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General => Technical Help => Topic started by: Pejic on Wednesday 08 February 12 21:15 GMT (UK)
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In the olden days I used to run defrag from a C:> prompt and this used to (as far as I remember) display a coloured representation of files being moved around and rebuilt in contiguous areas of the disk.
I am now running windows XP version 5.1 and trying to sort my disks out in the hope of speeding up running times.
From Control Panel I select "Rearrange items on your hard disk to make programs run faster" which gives me a "Disk Defragmenter" panel with "Analyse" and "Defragment" options.
If I select Defragment it goes straight to say "Analyzing . . .1%" with a progress bar with one block on it, and doesn't change for at least 15 minutes.
If I select Analyse it goes straight to say "Analyzing . . .10%" with a progress bar with 2 blocks on it, and doesn't change for at least 15 minutes.
If I run defrag C: from a C:> prompt it just seems to hang with the cursor sitting at the start of the next line on the screen.
I remember there was an alternative defrag program but do not now recall waht it was called.
Can any one help please?
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Whichever defrag utility you use it will analyse the(each) disk first.
In XP/WindowsExplorer?rightclickthedrive/Properties/Tools/DefragmentNow
Go make a cup of tea or go up the pub for a couple.
It will take time.
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I take it that your drives have not been defragged for a long time, hence the long wait?
The blocks type of display reminds me of Windows 98, where you had to disable the screen saver to prevent defrag from restarting from start.
Was your alternative to defrag a downloaded product, I once tried disc keeper which installs over normal defrag. (This produced the Windows 98 type of graphic display)
I would set defrag to check drives whilst preparing/eating meal and see how it goes.
I am still running XP Pro and with 120Gig drive takes 15minutes at least.
(On a reasonable good day)
Brian
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I use Defraggler. I am told it is much better than the Windows one.
http://www.piriform.com/defraggler/download
Paul
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The first part of the defrag process involves the PC looking at all the files, working out where to best relocate them to defrag, and then working out the order to put them on the drive for maximum efficiency. If there are a lot of files on the disk, this will take a long time, and there will be no apparent action on the display, making it look like the process has hanged. Defrag is best done when you've got a few hours away from the computer (whilst watching a movie, or the TV, etc).
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Smart Defrag 2 and Auslogic are good ones - both based on the same 'engine', but Smart Defrag also has the ability to defrag system files like the MFT, Pagefile etc during Bootup.
Defragging the C drive will never be 100% as its active logging etc etc ...
Google the above products home sites or go to CNET downloads.
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Thanks everyone.
I'll try patience first.
First defrag for at least 3 years.
460,000 files in 3,600 directories in 20GB of a 36GB disk.
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Patience did it - it started moving after 35 minutes!
Thanks again.
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Unless you're running pretty antiquated hardware, defragging will make next to no difference if you're an average end user. If you are worried about access speed you'd be better off buying some new kit rather than wasting time trying to line up all the bits on an old disc :)
Paul
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Defragging might make Windows start up slightly faster, but (as PaulStaffs) said, so would newer hardware and a more modern OS.
A while ago I invested in a solid-state drive which became my C drive where (mostly) only the parts of Windows 7 reside - everything else is stored on other mechanical drives. The increase in boot-up speed was amazing 8)
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I go along with Nick.... a separate partition or another drive to save all your stuff on helps
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Thanks for your comments. It took 9 hours but everything is running much faster now, it was processing speed I was concerned about, though I appreciate this might have something to with disc access requirements.
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After reading this thread, and not having defragged my drive (137 GB) for close to 4 years, I thought it would be a good idea. So I downloaded Defraggler and ran it (it did take hours). To start with there was about 29 GB of free space, but when it was finished there was 47 GB free space. I wasn't expecting it to clear much space, but was shocked when suddenly I had gained back 18 GB (13%). I hope it didn't delete anything important.
Is it normal for defragging to clear so much space? I thought it mainly just moved files around.
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Defragmentation should not delete data. It merely makes files contiguous (goggle it). When a file is fragmented the computer has to read the FAT (another job for google) to discover where the next fragment is. This involves disk head movement which slows down the disk. So having contiguous files makes head movement back to read the FAT unnecessary.
The program you used must also have a ‘disk cleanup’ element to it. I hope so anyway.
Defragmentation programs are not all the same. A commercial defragger, such as Diskeeper’ will move the data closer to the centre, which again reduces head movement. Freebies tend to leave it in random locations on the disk.
The best way to use a freebie is to defrag, then reboot, and then defrag again. This helps to shift the data together. Commercial defraggers work in the background.
If you have three disks (physical or logical) you should keep one (C: ) for programs; the second for data (say F: ); and the third (say G: ) for defragging. You then periodically copy all your data from F: to G:. Delete F:, and when you copy it back again it will automatically be in contiguous blocks.
In the two examples quoted leaving it for so long probably left the FAT itself fragmented, making the disk even slower.
Solid State Drives need a commercial defragger specifically designed for SSDs. Other defraggers will reduce their life expectancy.
Ken
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Thanks Ken, this is pretty much what I thought, though I didn't know the specifics. I did a bit more searching and it seems like other people have been experiencing similar free space after using Defraggler, so I'm not too worried. The computer has been considerably faster since it finished defragging.
Alexander