Defragging difficulty

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brad
  • Start date Start date
B

Brad

I am trying to defrag my hard drive and its not working properly.

It has alot of fragments and I ran the defrag program under
accessories/system tools/disk defragmentor. When I returned it said it could
not defrag all parts of the drive. The graph of the analysis looked just as
bad after as it did before it started. It barely did anything...IF anything.

Running XP pro SP2 on a Athlon 1.4mhz, 512 ram, maxtor 120 gig

What can be done ?
Thank you for any input.
 
Brad

How much free space on the hard disk?

Select View Report and then select Save As. Now find VolumeC.txt in
your My Documents Folder and double click on the file to open it. You
will see a copy of the Report from Disk Defragmenter.You can then copy
and the data into a further message here. It should look like this:


Volume (C:)
Volume size = 48.45 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 7.92 GB
Free space = 40.53 GB
Percent free space = 83 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 0 %
File fragmentation = 0 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 50,615
Average file size = 198 KB
Total fragmented files = 32
Total excess fragments = 97
Average fragments per file = 1.00

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 50 MB
Total fragments = 1

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 3,902
Fragmented folders = 2
Excess folder fragments = 2

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 59 MB
MFT record count = 54,571
Percent MFT in use = 90 %
Total MFT fragments = 3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Most fragmented files
16 4 MB \stub.log
16 362 KB \Documents and Settings\Gerry
Cornell\Local Settings\Temp\bbassistant.log
11 485 KB \WINDOWS\Prefetch\Layout.ini
7 4 MB \WINDOWS\pfirewall.log


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
hello brad,

sometimes defrag in safemode
helps. however, before doing a defrag in
safemode

first make sure your virtual drive/pagefile
size is configured appropriately.

I suggest that you make it a custom size
for a min of 2 and the max 1152.

before rebooting initiate a chkdsk
via the drive properties/tools in explorer.

reboot and return to safemode.

now try your defrag again...

- db
I am trying to defrag my hard drive and its not working properly.

It has alot of fragments and I ran the defrag program under
accessories/system tools/disk defragmentor. When I returned it said it could
not defrag all parts of the drive. The graph of the analysis looked just as
bad after as it did before it started. It barely did anything...IF anything.

Running XP pro SP2 on a Athlon 1.4mhz, 512 ram, maxtor 120 gig

What can be done ?
Thank you for any input.
 
I am actually responing to the post dated 1/6/07, about the amount of free
space on the C drive. Ur instructions were very good and I followed them to
the word. My problem is I couldn't get the slider to stay on 700 mb. I could
go 625 or 826 approximately, but not 700 on the dot. Which number is best?
Once again the instructions were great. Thanks
 
Once more I found your instructions devine. My math isn't that great. The
space allocated was 50. I reduced it by half. Is that ok?
 
If you are referring to the allocation to System Restore it is an
indicative figure not a precise one. If I needed to think about it I
would opt for 826.


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
What are you referring to now? I do hope you are not interpreting the
illustration as a recommendation for a 50 mb pagefile! On the system
in question there is a much larger pagefile on another volume
(partition). The 50 mb in the illustration is a nominal pagefile
retained on the system partition to handle small memory dumps should
they occur.


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
How full is the drive? Defrag needs about 20% free space to work.
Click to expand...

85% full. It was at 86% when it reported it needs to be 15% free . I
deleted some files and it went to 15% free and then the defrag ran. When it
finished, it had fixed just some of the fragmentation.
 
Brad

How much free space on the hard disk?

Select View Report and then select Save As.
Click to expand...

Heres the disaster results. ( Perhaps I should delete some more files and
try again ?)


Volume (C:)
Volume size = 128 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 108 GB
Free space = 20.18 GB
Percent free space = 15 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 22 %
File fragmentation = 44 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 89,289
Average file size = 1 MB
Total fragmented files = 253
Total excess fragments = 42,211
Average fragments per file = 1.47

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 768 MB
Total fragments = 5

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 5,996
Fragmented folders = 5
Excess folder fragments = 12

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 106 MB
MFT record count = 96,182
Percent MFT in use = 88 %
Total MFT fragments = 3
 
Brad said:
85% full. It was at 86% when it reported it needs to be 15% free . I
deleted some files and it went to 15% free and then the defrag ran. When it
finished, it had fixed just some of the fragmentation.
Click to expand...

Try defragging in Safe Mode and free up some space by, say, uninstalling
a big program you don't use.

Alias
 
Where is the larger pagefile? Before I read ur post. My free space on C was
at 1%. I was unable to defrag. All I could see was red. I ran disk clean up,
removed compon., etc. I had 7% free space. NOW I have 11%, thanks to ur post.
Im thinking that MAYBE the larger pagefile reduction will put me @ 15? I
reduced that pagefile from 50 to half should I go more? Thanks
 
Brad

Your free disk space at 15% is minimal. It would be better at 20%.

Your average file size at 1 mb is high. This suggests you are storing
large files, perhaps photos. Large files will fragment when placed on
an already fragmented drive. This is because free space will be
fragmented so to place a large file it has to be written to a number
of locations on the disk. This situation with photos does not occur on
my disk because photos are in their own partition. You could run Disk
Defragmenter before carrying out photo editing.

You have not posted your most fragmented list. This probably supports
what I have said but this could be some further factors at work.

Running Disk Defragmenter a second and a third time can help. Some
other suggestions follow.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point.

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700
mb. Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System
Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this
time find the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and
exit. When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and
exit.

Another default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary
internet files, especially if you do not store offline copies on disk.
The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to
offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer
select Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files,
Settings to make the change. At the same time look at the number of
days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change to
5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

If your C drive is formatted as NTFS another potential gain arises
with your operating system on your C drive. In the Windows Directory
of your C partition you will have some Uninstall folders in your
Windows folder typically: $NtServicePackUninstall$ and
$NtUninstallKB282010$ etc. These files may be compressed or not
compressed. If compressed the text of the folder name appears in blue
characters. If not compressed you can compress them. Right click on
each folder and select Properties, General, Advanced and check the box
before Compress contents to save Disk Space. On the General Tab you
can see the amount gained by deducting the size on disk from the
size. Folder compression is only an option on a NTFS formatted drive
/partition.

When you have made these changes restart your computer and run Disk
Defragmenter once or twice. The extra free disk space should make an
impact.


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
My main pagefile is the first partition on a second hard drive. The
default pagefile size is 1.5 times the RAM memory but you can need
more or less depending on the amount of RAM installed as a multiplier
is not the most logical way to set a pagefile size. In reality it is a
matter of judgement which is best based on what is the actual pagefile
usage. However, you need to be careful not to set too low a maximum
and 50 mb is too low!
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

You may find it helpful to know exactly how much of your pagefile is
being used. Use page file monitor to observe what is the peak usage.
Start it to run immediately after start-up and look at the log at the
end of the session.The log is Pagefile log.txt. If you right click on
the file in Windows Explorer and select Send to, Desktop (Create
Shortcut). The same applies to XP_PageFileMon.exe.

A small utility to monitor pagefile usage:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

Note programs using undo features particularly those associated with
graphics and photo editing require large amounts of memory so if you
use this type of programme check these first observing how the page
usage increases when they start and whether the usage decreases when
you close the programme.


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
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