Disk is fragmenting in a very short period of time.

[Guest]

My configuration is a Western Digital 80GB hard drive (replaced under warranty 4 months ago by Dell) in a Pent. III running WinXP with Service Pack 1 installed. I defraged the hard drive on Thursday (36% defragged at the time) using Norton 2004. When the defrag was complete the drive was still fragemented something on the order of 3%. Today (Saturday) a quick check reveals that the drive is 35% fragmented!

 

[Wesley Vogel]

[[Volumes become fragmented as users create and delete files and folders,
install new software, or download files from the Internet. Computers
typically save files in the first contiguous free space that is large enough
for the file. If a large enough free space is not available, the computer
saves as much of the file as possible in the largest available space and
then saves the remaining data in the next available free space, and so on.

After a large portion of a volume has been used for file and folder storage,
most of the new files are saved in pieces across the volume. When you delete
files, the empty spaces left behind fill in randomly as you store new
ones.]]

All I have to do is open a Word doc and it becomes fragmented.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.
Wes

My configuration is a Western Digital 80GB hard drive (replaced under

warranty 4 months ago by Dell) in a Pent. III running WinXP with Service
Pack 1 installed. I defraged the hard drive on Thursday (36% defragged at
the time) using Norton 2004. When the defrag was complete the drive was
still fragemented something on the order of 3%. Today (Saturday) a quick
check reveals that the drive is 35% fragmented!

 

[Guest]

Wesley,
Thanks for the reply. I understand how fragmenting work, but in the 25 years I've been working in computers, I've never seen one defrag this quickly. To boot, I'm only using about 40% of my available disk space which, if I understand how file management works, should mean that defragmentation should not occur this quickly.

I was just going to say that I don't do a lot of adding and deleting of files, but then it ocurred to me that I was not taking email into consideration. I get something on the order of a 1,000 spams a day that I delete approximately every two days. I suppose that could be the cause. Is there any way to get at details about what the "file/disk manager" is doing in order to determine the source of the problem?

 

[Wesley Vogel]

You might have a look around here:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/utilities.shtml

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thanks for the reply. I understand how fragmenting work, but in the 25 years I've been working in computers, I've never seen one defrag this quickly. To boot, I'm only using about 40% of my available disk space which, if I understand how file management works, should mean that defragmentation should not occur this quickly.

Is this by any chance a disk that came formatted in FAT 32 and which has
been converted to NTFS? If you do not take precautions, that easily
lands you with 512 byte clusters - and a rapid fragmentation.

I am not sure what Norton does in this (it is reckoned that it has not
kept up with developments) - but the inbuilt defrag (and Diskeeper) do
not consolidate free space - if the disk is fairly full and highly
fragmented, then after defrag new files have to start being created in
fragments almost from the start

 

[Guest]

Wesley
Thanks, I've downloaded a couple of things and will let you know. Also, after the last two defrags, I'm pretty sure that these same files remained fragmented

\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP83\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWAR
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP77\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWAR
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP71\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWAR
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP72\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWAR
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP13\snapshot\_REGISTRY_USER_NTUSER_S-1-5-21-19 .........(long string of numbers follow)
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP76\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWAR
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP59\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTE
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP57\A0006764.PI
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP76\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTE
\System Volume Information\_restore{1C65FAEC-9412-4EB9-82F6-75A3633166A9}RP57\A0006771.PI

 

[Guest]

Alex
I believe the drive may have been converted to NTFS, but I'm not sure since the tech rep for Dell did the installation. How can if find out if I have "landed" with 512 byte clusters

Ken Kimbrough

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thanks, I've downloaded a couple of things and will let you know. Also, after the last two defrags, I'm pretty sure that these same files remained fragmented:

Those are restore points. They will only *ever* be used if you restore
to one of them, when they will be used just the once, so fragmentation
is not of any importance (other than their breaking up free space).
They may fall under the head of files that the inbuilt defrag will not
touch (as does the page file for example), though I see no reason why
they should - other than the saving of time through not doing something
unneeded

 

[Alex Nichol]

I believe the drive may have been converted to NTFS, but I'm not sure since the tech rep for Dell did the installation. How can if find out if I have "landed" with 512 byte clusters?

Go to All Programs - Accessories - Command prompt, and give
CHKDSK /I /C C:
(the /I /C to save time) and at the end of the report is size of
'Allocation unit'.

 

[Guest]

Well you nailed it!! "512 bytes in each allocation unit

Should I attempt to change it to (I'm not sure what) and if so, what are the implications, pitfalls, benefits, etc.

Ken

 

[Alex Nichol]

Well you nailed it!! "512 bytes in each allocation unit"

Should I attempt to change it to (I'm not sure what) and if so, what are the implications, pitfalls, benefits, etc.

It is not easy. Partition Magic 8.01 might be able to do it (but check
before you go buying it - I don't have direct confirmation). Otherwise
you have to back things up and start over, deleting the partition and
making a new NTFS one while installing the system afresh. I doubt if it
is worth the trouble just for this, but next time you have other reason
to reinstall clean, remember the matter

 

[R. McCarty]

Partition Magic 8.01 will resize the clusters - But before you start
you will have to remove/transfer all the "Compressed" files to a
different partition. In a small number of cases, you may get a common
error message "Data is Sparse" ( I forget the actual PQ Error code).
If you system uses the "Disk Cleanup" feature, then you may have a
number of compressed files and folders around.
Acronis will be offering a new product soon that does comparable
disk operations.

the implications, pitfalls, benefits, etc.