Learn how to use Manage and Optimize Drives to keep your disk and data drives defragmented and at top performance in Windows.

If some Windows functions aren't working or Windows crashes, use the System File Checker to scan Windows and restore your files. Though the steps below might look complicated at first glance, just follow them in order, step-by-step, and we’ll try to get you back on track.

Disk Management in Windows helps you perform advanced storage tasks like initializing a new drive and extending or shrinking volumes. Here’s some info on things you can do using Disk Management: Initialize a new drive. Extend a basic volume.

Storage Sense can automatically free up drive space for you by getting rid of items that you don't need, like temporary files and items in your Recycle Bin. Here’s more info on how it works and how to set it up to meet your needs.

Use System restore to make restore points when you install a new app, driver, or Windows update, and when you create a restore point manually. Restoring won’t affect your personal files, but it will remove apps, drivers, and updates installed after the restore point was made.

Free up drive space in Windows. If your PC is running low on free space, you might not be able to install important Windows updates, and your PC’s performance may be affected. Here are some ways to free up space so you can keep your PC up to date and running smoothly.

The Microsoft Defender Offline scan will automatically detect and remove or quarantine malware. Learn how to remove malware from your PC. Use Microsoft Defender Antivirus in Windows 10 or Windows 11 to scan your PC for malware, viruses, or other threats.

To avoid losing data, it's important to remove external hardware like hard drives and USB drives safely. Look for the Safely Remove Hardware icon on the taskbar. If you don't see it, select Show hidden icons . Press and hold (or right-click) the icon and select the hardware you want to remove.

Storage Spaces helps protect your data from drive failures and extend storage over time as you add drives to your PC. You can use Storage Spaces to group two or more drives together in a storage pool and then use capacity from that pool to create virtual drives called storage spaces.

Use this app to try to recover lost files that have been deleted from your local storage device (including internal drives, external drives, and USB devices) and can’t be restored from the Recycle Bin.