Defragmentation Problem

[Richard Oliver]

Win XP Home edition--
Is there a reason why some files will not defrag ???
I had to sort out Critical error messages concerning two files,one was a
minidump file the other a data file.
I deleted the contents of the minidump file which cured the crtical
error message, but when I tried to defrag the drive those same two files
were apparently not able to be defragged.
Your help please,Richard

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Richard,

The dump files are not access during the normal operation of the
system. So there is no need to defrag these files.

Previously posted by Alex Nichol MS MVP
It is a basic dump of the central tables used by the system, intended
for inclusion if you get an error and 'send report to Microsoft'. If
you are not doing that you might as well turn the dumps off. Microsoft
do find them, as collected, useful in analyzing how things go wrong, but
in a 'bulk' way, not in relation to you in particular. So it may be
worth making those reports *if* you have an always on, broadband
connection.

To turn the dumps off, go to Control Panel - System - Advanced and in
Startup and Error recovery, Settings, set 'Write debugging information'
to be '(none)'. While there I would also uncheck the 'automatic
restart', which the system does rather too freely

Delete any dumps that are sitting around, once any report you make has
been sent off.

 

[Richard Oliver]

Thank you so much for the explanation.
The other file-- (Pictures and data) that was not defragged was an
file with Archive attributes---would that be the reason why it too was
not defragged?
Kind regards,Richard