Defragmenting Your Hard Drive

Even after you empty the Recycle Bin and permanently delete files, remnants of those files remain in empty sectors on your hard drive. With readily available forensic software, these files are easily recoverable. The simplest way to obliterate deleted file remnants from unused sectors is to defragment your hard drive regularly. Defragging is also a great way to boost system performance! The Windows Disk Defragment option is located on the Tools tab of the Properties page for each drive in My Computer.

Figure 12.19: The Defragment Now button on the Disk Properties Tools tab