Should I do a "Disk Cleanup" before I do a "Disk Defragment" or vice-versa? I have Windows XP Home.

Answer 1

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Fragmentation occurs when you add or delete a large number of files or large sized files. When you run disk cleanup you are essentially deleting a lot of unwanted stuff which include temp files that dont need to be defragged anyway. Hence you need to run disk cleanup before defrag (which also helps to free up space needed for the task). The more free space the better for the defrag. You need atleast 15% minimum.

Answer 2

Definitely do a cleanup and remove any other files you don't want before you do a defrag. By doing the cleanup you will make some space for defrag to work more efficiently.

Answer 3

Cleanup before Defrag.

Defrag moves the files into efficient clusters. If you do a cleanup after defrag, the empty spaces created by Cleanup will result in some(depending on the Data being cleaned up) fragmentation again.

Answer 4

its not nececsary.
but asume yiu have some papare in your room and you want clean your room with sweeper
you can do that but easiest way and better is that you pick the papers and rubish next sweap dust with sweaper.
but you can do dust cleaning with out picking up rubish.

Answer 5

Do the cleanup first before the defrag. No sense in defragging unnecessary files.

Answer 6

In disk cleanup, you remove some files which are not of your use. In disk defragmentation, files on the disk are rearranged so as to insure minimum disk rotation. Therefore you should first doa disk cleanup and then do disk defragmentation. This is same for every operating system whether it be XP, 98 or Vista.