defrag, scandisk, erasing free space

[Anonymous]

every few weeks i like to erase the freespace on my HD. 1st i clean out all the junk, basically all of my temp folders. the next part is where i get confused, because i've heard several recomendations that contradict themselves. this part consists of 3 things.....defrag, scandisk, and erasing free space. could someone tell me what order i should do these in, and most importantly WHY? i really want to understand the reasoning behind this.

 

[Anonymous]

You should first erase unused disk space, then defragment the drive and run scandisk if you wish. Finally, if you chose to defragment the drive, I suggest erasing the unused disk space again. See this explanation: http://ice.prohosting.com/sdean12/Comparison_Shredders.htm#Defragmenting and Shredding Free Space.

 

[Anonymous]

the "erasing pictures" thread had alotta helpful information. should i do it in this order?

run scandisk
erase free space
run defrag
erase free space

 

[SammeyDW]

Because of the possibility of Disk errors especially on a Fat drive, you should ALWAYS do a scandisk first.

Then a free space.

Then a defrag.

and if you really want to be therow, because defrag sometimes leaves bits of copies of files its moved , do another free space.