Defragmenting doesn't seem to work...

[Guest]

....what am I doing wrong? My XP/Dell consistently says that it is about
18-19% fragmented. I can run it several times in a row and it gets down to
no lower than 17%. Nothing I do seems to help. I notice in the file report
that the largest fragmented files are my Mozilla profiles (usually one around
148MB and one around 124M). I never get error messages when I run the
program but 17% is suddenly the lowest I can go. Not all that long ago it
seems like it was routinely around 2-3%. I'd appreciate any comments or
suggestions.
Thanks,

 

[Shenan Stanley]

...what am I doing wrong? My XP/Dell consistently says that it is
about 18-19% fragmented. I can run it several times in a row and it
gets down to no lower than 17%. Nothing I do seems to help. I
notice in the file report that the largest fragmented files are my
Mozilla profiles (usually one around 148MB and one around 124M). I
never get error messages when I run the program but 17% is suddenly
the lowest I can go. Not all that long ago it seems like it was
routinely around 2-3%. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Well, it's not something I would usually worry about - as the performance
hit is usually minor if you have beefed up the machine where it counts. In
any case - how much free space do you have on the drive? Even though the
minimum is 15%, I would suggest having 30% or more free to expect a decent
defragment session from the crippled client included with Windows -
otherwise you will need to use a third party application.

Do a disk cleanup, set your machine to delete the page file at shutdown and
reboot 3 or 4 times (set it back to NOT delete it after that), uninstall
unnecessary applications, turn off system restore, reboot, turn on system
restore, run a CHKDSK and then try your defragment.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the helpful response. This drive (C) is about 75% free and disk
cleanup hasn't helped so far. I don't know that it matters to this problem,
but I added some memory so it's up around 2000-2100 and a 160GB additional
drive. Could these have contributed to the problem?
I've deleted what I could several times and run CHKDSK but they don't seem
to make any difference. I don't know how to delete the page file but Im sure
I can find a Microsoft page that will explain it to me simply enough. Thanks
for the help.

 

[kenchi]

Try defragmenting with a third party tool and see if it defrags th
files that XP could not.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Try running Disk Defragmenter in Safe Mode.

Using Disk CleanUp select More Options, System Restore to remove all but
the latest Restore Point.

Are you using any Norton Utilities?

The amount of free space is very important when running Disk
Defragmenter. A
minimum of 15% is required but sometimes 20% is desirable if the drive /
partition
contains one or more large files. You can run Disk Defragmenter a second
and third
time if files are still fragmented after the first run. You can put
files more prone to
fragment in their own partitions.

If you use Outlook Express regularly compacting Outlook Express before
running
Disk Defragmenter is helpful.

Disk Defragmenter provides a "Most fragmented files" list. When a
fragmented file is
larger than the largest pocket of free space available then the files is
not fragmented.
Running Disk Defragmenter a second or third time does move files around
and can
reduce / eliminate the contents of the "Most fragmented files" list. The
more free
space on the drive / partition, the more likely it is that all fragments
will be
eliminated.

Free space cannot be defragmented with the Windows XP Disk Defragmenter.
Neither can your pagefile cannot be defragmented because the file is in
use whilst
Disk Defragmenter is running. You can purchase other Defragmenting
Utilities e.g.
Perfect Disk, which will defragment your pagefile and free space.
Another option is to
place your pagefile in it's own partition. A pagefile partition is best
located as the first
partition on a second hard drive. You should leave a small page file at
the original
location.
http://www.raxco.com/

~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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Stourport, Worcs, England
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[Guest]

Gerry,
Thanks. I'll try your suggestions. However, to answer your query, yes, I
run Norton Anti-Virus. But I've run it for the past year without it being a
problem. Is there a conflict I should be aware of? Why about my other
anti-spyware programs?

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Other programmes running in the background can cause problems. However,
I had Norton Utilities in mind rather than Norton Anti-Virus. However,
the Disk Defragmenter in Windows XP copes much better than those coming
with earlier versions of Windows.

You are only using one Disk Defragmenter? Switching from one to another
is not to be recommended.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gerry,
Thanks. I'll try your suggestions. However, to answer your query,
yes, I
run Norton Anti-Virus. But I've run it for the past year without it
being a
problem. Is there a conflict I should be aware of? Why about my
other
anti-spyware programs?