Optimizing the hard drive in Windows 7. Programs to speed up games. A set of programs for disk emulation

Instructions

Analyze the need to defragment disks. Availability large quantities fragmented files significantly increases file access time, since a lot of time is spent constantly positioning the drive over the tracks in the sectors. To do this, click right click mouse on the "My Computer" icon in the "Start" menu and select "Manage" from the context. In the left window of the Computer Management console, go to the Defragmentation snap-in disk».

At the bottom of the window, click the “Analysis” button. The utility will perform an analysis disk and will display a dialog box with information about the need to defragment. Click the "Defragmentation" button.

Set the page file size to minimum value. If the page file is large, then the system increases the number of calls to the slow hard drive. To change this setting, select “Properties” by right-clicking on the “My Computer” icon. Go to the "Advanced" tab and click the "Options" button in the "Performance" section. In the window that opens, set the size of the paging file.

If possible, increase the number of physical disks to two. This will allow you to differentiate between write operations, which increases the performance.

Many models hard drives have an AAM function to regulate the level of noise emitted. The noise level when using this is significantly reduced, but also the positioning of the head is significantly reduced. Some drive models support disabling this feature using service utilities, which can be found on the manufacturer’s website. Although the utility interfaces are different, general principle Their use is as follows: boot from the boot CD, run the utility from the floppy disk, select the Automatic Acoustic Management item in the menu, select the AAM disable mode. This will significantly improve performance, although at the expense of the computer's quietness.

When setting operating parameters personal computer it is necessary to pay attention to HDD. Slow work hard drive negatively affects the performance of the PC as a whole.

You will need

• - Access to PC settings.

Instructions

Setting parameters hard drive must begin before installation operating system. Select the file system type of each partition hard drive. If you are installing Windows XP, then format system partition to FAT32. Oddly enough, this file system is perfectly suited for constantly rewriting information. This will slightly improve your computer's performance.

After installing the OS, open the “My Computer” menu and go to the properties of any section hard drive. Open the "General" tab and find the option "Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed." Uncheck the box next to this item. Click the "Apply" button and select "For all files and subdirectories." Confirm the start of the shift process hard parameters disk.

Do the same setup for the remaining sections. hard drive. If you have a separate volume dedicated to storing the operating system image, then it is better to leave its parameters unchanged.

Instructions

You can increase system performance by installing for the hard drive DMA mode(direct access to random access memory). Call the context menu by right-clicking on the “My Computer” icon and select “Properties”. Go to the “Hardware” tab and click “Device Manager”. Expand the list of “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers”.

Check the operating mode of each device: call the context menu, activate the “Properties” option and go to the “ tab Extra options" Set the "Transfer Mode" parameter to "DMA, if possible."

To optimize the search and recording of files, defragment the disk. Click right key Click on the “My Computer” icon and select the “Manage” command. In the "Storage Devices" list, select "Disk Defragmentation". Defragment all logical drives. During this process, storage devices cannot be accessed.

In Windows XP, system files are written to the hard disk buffer by default, which makes accessing them faster. IN Windows Vista and Windows 7 this option must be set manually. Right-click on the hard drive icon to bring up the drop-down menu and select “Properties”.

Go to the “Policies” tab and check the “Allow disk write caching” checkbox. Please be aware that data may be lost or damaged if there is a power failure. To increase the reliability of your computer, it is better to use a UPS (source uninterruptible power supply).

If your computer is in background Several programs are running, the system slows down significantly. Press Win+R and in the “Open” line enter msconfig command. Go to the Startup tab and uncheck the boxes next to those programs that you use only from time to time. Confirm by clicking OK. The changes will take effect after a reboot.

By default, the paging file is located on the same logical drive as the system. Constantly accessing the hard drive for information from its virtual memory work. Right-click on the “My Computer” icon and select the “Properties” command. Go to the “Advanced” tab and in the “Performance” section, click “Options”.

Again select the “Advanced” tab and click “Change” in the “Virtual Memory” section. Mark the drive on which the system is installed and move the radio button to the “No paging file” position. To confirm your choice, click "Set".

If the amount of RAM on your computer is at least 1 GB, you can do without a page file altogether. If virtual memory you need, mark another logical drive and set the paging file size. Click Set and restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

At long-term use Sometimes the hard drive of a laptop starts to work much slower than immediately after purchase. Programs begin to start only a few seconds after launch. Movies also do not start immediately. Waiting even a few seconds gets pretty annoying. In such cases, defragmentation will help. disk. After this procedure, the hard drive will work much faster.

Instructions

Before starting defragmentation, organize all files into folders. It is important that all files are organized into appropriate types. (folder “Video”, clips and other files; folder “Music” with music tracks etc). In each main folder, you can create several more folders as you wish, but they must be the same. For example, the “Music” folder will be the main one for music tracks, and in it you can create more folders, for example, “techno”, “rock”, etc.

Click Start. Select the All Programs tab. In the list of all programs, find the “Utilities” tab. From the list utilities select "Defragmentation" disk».

The program menu will appear, which will display all hard disks that are connected. First, select the system drive on which the Windows operating system is installed. In contrast to such a systemic disk you will see the Microsoft icon. Click on system disk right mouse button. Now, from the bottom of the program, select the “Defragmentation” command disk" The defragmentation process will begin disk. Please note that defragmentation speed depends on the power, type and hard capacity disk, and can be very long-lasting. During defragmentation disk do not run any programs or work on it.

Good day, friends. Today, as you already understood, we will talk about how speed up computer disk , either SSD, HDD or some other one.

But first, a few general words.

In general, over the years of using computer systems, I various levels(oh how I said it! :)), I am increasingly inclined to think that progress has not taken something into account, or rather created, so to speak, a “bottleneck” in productivity, because judge for yourself - over the past few years everything has developed except the hard ones disks and no one was in a hurry to speed up the computer disk in any way.

Frequencies, architecture, cache and, so to speak, turbo-frequency and all sorts of super-sophisticated ones came out (in which all the parameters responsible for performance also swelled in breadth) and only hard drives only increased their volumes (and reduced power consumption) , which in general did not provide any benefit in terms of the speed of operation of the system as a whole.

The situation began to improve with the advent of , but the latter have a price that is unaffordable for many, and cheap solutions are a rather controversial approach, because they have a limited work life, are small and in volume, and in general, in terms of speed, they do not always outperform similar solutions of the “old” generation.

How to speed up your computer disk - defragmentation

The fact is that OS Windows loves to use the hard drive in every possible way for various background needs, which, often, are not needed by the average user.

One of these needs, for example, is indexing a disk by the system or a hard drive using the tools built into the system (firstly, the built-in defragmenter is rather weak in quality) on a schedule (secondly, it is better to run defragmentation manually, and not in the background while it is happening any other work with the disk).

First, let's disable scheduled defragmentation (the settings are relevant for Windows 7 and Windows Vista, since there is no scheduled defragmentation). To do this, right-click on any disk in " My computer" and select the item " Properties". In the window that appears, open the tab " Service"Press buttons" Run defragmentation"and then," Set up a schedule". Uncheck there" Execute on schedule".

Disabling indexing for quick search - optimizing the disk

It’s just that I think that you don’t use this search very often because you know what you have where, and if so, then for rare requests a slow search (not by index, but “live”) will be suitable, but you will save a certain amount of disk performance, which means speed up it and the computer, because the system likes to index it when this setting is enabled.

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• To disable, right-click on the first disk in " My computer" and select the item " Properties";
• In the window that appears, on the " tab Are common"we need to uncheck" Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties"and press the button" Apply";
• When prompted to confirm the attribute changes, you will need to select " To drive C:\ (or whatever letter you specify) and to all subfolders and files" and press the button " OK". Next you will need to wait for the attributes to be applied and do the same with all the disks in the system. If suddenly a window appears notifying you that rights are needed Administrator, then press the button " Continue";
• If a window appears about the impossibility of applying attributes, then press the button " Skip All".

In particular, I would recommend experienced users completely disable system restore, because it also likes to access the disk when creating new restore points or monitoring them. For example, I think the recovery system is generally useless, especially since there are such powerful things as Acronis, which I wrote about in the article "".

And finally, for those who own RAID 0 based on Intel raid controllers. I recommend downloading latest version Intel Rapid Storage Technology(at the time of writing this article version 10.5.0.1022 ), and then install with a tick " Center Installation Intel Management " and launching the panel Intel Rapid(using tray icon) , go to the "tab" Control", where to enable for your RAID 0, so-called " Cache write back ", which will significantly increase the raid's already powerful performance.

With this, perhaps, we can conclude our short article.

Afterword

These are the pies on how to speed up the disk of almost any type of computer.

Also, I wanted to write a few words about file systems ah - NTFS And FAT32, the size of the cluster and other small tricky things from the field of file systems, but, after thinking, I decided to publish this a little later as part of a separate article.

If there are any additions, comments or questions, I will always be happy to answer them in the comments to this post.

Each of us has encountered a problem when a computer or laptop starts to freeze and slow down. But not everyone knows that it is most likely related to the operation of the hard drive (as the slowest link in the system performance chain). Fortunately, this problem can be solved at home, without getting up from your chair, just optimize the operation of your hard drive.

Optimizing your hard drive in Windows 7

The need to optimize a hard drive arises due to the accumulation of a large amount of unstructured and unnecessary trash. Your task will be to literally “clean” the hard drive. But first things first.

Advanced Disk Cleanup

Advanced Disk Cleanup is a feature provided by the Windows 7 operating system itself. To perform this procedure, you need to open " Command line» in one of two main ways:

1. Through the Run window:
2. From the Start menu:
3. Type %systemroot%\system32\cmd.exe /c cleanmgr /sageset:65535 & cleanmgr /sagerun:65535 and press Enter.
   To call advanced hard drive cleaning, enter the command in the “Command Prompt”
4. Review the list of files and select those you want to delete. Pay attention to each point: delete only what you no longer need. Select the categories of files you want to delete

Disk Defragmenter

When writing a file to Windows disk can distribute its parts to any free disk cells. Because of this, it is more difficult for the system to access it if it large file, for example, a movie, and it is located in several places on the hard drive. Defragmentation allows you to overwrite all files one after another for more quick access to them.

Windows 7 has a built-in defragmenter program. You can call it via search bar in the Start menu.

Video: how to defragment a disk in Windows 7

Windows 7 optimization program for using SSD drives

SSD Mini Tweaker - portable program operating system settings for using SSD drives. It is needed in order to fully experience all the delights of using SSD drives on the Windows 7 operating system.

For some inexplicable reason, Microsoft developers are not creating a targeted software for working with SSD drives. There are a number of settings that prohibit overclocking solid state drives, and to disable them all, you need to suffer. Therefore, enthusiasts created the SSD program Mini Tweaker, which allows you to configure the system in one click.

The operating principle is very simple. You download the program, run it and click the “Apply changes” button, since all the settings are already checked.

After the program has successfully completed the action, restart your computer and enjoy fast speed computer operation.

Video: How to use SSD Mini Tweaker

How to open Disk Management

Direct work with disks, their renaming or partitioning takes place in “Disk Management”. There are several ways to open this utility:

Video: How to open Disk Manager

What to do if the dynamic disk is invalid

There are often cases when, after reinstalling the operating room Windows systems 7 on computers with two or more hard drives A problem arises in which one or more hard drives become unavailable for operation. At the same time, they are connected, detected and operational. In this case, they became dynamically invalid, that is, unsuitable for running on this operating system.

The solution to this problem is very simple:

Once the conversion process is complete, restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Some mechanical and software damage to disks leads to their conversion to dynamic ones. In this case, only service center specialists will help you.

Video: How to convert a dynamic disk to a basic one

What to do if a hard drive failure is detected

Whatever the reason for the hard drive failure message, it does not bode well for you.

There are two types of errors:

• physical;
• logical (software).

The first ones occur when the magnetic layer of the disk surface is damaged. In this case, rather save the data to safe medium, since sectors and blocks of the hard drive will deteriorate one after another, and feel free to go to the store for a new one hard drive.

It is best to save data using another computer, connecting the hard drive as a second drive. And after performing all operations, carry out resuscitation procedures. The most popular utility for treating disk damage is MHDD. To restore damaged sectors it is used low level formatting(ERASE). And if after this you continue to have problems returning the hard drive to its place, then the problem is of a physical nature.

Video: what to do if Windows detects hard drive problems

How to format a disk to install Windows 7

When installing a new operating system, the installer already has a formatting option built into it to put Windows on a fresh and blank disk. This helps solve many problems, such as, for example, a conflict between the old and new systems.

Make sure you select the correct drive to format, otherwise you may lose important information.

A program to format a disk before installing Windows 7

Most popular program to format the disk is Acronis Disk Director:

Video: how to format and repartition a hard drive when installing Windows 7

Disk programs

As mentioned above, some stationary utilities from Windows 7 are not the highest quality products for solving certain problems when working with a hard drive. Therefore, companies and enthusiasts are creating more convenient and functional software for working with disks.

Disk Cleanup Program

"Computer Accelerator" - powerful program to clean your computer unnecessary garbage. "Top Sales" is the most powerful utility for cleaning your computer. The program is distinguished from others by its convenient and understandable Russian-language interface. It has great amount built-in functions from startup control to cleaning the system from broken shortcuts.

Hard drive cloning program

EASEUS Disk Copy is a free and high-quality utility. Its advantage over its competitors is that it has the ability to work with boot disk or flash drives.

This makes it universal.

The simple interface and quality of work also add points to the “usefulness” of this application.

Program for recovering hard disk partitions Recuva is the most famous of the recovery programs deleted files

. It is known for its multifunctional interface. You can choose to search and display files of only one category, for example, photos or text documents.

A set of programs for disk emulation

Without any competition in the disk emulation market for Windows, the best and most developing program is DAEMON Tools. The program supports everything existing formats disk images, new versions are constantly being released. The advantages also include support and work with several virtual drives

Sooner or later there is a need to improve the performance of your hard drive. Luckily, there are many ways to optimize it. But it should be remembered that actions to improve the performance of the computer should be carried out from time to time in order to extend the life of the hard drive.

How to speed up work Win dows 10 if the computer is slow? Optimization Tips

“Ten” began to treacherously slow down after just a few months? Don't rush to reinstall anything. In this guide we will explain in detail how to speed up Windows operation 10 on a computer or laptop without reinstallation.

Optimizing Windows 10: cleaning startup

One of the serious obstacles that most often slows down Windows 10 are programs that automatically start with the OS. Because of them, the computer takes longer to boot, and overall performance seriously suffers. And the most interesting thing is that most people don’t even know about these programs: there is zero benefit, but resources are used.

A lot of important information By Windows optimization we described in our article “Optimizing the operation of the Windows XP system”

Disabling everything unnecessary in startup is one of the reliable ways to speed up Win 10. What do you need for this?

How to understand what the system really needs to work, and what wastes memory? The easiest way is to google each of the “suspicious” programs: most likely, 90% of them are at least not necessary for you. Autorun is often full unnecessary software from the PC or laptop manufacturer, hidden advertising programs or even spyware.

What exactly can you turn off?

• Cloud storage(so, in the case of “ten”, OneDrive is automatically “registered” in startup).
• uTorrent, MediaGet and other programs for downloading - when you need them, run them separately. In addition, the constant distribution of torrents significantly slows down Windows of any version.
• Official software, which was loaded by default when installing a scanner, printer or MFP. You are unlikely to use it exactly, but the devices will work fine as is.

To optimize Windows 10, we only clean startup; the programs themselves will remain on the computer. So you can run any of them manually if necessary.

We turn off services that load the system “idlely”

Developers cannot predict which services you will need. Therefore, the entire array automatically starts along with the OS. To speed up Windows 10 on a laptop or computer, it is useful to find unnecessary services, which you personally do not need, and turn them off.

What to turn off and what is better not to touch? There are many lists floating around the Internet, but we will focus on those services that can be turned off with virtually no risk. Let's start with the most "gluttonous".

• Update Center - it is better to periodically update the system manually.
• Windows Search - if you rarely search for something on your computer.

These services can be safely removed if the computer is not connected to a public network:

• KtmRm for distributed transaction coordinator.
• Offline files.
• IPSec Policy Agent.
• Computer browser.
• NetBIOS support module.
• Server Network service.

The task of these services has already been taken over by the antivirus:

• Firewall.
• Windows Defender.

These are useless in 99% of cases, but they can slow down Windows 10 significantly:

• Adaptive brightness control.
• IP Ancillary Service.
• Secondary login.
• Client for tracking changed connections.
• IPsec key modules for Internet key exchange and authenticated IP.
• SSDP detection.
• Parental Control.
• Error Logging Service.
• Remote registry.

Leave these only if you are using devices that correspond to them:

• Smart card.
• Fax machine.
• Print manager - for the printer.
• Image download service (WIA) - for scanners and photographic equipment.
• Service Bluetooth support- hardly anyone else uses bluetooth.
• Tablet PC input service - if you don't use handwriting input.
• Basic TPM services - if there are no BitLocker or TMP based monitoring devices.

How to disable the service?

Double-click on it and in the window that appears, in the “Startup type” line, set “Disabled” / then “Apply” or “OK”.

We carry out “cleaning” among the installed software

It is worth keeping on your laptop or PC only the software that you really need - removal unnecessary programs will significantly speed up your computer on Windows 10.

You will feel the effect immediately. The result in optimizing Windows 10 is especially noticeable if a fair amount of “junk” has accumulated among the installed software. And this is what happens most often if you don’t monitor it separately.

Cleaning junk files from drive C (system)

Over the course of months of operation, any OS accumulates a fair amount of “junk” system files. To speed up Windows 10, we recommend removing them periodically.

Cleaning your hard drive from unnecessary files (our own)

If you have a capacious hard drive of several terabytes, and there is still a bunch of free space- you don't need this advice. But if the computer is old and the hard drive is “full to the brim,” this can greatly slow down Windows. If there is less than 20-30 percent of free space left, problems with performance are almost guaranteed.

Of course, all this takes time, but with a small and cluttered hard drive, the effort is worth it: every 5-10% freed up will help significantly speed up your Windows 10 PC.

1. How to approach the matter? Slowly. Look through all the files on your computer: you will probably find a lot of incomprehensible archives and folders that have not been opened for many years, a bunch of movies, heavy TV series, old installers, etc. For convenience, you can sort everything by size: this way you will clearly see what “eats up” more of the whole place.

   If you are not yet ready to change the hard drive, you will have to decisively remove everything unnecessary. Valuable but heavy things can be partially “stuffed” onto flash drives, external drives and various cloud services.

2. Another tip: never save personal files on disk "WITH"- because of this, a weak computer running Windows 10 is almost guaranteed to slow down. If there is something there now, move the files to neighboring drives, for example, to “D”. Don't forget about:

• desktop (if necessary, it is better to create shortcuts),
• libraries (my videos, my images, etc.)
• and be sure to check your “Downloads” folder (tons of long-forgotten files often accumulate in it).

After all deletions, do not forget to empty the trash!

Defragmentation (optimization) of disks

It's especially good to defragment after you've done the cleanup." system garbage", removed some installed software or manually removed from the computer extra files. This useful procedure restores the correct disk structure, which seriously speeds up Windows 10 on a weak computer.

If you nevertheless took the time to radically clean non-system disks (removed everything heavy but unnecessary from them), repeat the procedure for them (D, E, etc.)

Cleaning the registry with a program to optimize Windows 10

If you are not an advanced user, we do not recommend digging through the registry yourself. It's safer to leave everything to a program that will do it for you. Let's look at the steps using CCleaner as an example - a popular free program to optimize Windows 10. By the way, cleaning and defragmentation can be done in it.

Eliminate unnecessary load on the processor

Often some completely unnecessary process It constantly runs in the background, causing the computer to slow down greatly. To speed up Windows 10, it is highly advisable to clean up the task manager.

Optimizing your hard drive on Windows 10

If you have regular HDD, and not a high-speed SSD, do this.

The hard drive will now work better, and at the same time, Windows 10 will also speed up a little.

Removing unnecessary tiles from the Start menu

The system automatically places a set of live application tiles on the Start menu. Stop by and see if you use them?

We recommend leaving only those that are really necessary, and selecting the remaining rectangles with the right mouse button and selecting “Remove from the Start menu.” This is not a panacea, but it will still slow down Windows 10 a little less.

Turn off tracking in Windows 10

Yes, the “top ten” really “spys” on our actions, regularly sending the collected information to Microsoft. The tracking function also consumes some system resources. To optimize Windows 10 on slow computers It's better to turn it off.

When a speed increase is urgently needed: remove special effects

Simplifying graphics

If your computer slows down too much, you can radically speed up Windows 10 by sacrificing “cool” graphics. Certainly, graphical shell The OS will become completely simple, turning into something between the seven and the rare Win 98. But the serious increase in performance on old computers is worth it - all the freed up resources will be directed in the right direction.

Especially good result In terms of optimization, Windows 10 can be expected here on weak PCs and laptops with up to 4GB of RAM.

Now turn off the animation

Turn off menu transparency

This detail looks impressive, of course, but it also wastes precious memory.

Removing system sounds

Another good method that will contribute to Windows acceleration 10. Don’t worry, the sound on the computer itself will not go away. Only notifications for different system events. You can easily do without them, but the system will no longer have to “torture” the hard drive in search of this or that sound file.

Windows 10 still slows down. What else can you do?

Here are a few more useful tips optimizations that will speed up Windows 10 on any computer or laptop.

1. Check your system for viruses regularly. Here are some smart free antivirus programs:
2. Make it a rule to always turn off your computer at night. If the system works without stopping for several days, it begins to seriously slow down - by weak computers it feels special. If Windows 10 is slow, reboot more often, it really helps.
3. Don’t forget to clean your laptop or PC from dust twice a year - a computer clogged with dust will heat up and work much slower.
4. Captain Obvious, but still. If your computer is weak, try to open as many fewer programs- especially those that heavily load the processor. It's better to take turns. This also applies to browser tabs.

Now you know how to speed up Windows 10 if it is slow. Well, if the system is completely “killed” and reinstallation cannot be avoided, be sure to take a look at our article “How to reinstall Windows 10”. And be sure to share your successes and questions in the comments!