defraging a disk is taking days?

[aaronep]

I have Windows XP with SP2. am using Norton Vsn 2006 to jet defrag an
external iomega 153 gig hard drive.

The process is going painfully slow. In the last 40 hours, only 50 of
the hard drive has been optimized.

Is the process this slow normal? If not, any suggestions as to what I
may be doing wrong?

all replies welcomed! Aaron in hot N. Hollywood.

 

[Alias]

I have Windows XP with SP2. am using Norton Vsn 2006 to jet defrag an
external iomega 153 gig hard drive.

The process is going painfully slow. In the last 40 hours, only 50 of
the hard drive has been optimized.

Is the process this slow normal? If not, any suggestions as to what I
may be doing wrong?

all replies welcomed! Aaron in hot N. Hollywood.

Did you disable your anti virus before initiating the defrag? Is it
formatted in NTFS or FAT32?

Alias

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have Windows XP with SP2. am using Norton Vsn 2006 to jet defrag
an external iomega 153 gig hard drive.

The process is going painfully slow. In the last 40 hours, only 50
of the hard drive has been optimized.

Is the process this slow normal? If not, any suggestions as to
what I may be doing wrong?

all replies welcomed! Aaron in hot N. Hollywood.

Normal?
No. Doesn't sound like it to me.. Although - if it is USB 1.1 - could be
slow.

Want to Defrag the External drive?
Move everything off, format and copy everything back.

 

[Alias]

Normal?
No. Doesn't sound like it to me.. Although - if it is USB 1.1 - could be
slow.

Want to Defrag the External drive?
Move everything off, format and copy everything back.

Clever, would have never thought of that.

Alias

 

[Richard Urban]

Of course, if it is USB 1.1 it could take quite a while to move everything
off, format, and then move everything back on.

My own thoughts on external drives is this. For me they are used for
backups, or long term storage. For the number of times I will be even
turning the drive on, I never defrag them. It is a waste of time to do so.


--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have Windows XP with SP2. am using Norton Vsn 2006 to jet
defrag an external iomega 153 gig hard drive.

The process is going painfully slow. In the last 40 hours, only
50 of the hard drive has been optimized.

Is the process this slow normal? If not, any suggestions as to
what I may be doing wrong?

all replies welcomed! Aaron in hot N. Hollywood.

Normal?
No. Doesn't sound like it to me.. Although - if it is USB 1.1 -
could be slow.

Want to Defrag the External drive?
Move everything off, format and copy everything back.

Of course, if it is USB 1.1 it could take quite a while to move
everything off, format, and then move everything back on.

My own thoughts on external drives is this. For me they are used for
backups, or long term storage. For the number of times I will be
even turning the drive on, I never defrag them. It is a waste of
time to do so.

Agreed - both counts.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have Windows XP with SP2. am using Norton Vsn 2006 to jet
defrag an external iomega 153 gig hard drive.

The process is going painfully slow. In the last 40 hours, only
50 of the hard drive has been optimized.

Is the process this slow normal? If not, any suggestions as to
what I may be doing wrong?

all replies welcomed! Aaron in hot N. Hollywood.

Normal?
No. Doesn't sound like it to me.. Although - if it is USB 1.1 -
could be slow.

Want to Defrag the External drive?
Move everything off, format and copy everything back.

Clever, would have never thought of that.

Thanks Alias. Whenever you mentioned (another offshoot of this thread) the
Antivirus software - I smacked my head. Couldn't believe I had forgotten
that. It definitely could be causing the issue. Albeit there woul dhave to
be many small files for it to make a defrag last quite this long I would
think - unless it was also USB 1.1.. In which case - my idea of copying
things off/back on would work - but not necessarily be much faster. heh

 

[aaronep]

note to Alias & others: drive is FAT32. I did NOT disable anti virus
before starting formatting. Have done so now. Don't know if this will
affect defrag operation half way through process.

Question about whether is USB 1.1 or 2 raises good points. Apparently
the drive can accomodate both modes. However, my USB connect IS 1.2.
I can install a 2.0
connection. Will try that AFTER total defragmentation takes place
(maybe by this August).

Again thanks for all of the excellent ideas & suggestions!

Aaron


*******************************************************************************************

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Of course, if it is USB 1.1 it could take quite a while to move
everything off, format, and then move everything back on.

My own thoughts on external drives is this. For me they are used for
backups, or long term storage. For the number of times I will be even
turning the drive on, I never defrag them. It is a waste of time to
do so.

I'm with you. My backup drives never need to be defragged because the way I
use them is to delete everything on them before writing a new file.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

note to Alias & others: drive is FAT32. I did NOT disable anti virus
before starting formatting. Have done so now. Don't know if this will
affect defrag operation half way through process.

Question about whether is USB 1.1 or 2 raises good points. Apparently
the drive can accomodate both modes. However, my USB connect IS 1.2.
I can install a 2.0 connection.

You should definitely do that before doing anything else, including
continuing the defrag.

Will try that AFTER total defragmentation takes place
(maybe by this August).

It will probably be faster and less aggravating, and get your system
operating sooner, to just go get a USB 2.0 card and retry defragmenting.
USB2 is perhaps 30 - 40 times faster than 1.x.

You probably won't even have to install a driver for the card; XP will do
it. I think I pay about CDN$25 for USB 2.0 cards. Installation can take
just a few minutes.

HTH
-pk