Photoshop scratch disk fragmentation on Windows XP

[jonny.graham]

Hi,

I have a user complaining about slow performance from Photoshop CS.
Once I investigated the problem I discovered that it was a problem with
the scratch discs. I then tried to defragment a single 1GB scratch disk
as 48% of the partition was fragmented but, it didn't defragment.

The report at the end reported the following:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Files that can't be fragmented
4 973MB \Photoshop Temp77543

I then tried to extend the partition and format it using Powerquest
Partition Magic by shrinking the C:\ drive and then using the free
space to extend the E:\ scratch disk to 10 GB, once the computer
rebooted and Partition Magic started to do its thang it came across an
error while it tried to change the 1GB scratch disk partition. Now I
have a C: drive that is 9GB smaller and that 9GB free space is sitting
unallocated.

I could just forget about the 1GB partition and destroy it the next
time I have to reinstall the operating system and then allocate the
spare 9GB as a new scratch disk but what if this happens again, I'll
then have lost 10GB out of a total 40GB harddrive.

I don't even know if the problem is with Photoshop or the Operating
System which is Windows XP, hence the reason I've posted on both
groups.

Thanks in advanced.

Thanks

J

 

[Leythos]

Hi,

I have a user complaining about slow performance from Photoshop CS.
Once I investigated the problem I discovered that it was a problem with
the scratch discs. I then tried to defragment a single 1GB scratch disk
as 48% of the partition was fragmented but, it didn't defragment.

The report at the end reported the following:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Files that can't be fragmented
4 973MB \Photoshop Temp77543

I then tried to extend the partition and format it using Powerquest
Partition Magic by shrinking the C:\ drive and then using the free
space to extend the E:\ scratch disk to 10 GB, once the computer
rebooted and Partition Magic started to do its thang it came across an
error while it tried to change the 1GB scratch disk partition. Now I
have a C: drive that is 9GB smaller and that 9GB free space is sitting
unallocated.

I could just forget about the 1GB partition and destroy it the next
time I have to reinstall the operating system and then allocate the
spare 9GB as a new scratch disk but what if this happens again, I'll
then have lost 10GB out of a total 40GB harddrive.

I don't even know if the problem is with Photoshop or the Operating
System which is Windows XP, hence the reason I've posted on both
groups.

If you want to have any real performance you need to put the PS Scratch
on a different physical DRIVE than the OS/Application runs on.

You can also remove the scratch disk setting, delete the file, defrag
the drive, and then recreate it.

 

[jonny.graham]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I would love to allocate a seperate harddrive to
use as a scratch disk but its a laptop that I'm dealing with
unfortunately.

I've already configured PS not to use this 1GB partition but the temp
file is still there, unless there is another way of turning it off? Is
there a way of viewing the temp file in question?

Do you think it would be worth booting into DOS and formatting this
partition with the FORMAT command or do you think it might break the
application?

Thanks

J