they are, it can find them.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-disk-defragmenter.htm

Edited at 11:45 Tue 4/09/07 (BST)

Basically it is a utility program (helps you to perform maintenance or correct problems) that rewrites all the parts of a file into contiguous clusters on a hard disk.