How to Defragment Unmovable Files in Windows

When tuning up your hard drive with a disk defragmentation, you may notice groups of files labeled "unmovable files". Disk defragmentation works by collecting and compressing fragmented files to free up disk space and improve performance, so why does it ignore these so-called unmovable files? Unmovable files tend to be files that are either in use during the defragmentation process (the paging file and the master file table, or MFT) or "system files"-files that can only be defragmented as the computer boots up. Unfortunately, the disk defragmentation program included with Windows operating systems does not allow users to do this. Luckily, there are utilities that can be downloaded for free, such as PageDefrag that enable you to run the boot defragmentation process and clean up your system files (see Resources).