De Frag

[barbitu8]

What is "defragmenting" (or "defrag")? Why should I do it? How do I do it? What happens if I never do it?

[Damhna]

Defrag is a utility invented by Uncle Bill himself.
Watching the little blocks moving around the screen is meant to calm a troubled user. Somewhere the're hoping the defrag will sort out whatever problem they have and so by the time they actually get through to Tech Support all the fury has been drained.

But really..
Defrag is a good thing.
Windows is not incredibly adept at organising its storage of your data.It will store parts of a file in one place and the rest in another. Over time this can lead to problems as there may be huge gaps and it will slow down the seek time of your HDD.

It should be part of a regular maintenance routine and you will notice an improvment.

Watch Defrag ( hit <Show Detail> ) as it goes about its work and you will see exactly what it does.

I generally set defrag running when the drive has reached 4%. That said over Christmas we disconnected four servers and set them to defrag for a week. The best one came back with 83%!!

[SmackFu]

Imagine a concert being sold through Ticketmaster. Different sized groups buy tickets, and they're always given the best seats available. Now imagine a group of 3 in the first row cancel their seats. Then a group of 5 shows up and wants to buy tickets. Now they have two choices: they can either take seats in the back, or they can split up. If they sit in the back, their view is worse and they're unhappy. If they split up, it makes it a lot tougher for them to talk to each other, and kind of ruins the experience. Now imagine that a few more groups in the front cancel, and you have to repeat that choice again and again. Eventually the concert hall will fill up, but with lots of gaps, and the new ticket buyers must choose to split up. So more and more of the concertgoers become split up, and the general happiness goes down. :(

Got it? Well, the concert is a disk drive. Each group of people is a file. People cancelling tickets are files being deleted. Splitting up the group is exactly the same as fragmenting a file. Happiness of a group is analogous to speed of access to a file.

And to answer the OP, defragmenting the concert hall would mean rearranging the people so that all the groups could sit together. Which makes the general happiness level goes up.

[Purd Werfect]

I assume you're referring to hard disk defragmentation. Hard drives have sectors. When files are written to the hard drive, they span multiple sectors. The larger the file, the more sectors are used. Ideally, the file is written to adjacent sectors. This allows the drive heads moving across the platter to travel less when reading the file as it's requested. Less travel=greater speed. The drive becomes fragmented as files are deleted and new files are added. Essentially, the drive fills up nooks and crannies as it writes the newer files rather than looking for an area of free space which is large enough to accomodate the file in one contiguous space. This fragmentation results in parts of the file being written in sectors which are not contiguous. As a result, it takes longer for the drive to read the requested file. Using a utility to defragment the drive rearranges the files on a drive so that each file is written so it's component pieces are written adjacent to each other. If you never defragment your drive, you will notice a slowdown over time, especially if you regularly delete and add new files, which is pretty much a by-product of normal computer use.

Defragmentation isn't the only component of accessing files most efficiently. There is also optimization. In addition to defragmentation, optimization also places the most used files and directories at the beginning of the disk. Unused space on the drive is also defragmented so that new files are written to adjacent sectors.

When you're drive becomes less then about 85 or 90% optimized, running a full optimization will usually produce a noticeable improvement in speed.

[Yeah]

"Defrag is a utility invented by Uncle Bill himself." That's very hard to believe. I thought Mr. Republican had a perfect record of never inventing anything. Didn't someone like Peter Norton invent defragging?

Back to the OP: "What happens if I never do it?" I guess you reach a steady state where your level of fragmentation stops changing because every time you delete a file you decrease fragmentation just as much as you increase fragmenation every time you add a file to your badly fragmented hard drive. Of course, at this point your files are smeared all over the place and your computer is running slowly any time it has to do a lot of file accessing.

[Damhna]

'Twere meant as a joke.

[bdgr]

Originally posted by Yeah
"Defrag is a utility invented by Uncle Bill himself." That's very hard to believe. I thought Mr. Republican had a perfect record of never inventing anything. Didn't someone like Peter Norton invent defragging?

Norton did in fact

Back to the OP: "What happens if I never do it?" I guess you reach a steady state where your level of fragmentation stops changing because every time you delete a file you decrease fragmentation just as much as you increase fragmenation every time you add a file to your badly fragmented hard drive. Of course, at this point your files are smeared all over the place and your computer is running slowly any time it has to do a lot of file accessing.

They usually crash and burn long before this

[barbitu8]

Thanksalot guys. I could ask how to optimize next, but I'll stick to de frag.

[MannyL]

*Mods is this is a double post remove. IE gave me an 404 when I hit submit. If not a double post please remove this section*

Many people have found that their system will not do a complete defrag due to Windows needing to write to the the perodicaly. I found a way to get around this it works in 95 and 98 but I can not get it to work in ME. Do the following

1) Have an Emergency Boot Disk available if you mess up you will NOT be able to get into windows

2) Boot from this disk and at the a:\ prompt type c:\

3) Type cd\windows

4) type Edit system.ini

5a) Look for the line that says shell=explorer
5b) type rem before it

6a) Hit enter on the S in Shell to add a blank line
6b) Cursor up to that blank line type "shell=c:\windows\defrag.exe"

7) Save the file (Alt F, Save, Alt F, Exit)

8) Remove the floppy disk

9) Reboot the system

10) When the defrag program comes up start it, go out for coffee, dancing, whatever this will take a LONG time

11) When defrag finishes, put in the emergence disk

12) Reboot

13) At commeand prompt do steps 2 through 4 again

14) Put the word REM at the beginning of the line you added

15) Remove the REM from the original line

16) Save the file (see step 7)

17) Reboot



Next time you want to defrag just do steps 1-5 add REM to the beginning of the Shell= line and remove the REM from the defrag line and jump to step 7.

[scr4]

Originally posted by bdgr
Originally posted by Yeah
[B]"What happens if I never do it?" I guess you reach a steady state where your level of fragmentation stops changing
They usually crash and burn long before this

I didn't degrag the drive on my main PC for a full year (used every single day for most of my work and play, installed and removed many apps during that time), and had no problems at all. I didn't notice any improvement when I finally did a defrag after a year. I think fragmentation problems are overrated. Still, when there is a disk problem, I think fragmentation can increase the odds of losing files. Not a bad idea to defrag every couple of months, but no big deal if you don't.

Backups, on the other hand, are essential.

[Spud]

I logged on to post a question about de-fragging, and what do I see in the number 2 spot...

I have a Gateway P2-300 with 64 meg ram that is about 2 years old. I used to de-frag every few months with no problem... but probably haven't in about a year. Recently when trying to listen to a Packers game on RealPlayer it would play for a couple of minutes then lock-up. Then my son's new Thomas the Tank Engine game started to get "jerky" (i.e. the video/audio would skip, pause, and jump) after he played it for a while.

I'm one of those people the techies love to hate... I have a BA in computer sci (Fortran punch cards up to Pascal when PC's where toys that no comp sci person wanted to play with) who knows just enough to get himself into big trouble. Anyway, I decided to try a de-frag. Kept getting locked-up at about 4%. Cleared my caches, turned my "Hardware Acceleration" to none, changed my Virtual memory to 5,000 meg (was letting Windows 98 manage... I've still got approx. 5,600 out of 8 gig left). Reboot and de-frag again... got all the way to 10% watching the blocks move around before it locked again.

Any suggestions? I waited about 30 minutes without a "hit" to the hard drive (it's right next to me so it is easy to hear) before I gave up. The "three finger salute" (<ctrl><alt><del>) tells me the system is unstable or busy, and I can only get out of it by powering off. I'm not quite ready to try MannyL's response yet (hoping for more of a point and click solution).

Of course knowing my track record, de-frag probably has nothing to do with my original problem (but I still want to de-frag), so if anyone wants to solve that too I would be forever indebted.

-Spud

[bdgr]

Originally posted by Spud
I logged on to post a question about de-fragging, and what do I see in the number 2 spot...

I have a Gateway P2-300 with 64 meg ram that is about 2 years old. I used to de-frag every few months with no problem... but probably haven't in about a year. Recently when trying to listen to a Packers game on RealPlayer it would play for a couple of minutes then lock-up. Then my son's new Thomas the Tank Engine game started to get "jerky" (i.e. the video/audio would skip, pause, and jump) after he played it for a while.

I'm one of those people the techies love to hate... I have a BA in computer sci (Fortran punch cards up to Pascal when PC's where toys that no comp sci person wanted to play with) who knows just enough to get himself into big trouble. Anyway, I decided to try a de-frag. Kept getting locked-up at about 4%. Cleared my caches, turned my "Hardware Acceleration" to none, changed my Virtual memory to 5,000 meg (was letting Windows 98 manage... I've still got approx. 5,600 out of 8 gig left). Reboot and de-frag again... got all the way to 10% watching the blocks move around before it locked again.

Any suggestions? I waited about 30 minutes without a "hit" to the hard drive (it's right next to me so it is easy to hear) before I gave up. The "three finger salute" (<ctrl><alt><del>) tells me the system is unstable or busy, and I can only get out of it by powering off. I'm not quite ready to try MannyL's response yet (hoping for more of a point and click solution).

Of course knowing my track record, de-frag probably has nothing to do with my original problem (but I still want to de-frag), so if anyone wants to solve that too I would be forever indebted.

-Spud

REboot in safe mode, run defrag from there. to get to safe mode, hit F8 at bootup when you get the msg starting windows 9x. you will get a menu, with the option for safe mode.

[bdgr]

Originally posted by scr4
Originally posted by bdgr
Originally posted by Yeah
[B]"What happens if I never do it?" I guess you reach a steady state where your level of fragmentation stops changing
They usually crash and burn long before this

I didn't degrag the drive on my main PC for a full year (used every single day for most of my work and play, installed and removed many apps during that time), and had no problems at all. I didn't notice any improvement when I finally did a defrag after a year. I think fragmentation problems are overrated. Still, when there is a disk problem, I think fragmentation can increase the odds of losing files. Not a bad idea to defrag every couple of months, but no big deal if you don't.

Backups, on the other hand, are essential.


I work as a NT admin on a 10,000 user network, we run into defrag problems all the time. It really does depend on what apps you are running. MS Office can really screw up with a badly fragged drive. Of course, at a site that big, we see the worst of everything.

[bdgr]

Originally posted by MannyL
*Mods is this is a double post remove. IE gave me an 404 when I hit submit. If not a double post please remove this section*

Many people have found that their system will not do a complete defrag due to Windows needing to write to the the perodicaly. I found a way to get around this it works in 95 and 98 but I can not get it to work in ME. Do the following

1) Have an Emergency Boot Disk available if you mess up you will NOT be able to get into windows

2) Boot from this disk and at the a:\ prompt type c:\

3) Type cd\windows

4) type Edit system.ini

5a) Look for the line that says shell=explorer
5b) type rem before it

6a) Hit enter on the S in Shell to add a blank line
6b) Cursor up to that blank line type "shell=c:\windows\defrag.exe"

7) Save the file (Alt F, Save, Alt F, Exit)

8) Remove the floppy disk

9) Reboot the system

10) When the defrag program comes up start it, go out for coffee, dancing, whatever this will take a LONG time

11) When defrag finishes, put in the emergence disk

12) Reboot

13) At commeand prompt do steps 2 through 4 again

14) Put the word REM at the beginning of the line you added

15) Remove the REM from the original line

16) Save the file (see step 7)

17) Reboot

cute.....I like that.

Probably do just as good to go into safe mode(safe mode doesnt do near as much background crap), but your ways cooler.





Next time you want to defrag just do steps 1-5 add REM to the beginning of the Shell= line and remove the REM from the defrag line and jump to step 7.

[MannyL]

Probably do just as good to go into safe mode(safe mode doesnt do near as much background crap), but your ways cooler.


I've never been able to do a full defrag in safemode. Thats why I invented this method

[casdave]

I would do a Scandisk before defragging just to be sure that the file system has not been damaged.

There is a known problem with Windows Me.

Using third party defraggers, such as Norton, may cause problems when you reboot.

There is a fix for this, make sure that Me is up to date on Windows updates and the necessary help file will be installed.

Alternatively instead of waiting for things to go wrong you could look it up in Me help using Defrag as a search item and print it out ready for the fateful day.

[handy]

Thats right, run scandisk FIRST & run it under DOS if you are intelligent enough to figure out how to do that.

Course, searching here for 'defrag' which is a unique word, would probably show no less than 100 messages on the topic.
If you search for 'de frag' you probably get 100,000 messages....see?

[barbitu8]

Originally posted by handy

Course, searching here for 'defrag' which is a unique word, would probably show no less than 100 messages on the topic.
If you search for 'de frag' you probably get 100,000 messages....see?

How many would I get if I search for "de fag"?

[Quasimodem]

When I use this feature in newly installed Norton Utilities, it does take a helluva long time to de-frag (6 hours is not unusual) but then when it's finished and I close it, if I don't immediately "x" out of it, it wants to start over. Also, I defragged one day, and then just to test the system, I defragged again the next day. Same thing: 6 hours. WTF?

Thanks

Quasi

[sewalk]

Originally posted by Yeah
Didn't someone like Peter Norton invent defragging?

Absolutely, or at least the version Microsoft ships with Win95/98/ME was A closer look at the program will reveal a copyright notice crediting Symantec, which acquired Peter Norton's company many years ago. Ditto for the older DOS version which, in fact, looks just like the old Norton defragmenter for DOS. Go figure.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by MannyL
*Mods is this is a double post remove. IE gave me an 404 when I hit submit. If not a double post please remove this section*

Many people have found that their system will not do a complete defrag due to Windows needing to write to the the perodicaly. I found a way to get around this it works in 95 and 98 but I can not get it to work in ME. Do the following

1) Have an Emergency Boot Disk available if you mess up you will NOT be able to get into windows

2) Boot from this disk and at the a:\ prompt type c:\

3) Type cd\windows

4) type Edit system.ini

5a) Look for the line that says shell=explorer
5b) type rem before it

6a) Hit enter on the S in Shell to add a blank line
6b) Cursor up to that blank line type "shell=c:\windows\defrag.exe"

7) Save the file (Alt F, Save, Alt F, Exit)

8) Remove the floppy disk

9) Reboot the system

10) When the defrag program comes up start it, go out for coffee, dancing, whatever this will take a LONG time

11) When defrag finishes, put in the emergence disk

12) Reboot

13) At commeand prompt do steps 2 through 4 again

14) Put the word REM at the beginning of the line you added

15) Remove the REM from the original line

16) Save the file (see step 7)

17) Reboot



Next time you want to defrag just do steps 1-5 add REM to the beginning of the Shell= line and remove the REM from the defrag line and jump to step 7.

I just CTRL-ALT-DEL and end task on everything but Explorer and Systray before running it. Works for me.

[micco]

The only real purpose of the defrag utility is providing a convenient stall for tech support. Many times when a user reports a problem to first-level tech support, and the clueless newbie (the first-level techie, not the user) can't figure out the problem, they end the call with a confident "Well, it's obviously a disk problem. Run your defrag utility and scan disk to clear it up."

The techie knows full well that this will do absolutely nothing to cure problems with software applications, but they also know that most errors reported are PEBKAC ("problem exist between keyboard and chair") and getting the user to defrag means they'll walk away for an hour or so and maybe do things correctly when they come back.

[Sue Duhnym]

I ran my defrag overnight (about 10 hours) about two weeks ago.

I went to bed when it was about 20% "complete" and I woke up to 12%.

I finally cancelled it, thinking it was hopeless as it kept saying that "disk contents changing" (paraphrasing) and would start all over.

WTF?

[Crusoe]

Disk Defragmenter won't run if there are other programs running, since it's rearranging the data on the hard disk (and other programs using the hard disk will also be reading and writing data, interrupting the process).

Commonly programs like screensavers and virus scanners will interrupt Defrag, so you need to disable these. The easiest way is to restart your PC in safe mode (or to disable all such programs using CTRL-ALT-DEL) and then run Defrag again.

You're seeing the 12% message because Defrag is only getting so far before another program does something, Defrag has a fit and restarts.

[sailor]

Sue, I believe we have discussed this several times and it has to do with the swap file

[Sue Duhnym]

Originally posted by sailor
Sue, I believe we have discussed this several times and it has to do with the swap file

Thanks sailor. I find your patience, expertise and helpfulness a joy to behold.

[bdgr]

Originally posted by micco
The only real purpose of the defrag utility is providing a convenient stall for tech support. Many times when a user reports a problem to first-level tech support, and the clueless newbie (the first-level techie, not the user) can't figure out the problem, they end the call with a confident "Well, it's obviously a disk problem. Run your defrag utility and scan disk to clear it up."

The techie knows full well that this will do absolutely nothing to cure problems with software applications, but they also know that most errors reported are PEBKAC ("problem exist between keyboard and chair") and getting the user to defrag means they'll walk away for an hour or so and maybe do things correctly when they come back.

Not really...no....

A heavily fragmented drive will cause all sorts of nasty problems, especially with certain programs. I have found many systems that were just plain flakey, office crashing constantly, system running slow etc. I check, and they havent run defrag in 6 months. I run defrag and the system is working fine again. I remeber this two person team called the digital duo or some such nonsene put forth this theory on thier show, along with such gems as "you should never have to reboot your machine, if the tech support person tells you too, ask to speak to thier supervisor", and if they have to look anything up in thier documentation, ask to speak tthier supervisor. The tech support comunity was ready to tar and feather these two morons.

[erislover]

I've only seen three of my programs that make defrag utility go nuts and start over again: Winamp, Seti@home, and the sidewinder game controller software. Nnothing else that runs on my Win98 Machine seems to interfere with it.

[barbitu8]

I started this post 7 months ago so I feel free to ask another question now.

I downloaded the Maintenance Wizard from the ME CD (it wasn't initially installed). This provides a schedule for doing certain things, such as scandisk, defrag, etc., a schedule which I can make as I please. I plan to run the defrag at 7PM the first of every month. My new question is whether that will run if I shut down the computer (but not at the switch). I plan to shut down the computer before 7pm on those days and let defrag run. Will it run with the computer shut down, but juice still flowing? That would obviate problems like other programs running, starting in Safe Mode, etc.

[micco]

Originally posted by barbitu8
I downloaded the Maintenance Wizard from the ME CD (it wasn't initially installed). This provides a schedule for doing certain things, such as scandisk, defrag, etc., a schedule which I can make as I please. I plan to run the defrag at 7PM the first of every month. My new question is whether that will run if I shut down the computer (but not at the switch). I plan to shut down the computer before 7pm on those days and let defrag run. Will it run with the computer shut down, but juice still flowing? That would obviate problems like other programs running, starting in Safe Mode, etc.

I don't use ME, so I can't answer the question directly, but I suspsect "no". It depends on whether ME's shutdown actually terminates the OS process or is more equivalent to NT's logoff or a laptop's power saving mode.

However, a general comment about your plan: it's generally a bad idea to automate a process which conflicts with other processes as badly as defrag does. Your plan works fine as long as you are *never* using your computer at 7pm on the day in question, but this is a bad process to have kick off when you're trying to do something else (though you could always just cancel it...). For things like this, I prefer to schedule pop-up reminders to myself, so that every so often I get a reminder to run some CPU-intensive process, and I then kick it off manually when I'm through for the day. For me this is generally full-drive backups and log parsing operations rather than defrag, but the idea is the same.

Also, OT reply to bdgr, my comments were wrong in as much as any gross generalization is wrong, but I've had first-tier techies tell me to defrag my disk to fix things like comm port conflicts and sound card driver problems. Both the techie and I know full well this won't work, so I just take it as "goodbye", but it's annoying when they do this to my less tech-savvy friends instead of just telling them they need to get such-and-such driver. So, you're absolutely right that defrag has its uses, but when you hear it from a techie, take it with a grain of salt.

[bdgr]

Originally posted by barbitu8
I started this post 7 months ago so I feel free to ask another question now.

I downloaded the Maintenance Wizard from the ME CD (it wasn't initially installed). This provides a schedule for doing certain things, such as scandisk, defrag, etc., a schedule which I can make as I please. I plan to run the defrag at 7PM the first of every month. My new question is whether that will run if I shut down the computer (but not at the switch). I plan to shut down the computer before 7pm on those days and let defrag run. Will it run with the computer shut down, but juice still flowing? That would obviate problems like other programs running, starting in Safe Mode, etc.

No, it will not run, unless the OS is up and running.

[bdgr]

Originally posted by micco


Also, OT reply to bdgr, my comments were wrong in as much as any gross generalization is wrong, but I've had first-tier techies tell me to defrag my disk to fix things like comm port conflicts and sound card driver problems. Both the techie and I know full well this won't work, so I just take it as "goodbye", but it's annoying when they do this to my less tech-savvy friends instead of just telling them they need to get such-and-such driver. So, you're absolutely right that defrag has its uses, but when you hear it from a techie, take it with a grain of salt.

I know what you mean. There are some techs who use time consuming processes like defrag, and surface scan to dump a caller. Here (http://www.digitalduo.com/201_dig.html) is the article that caused all the stink. I have had the misfortune of working phone support, and I can imagine haveing to deal with someone who had seen this show and thought that they should ask for a supervisor if I had to look something up in the knowlege base. Like there is some magical superhumer called a supervisor that has encountered every problem possible, and they will instantly know how to fix any problem. Where I worked, the supervisors were often the most clueless technically, their main purpose was damage control on pissed off customers.

[Golden Child]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MannyL


Many people have found that their system will not do a complete defrag due to Windows needing to write to the the perodicaly. I found a way to get around this it works in 95 and 98 but I can not get it to work in ME. Do the following

Don't know what's wrong w/ your operating ME but mine does a complete defrag and it takes aprox. 30 min. to do. Maybe something else is wrong here.

[Kalashnikov]

Sorry, folks, but defragging was around before there ever was a Microsoft. Some operating systems may have had other names for it, but I do recall doing it on other systems.

Man, that seems like a looong time ago. Am I getting old? Noooooo!!!!

[bdgr]

Originally posted by kalashnikov
Sorry, folks, but defragging was around before there ever was a Microsoft. Some operating systems may have had other names for it, but I do recall doing it on other systems.

Man, that seems like a looong time ago. Am I getting old? Noooooo!!!!

I remember doing it on early versions of DOS back in the early 80s, with Speeddisk. The really early version, that if it you lost power whille defraggin, or even stopped the program, you lost everything

[Fredge]

Originally posted by Sue Duhnym
I ran my defrag overnight (about 10 hours) about two weeks ago.

I went to bed when it was about 20% "complete" and I woke up to 12%. WTF?

I've had the same problem on my current system. What I've found to be causing it is background programs writing to the drive while defrag (I use Norton's) is trying to defrag. These other programs writing causes defrag to stop and have to re-read the disk, start over, etc.

The solution I've found is to kill everything running before starting my defrag program. In addition to programs you can see running (Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, etc), kill the other stuff running in the background. Use CTRL-ALT-Delete and 'End Task' on everything except a program called 'Explorer' (killing that will shutdown Windows I've found).

After you've killed everything else, try starting your defragger and see if that helps. If your disk is badly fragmented it may still take a while to defrag it, but you should be seeing steady progress.

[nightshadea]

is from symatec <sp> the program they're known for today is mcaffe anti-virius


also one benefit of running scan disk and defrag is you can get memory freed up by using it

but if you delete things like the internet tempoary files files and cookies and such id do it once month or so

[bdgr]

Originally posted by nightshadea
is from symatec <sp> the program they're known for today is mcaffe anti-virius



Nope....Mcaffe is owned by Network Associates, originally it was owned by.....Mcaffe. Symantic is the company that bought out Norton. and the do make thier own antivirus software, but its not mcaffe

[handy]

You can defrag but you must run scandisk first!

Also, get a real program like System Suite 2000 which is fine for w9x. Not only does it do defrag in a fraction of the time DOS defrag takes but it has many other programs.

When I first ran the registry scanner program it found several hundred old registry links that it cleaned up. Also defrags the registry. My three meg registry became one meg & things are running great.

[sailor]

I believe in France it is de-frog. :)

[Irishman]

I wish I understood what everyone is saying. Half this stuff is whizzing over my head.

But I think I've been having this problem - defrag not running fully but restarting, or locking up. Especially with Maintenance Wizard.

I will try the safe mode Scandisk, then defrag.

[barbitu8]

Originally posted by bdgr
REboot in safe mode, run defrag from there. to get to safe mode, hit F8 at bootup when you get the msg starting windows 9x. you will get a menu, with the option for safe mode.

Microsoft Help says hit CTRL at bootup to get to safemode. I read somewhere to hit both CTRL + F8. Not having tried this yet, I don't know which if any, or all, will work.

MannyL said on 1/5/01 that he was never able to fully defrag in safemode. Is this true? Has anyone else had that problem, before I try that?

[Johanna]

A tech guy told me once it isn't a good idea to defrag too often. ScanDisk is safe to run as much as you like, but you should wait until the disk is a certain amount fragmented before running defrag. Anything to this?

[handy]

Hold CTRL to get the MENU. From the MENU you can select DOS or Safe mode etc.

Defrag all you want Jomo. It might be unnessary sometimes but its safe. Also defrag the registry.

[bdgr]

Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
A tech guy told me once it isn't a good idea to defrag too often. ScanDisk is safe to run as much as you like, but you should wait until the disk is a certain amount fragmented before running defrag. Anything to this?

No. I suppose it does put a little extra wear on the hard drive, but considering that hard drive will be completely obsolete in just a few years, it should outlast its usability anyway.

[barbitu8]

I went to Safe Mode last night and first used Scan Disk. That took almost six hours. During the first hour, it kept going back to start and then gave me the note that it has done that 10 times already. So I clicked don't tell me again and went away from the computer, to return a few hours later, and it apparently did not do it after the first hour. I timed the rate and it was about 5,000 clusters a minute and I had a total of 1,217,000 clusters. What the heck is a cluster? On the details, they are laid out in tiles.

Then I started the defrag and I knew I wouldn't complete it before bedtime, but wanted to see how it progressed. In just a few minutes, it was 30% finished, with no returns to start, but then it bogged down. I toggled down (not the right term, but I can't think of the right one now) to see how the rest looked, and there were just a few empty tiles before the clusters ended and I had all white. So with not much fragmentation, I canceled and went to bed.

Thanks to all who have tried to help. Three more questions. What's a cluster? Why did it take 6 hours to Scan Disk in Safe Mode, and is that usual? Incidentally, no errors were found.

[yabob]

Originally posted by bdgr
Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
A tech guy told me once it isn't a good idea to defrag too often. ScanDisk is safe to run as much as you like, but you should wait until the disk is a certain amount fragmented before running defrag. Anything to this?

No. I suppose it does put a little extra wear on the hard drive, but considering that hard drive will be completely obsolete in just a few years, it should outlast its usability anyway.
Actually, it probably isn't bad advice just on the grounds that a defragmentation program is something that has potential to really screw up your filesystem if it had a bug. The windows defragger is pretty solid and it's not likely, but why run the risk when it doesn't need to be done?

BTW, a cluster is a grouping of disk sectors. Disks are divided into physical sectors, usually 512 bytes. It is sometimes conveniant for the minimum block size the filesystem works in to be bigger than this, so the sectors are lumped into "clusters" (Windows calls them "allocation units"). For Windows FAT filesystems, you are only allowed 65536 clusters per partition, so in order to make use of larger disk space within a partition, you have to increase the cluster size. The down side to having a large cluster size is that small files then waste a lot of space. Some of these disk analysis programs will report "cluster overhang", which is a term for waste space because of leftover bytes in the clusters.

[barbitu8]

Originally posted by yabob
For Windows FAT filesystems, you are only allowed 65536 clusters per partition, so in order to make use of larger disk space within a partition, you have to increase the cluster size. The down side to having a large cluster size is that small files then waste a lot of space. Some of these disk analysis programs will report "cluster overhang", which is a term for waste space because of leftover bytes in the clusters.

Isn't there a program, similar to defragging, which can eliminate the cluster overhang? If it's possible to eliminate spaces between clusters, why isn't it possible to eliminate space in a cluster?

[Joe_Cool]

Originally posted by Sue Duhnym
I ran my defrag overnight (about 10 hours) about two weeks ago.

I went to bed when it was about 20% "complete" and I woke up to 12%.

I finally cancelled it, thinking it was hopeless as it kept saying that "disk contents changing" (paraphrasing) and would start all over.

WTF?


Sue, I really doubt your problem is related to the swap file. It's possible, but not likely. You might want to try MannyL's suggestion, otherwise try this:

First, get into safe mode. The easiest way is to boot while holding down the Shift key. Once the windows splash screen comes up, you can let go. When safe mode boots fully, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and make sure nothing is running in the task list except explorer.

When that's done, first run Scandisk with "Automatically fix errors" checked. Standard scan is fine, no need to run thorough unless you want to burn an extra hour, or unless you suspect problems with the hard drive or file system.

After scandisk is done, close it and run defrag again. You shouldn't have any further problems. If it's still telling you that something is writing to the hard drive, then it's conceivable you may have a virus.

If you have more problems, my e-mail is in my profile.

[barbitu8]

Originally posted by Joe_Cool
[B] First, get into safe mode. The easiest way is to boot while holding down the Shift key. Once the windows splash screen comes up, you can let go. When safe mode boots fully, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and make sure nothing is running in the task list except explorer.

When that's done, first run Scandisk with "Automatically fix errors" checked. Standard scan is fine, no need to run thorough unless you want to burn an extra hour, or unless you suspect problems with the hard drive or file system.

That's why it took me so long. I did the thorough Scandisk. Also after getting into Safe Mode, I did not delete anything. I thought SafeMode is a mode wherein nothing runs except the essentials. But I got into SafeMode by holding down the Control key, not the Shift key.