In Windows XP computer, the existence of Hiberfil.sys file makes it impossible to thoroughly run a disk defragmentation. Here, we will emphasize on how to remove it to ensure a thorough defragmentation for Windows XP.

Lots of XP users prefer to use the hibernation function for it will save the time to turn off the computer. But please note that there will be a file named hiberfil.sys generating when the computer goes into hibernation mode. Normally, hibernation takes everything in memory and writes it to your hard drive as the hiberfil.sys file, that is, the hiberfil.sys will be about 512MB if you have 512MB of memory and around 1GB if you have 1GB. When the computer is restored to normal mode, Windows XP will not automatically erase this file but leave it on the hard disk intact, taking up large amount of disk space. If you have ever carefully looked through the defragment analysis report when defragmenting your XP computer, you will find that there are some files that cannot be defragmented, and one of them is hiberfil.sys file, which becomes a stumbling block of a thorough defragmentation but not only a waste of hard disk space . So it is time to delete it from your computer without consideration in order to ensure a thorough XP defragmentation and free up more available free space.

Normally, this file is located hidden under C:\, and we can manually delete it from the computer. But it is recommended that you can use the below method to automatically delete it: go to Start, and then Control Panel and run Power Options, click on Hibernate tab and uncheck “Enable hibernation”, click Ok to save the settings. Then, the generated Hiberfil.sys file will be automatically removed from your computer and you will get back your hard disk space.

After the removal of this file, you can go to defragment you computer. Believe me, it will help you much faster defragment your XP computer. But this is not enough to ensure a thorough and faster defragmentation. If you want more detailed information , please be patient to read through this article.

When defragmenting windows XP, there are many things that we can do to ensure a complete and fast defragment process, Here are some what you can accomplish:
1) Run a Disk Cleanup before the defragment process: open My Computer -> right click the drive to be cleaned up -> Priorities -> press Disk Cleanup within the General tab to begin the process.
2) Run an error-checking before the defragmentation: open My Computer -> right click the drive to select Priorities ->Tools -> Error-checking.
3) Turn off other running programs (or boot the computer into safe mode) before the defragmentation to prevent some unassociated interference.

With the steps above, it will be much faster to defragment your Windows XP computer, but if your hard disk is as large as 300 GB, it seems to be a little difficult (or terrible) to defragment it with windows built-in defragment utility for it will take a very long time to finish the whole defragment process. For me, I prefer to defragment my XP computer with a professional defrag program like Advanced Defrag to ensure a thorough defragmentation effectively.

In conclusion, a removal of the Hiberfil.sys file before the disk defragmentation is necessary to ensure a thorough defragmentation for Windows XP. But in order to save both your time and energy, it is wise to defragment it with a special designed defrag utility, Maybe you can click here to find something valuable.