Defrag questioon

[mp]

I have an old desktop comp that runs real slow and disk activity "seems
excessive"
by "disk activity "seems excessive"" I mean I see the disk access light and
hear the clicking longer than I'd think it should.

xp pro version 2002 sp2
intel pent 3, 601MHz, 384 mb ram

i've run disk defrag many many times this am and it still has lots of white
lines, red lines among the blue bands
(white = unused, blue = contig, red = fragmented, green = unmovable)

I've run defrag at least 50 times this am and it now only spends a few
seconds "compacting and moving" and very lttle has changed in the
display....I was hoping to get mostly blue on the left side and mostly white
on the right side...seems like it would take a 1000 times to get there at
this rate....

If i do analyze instead of defrag it says does not need defragged....

is this just a hopeless case and i have to accept the current state or is
there a way to automate defragging so that i could leave it repeating all
day and hope to eventually get to a cleaner state???

thanks
mark

ps i also have avast home edition and malwarebytes...both report clean
system

 

[Steve Hayes]

I have an old desktop comp that runs real slow and disk activity "seems
excessive"
by "disk activity "seems excessive"" I mean I see the disk access light and
hear the clicking longer than I'd think it should.

xp pro version 2002 sp2
intel pent 3, 601MHz, 384 mb ram

^^^

There's your problem, especially if you have automatic upgrades switched on.

Each software upgrade adds more bells and whistles which require more and more
RAM, and if there isn't enough it swaps to disk.

You keep getting offered new versions of web browsers, flash players and other
gizmos, and each of these is more memory hungry than the last.

Try to upgrade to at least 1 Gb of RAM

 

[Tim Meddick]

As "Steve Hayes" suggests, the problem is more likely to be being caused by
an unnecessary amount of "Program Updaters" and "Quick Launchers" running
in the background...

Either use your "Window's Task Manager" (right-click on your taskbar and
choose Task Manager) or download the more advanced Sysinternal's "Process
Explorer" to browse what applications are currently running.

Then try and make an educated assessment (if you feel able to) about which
are unnecessary, then disable those you feel you can live without by using
either your System Configuration ("msconfig.exe") utility (Start-Up tab),
or download and use Sysinternal's "Auto Runs" program to do the same.

Free Downloads :

Sysinternal's Process Explorer;
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorer.zip

Sysinternal's AutoRuns;
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Autoruns.zip

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

a. Here is a Top 10 Reviews side-by-side comparison of the best defrag
programs around:

http://disk-defragmenter-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

- which all seem to be paid-for products. I find:

http://www.kessels.nl/JkDefrag/

works for me (I'm still using the V3 'jkdefrag' program rather than the
author's newest version). It's faster than XP's defragger, and somewhat
customisable in that you can decide what you want it to achieve (not just in
defragging files, but choosing where on a disk to place certain types of
file, and where on the disk to leave large gaps).

 

[mp]

a very belated thank you to all who responded to my old message.
Thanks
Mark