Diskeeper boot time defrag?

[George Neuner]

Hi all,

I've got a Thinkpad running XPpro that won't perform a boot time
directory consolidation defrag under Diskeeper 9.0.532 (Yeah, I know I
should upgrade to v10 but I've heard some horror stories about it).

When I run the boot time defrag, it *appears* to work saying it is
moving the directories (MFT and page file are already contiguous) ...
but when the computer reboots, XP says it encountered a "problem" and
gives me the boot menu. I choose normal start and XP runs Chkdsk -
which finds no problems. After I log in, I go into Diskeeper and
analyze the disk to find that absolutely nothing has changed - all the
directories are, AFAICT, exactly where they were before the defrag
ran.

This behavior is repeatable. Does the Thinkpad have some kind of
lockout (BIOS maybe) to prevent changes to the disk when the OS isn't
running? I can't find anything to suggest that.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
George

 

[Bob Harris]

I have version 8, which seems to work fine under XP, so I assume that
version 9 should, too.

A couple of thoughts:

1. I have noticed that on my work PC with XP Pro, some directories are
never moved. Those are "owned" by the primary system administrator (IT
person), who built that PC. Even though I am am a local administrator, I
can not seem to touch files that he owns, and that is probably for a good
reason.

2. At home I do not have a similar problem, maybey because I built the PC
myself and am the primary administrator, or maybe because XP Home edition is
less secure.

3. I am slightly concerned about your XP wanting to run CHKDSK during the
reboot. Unless you (or IBM/Levona) have the PC set to always do a CHKDSK,
that is a sign of XP sensing something wrong. However, if the PC always
does a CHKDSK on reboot, then that might be interferring with DISKEEPER. I
have had DISKEEPER refuse to defrag or boot-defrag, if it sensed that the
disk was dirty. "dirty" means that CHKDSK is set to run by the system.

4. I have had one other odd behavior with DISKEEPER. On some external
drives, it refuses to do a boot-time defrag, but on others it works fine.
That might be an issue with the precise USB controller on the external
drive. I have never had that problem with internal drives, either ATA/IDE
or SATA.

 

[Gerry]

George

Have you tried running Disk CleanUp in each User Profile before
defragmenting?


--



Hope this helps.

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

 

[Rock]

Hi all,

I've got a Thinkpad running XPpro that won't perform a boot time
directory consolidation defrag under Diskeeper 9.0.532 (Yeah, I know I
should upgrade to v10 but I've heard some horror stories about it).

When I run the boot time defrag, it *appears* to work saying it is
moving the directories (MFT and page file are already contiguous) ...
but when the computer reboots, XP says it encountered a "problem" and
gives me the boot menu. I choose normal start and XP runs Chkdsk -
which finds no problems. After I log in, I go into Diskeeper and
analyze the disk to find that absolutely nothing has changed - all the
directories are, AFAICT, exactly where they were before the defrag
ran.

This behavior is repeatable. Does the Thinkpad have some kind of
lockout (BIOS maybe) to prevent changes to the disk when the OS isn't
running? I can't find anything to suggest that.

Any other ideas?

Another option is check with Diskeeper tech support.

 

[George Neuner]

1. I have noticed that on my work PC with XP Pro, some directories are
never moved. Those are "owned" by the primary system administrator (IT
person), who built that PC. Even though I am am a local administrator, I
can not seem to touch files that he owns, and that is probably for a good
reason.

Interesting. That may, in fact, be the problem as this is a business
laptop. But Diskeeper was provided with it so I don't understand why
it wouldn't have been set up to run correctly when I do it as a local
admin.

I have resisted some software upgrades because the current stuff is
stable and it seems like every time IT touches the machine something
breaks.

3. I am slightly concerned about your XP wanting to run CHKDSK during the
reboot. Unless you (or IBM/Levona) have the PC set to always do a CHKDSK,
that is a sign of XP sensing something wrong. However, if the PC always
does a CHKDSK on reboot, then that might be interferring with DISKEEPER. I
have had DISKEEPER refuse to defrag or boot-defrag, if it sensed that the
disk was dirty. "dirty" means that CHKDSK is set to run by the system.

It doesn't do a Chkdsk at boot unless I use Diskeeper to consolidate
directories. I am, e.g., able to resize the page file and defrag it
without incident.

George

 

[George Neuner]

Another option is check with Diskeeper tech support.

Well, it's a business computer so I have to go through IT - and they
generally know less about it than I do.

George