Do You Defrag?

[pgx]

I am working on a friend's laptop that had a hard drive failure right
after her monthly Spybot-AdAware-Clean-Defrag routine. On her old
FAT32 machine this saved her ass, since almost all of the files were
contiguous so when a diagnostic had her use here restore disk, loosing
all of her old stuf, I was able to recover most of her data.

She is now on a NTFS system. How important is defraging under NTFS.
My knowledge of the structure of the disk under NTFS is almost ZERO.
Does defraging make it easier to recover files?

Thanks

Phil

 

[John Doe]

I am working on a friend's laptop that had a hard drive failure
right after her monthly Spybot-AdAware-Clean-Defrag routine. On
her old FAT32 machine this saved her ass, since almost all of the
files were contiguous so when a diagnostic had her use here
restore disk, loosing all of her old stuf, I was able to recover
most of her data.

So, naturally you have made very clear that she should buy a USB
flash drive for easily making a copy of her important files.

Good luck.

 

[pgx]

|[email protected] wrote:
|
|>
|> I am working on a friend's laptop that had a hard drive failure
|> right after her monthly Spybot-AdAware-Clean-Defrag routine. On
|> her old FAT32 machine this saved her ass, since almost all of the
|> files were contiguous so when a diagnostic had her use here
|> restore disk, loosing all of her old stuf, I was able to recover
|> most of her data.
|
|So, naturally you have made very clear that she should buy a USB
|flash drive for easily making a copy of her important files.

I did and she does!

Phil

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

So, naturally you have made very clear that she should buy a USB
flash drive for easily making a copy of her important files.

Good luck.

HORK!

This is a guy who keeps maggot-infested cat shit in plastic bins until
it is time to take it out to the dumpster.

FREE CLUE FOR JOHN: There is no time like the present.

Anyway, for the OP, I suggest www.ntfs.com. You will find answers to
questions like this.

Charlie

 

[John Doe]

A self-admitted drug abusing troll.

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From: Charlie Wilkes <charlie_wilkes users.easynews.com>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Subject: Re: Do You Defrag?
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HORK!

This is a guy who keeps maggot-infested cat shit in plastic bins until
it is time to take it out to the dumpster.

FREE CLUE FOR JOHN: There is no time like the present.

Anyway, for the OP, I suggest www.ntfs.com. You will find answers to
questions like this.

Charlie

 

[Randella]

Not sure what all the hate is about but defragmenting is always a good
option no matter the file system or structure...

If anything it keeps the disk from having to grind away trying to find
misplaced pieces of files...

-Randy
King of Microsoft

 

[John Doe]

Not sure what all the hate is about

Me either. Maybe Charlie Wilkes was coming down from a drug-induced
high and needed to vent some pain.

 

[sbb78247]

Me either. Maybe Charlie Wilkes was coming down from a drug-induced
high and needed to vent some pain.

or you were your usual charming unhelpful self. did you answer the
question? no you did not. what does saving to a usb drive have to do with
the op's question about ntfs file structure to try and recover a hosed
drive???? absolutely nothing. the other guy actually offered a link that
could possibly help whereas you offered the usual mine works so your an
idiot or this is how i do it .... (fill in the blank) so since you don't do
it this way (fill in the blank again).

as usual you try and force your will on someone and it didn't work did it?

 

[John Doe]

A common troll from alt.os.windows-xp

Path: newssvr13.news.prodigy.com!newsdbm04.news.prodigy.com!newsdst02.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!207.14.113.39!news.alt.net!news.alt.net!bnewspoutqueer00.burp.opseuuu.nut!$393e1fea!257.2.2.193.Mi5M4tcH
From: "sbb78247" <sbb78247 ****off.com>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Subject: Re: Do You Defrag?
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 03:30:49 +0545
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or you were your usual charming unhelpful self. did you answer the
question? no you did not. what does saving to a usb drive have to do with
the op's question about ntfs file structure to try and recover a hosed
drive???? absolutely nothing. the other guy actually offered a link that
could possibly help whereas you offered the usual mine works so your an
idiot or this is how i do it .... (fill in the blank) so since you don't do
it this way (fill in the blank again).

as usual you try and force your will on someone and it didn't work did it?

 

[sbb78247]

A common troll from alt.os.windows-xp

come on you crybaby, the questions still stand. or are you afraid?

 

[Randella]

The question was about defraging, I don't think this post has anything
to do with a USB drive...

 

[Myrrapen]

You kids play nice... :

Always Scandisk and Defrag. NTFS is more secure and stable, but i
still becomes fragmented.

The advice on the USB drive is good too.. Back up your stuffs a lot.

 

[Rod Speed]

I am working on a friend's laptop that had a hard drive failure right
after her monthly Spybot-AdAware-Clean-Defrag routine. On her old
FAT32 machine this saved her ass, since almost all of the files were
contiguous so when a diagnostic had her use here restore disk, loosing
all of her old stuf, I was able to recover most of her data.

She is now on a NTFS system. How important is defraging under NTFS.
My knowledge of the structure of the disk under NTFS is almost ZERO.
Does defraging make it easier to recover files?

Yes, but it makes a lot more sense to backup properly instead of defragging.

 

[Rod Speed]

defragmenting is always a good option
no matter the file system or structure...

Nope, its a waste of time with properly backed up systems.

If anything it keeps the disk from having to grind
away trying to find misplaced pieces of files...

Modern hard drives dont 'grind away' when seeking over
multiple pieces and the heads move around a hell of a lot
more due to the way modern OSs work with stuff like
the internet cache etc than they ever do with file frags.

 

[Rod Speed]

The question was about defraging, I don't think
this post has anything to do with a USB drive...

'think' again when having up to date backups on a USB
drive makes a hell of a lot more sense than defragging
so that recovery is easier if the drive gets screwed.

 

[Mxsmanic]

She is now on a NTFS system. How important is defraging under NTFS.

Not very, unless the file structure is operating close to capacity and
files are constantly being created, deleted, and grown or shrunk.
Servers often meet these criteria, but desktops usually don't.

My knowledge of the structure of the disk under NTFS is almost ZERO.

It's vastly superior to FAT and pretty much damage-proof, but it can
get fragmented if you are using almost all the capacity of your disks
and you modify the structure a lot.

I defrag once in a great while, but since I'm not anywhere close to
capacity on the drives, there usually isn't much fragmentation.

Does defraging make it easier to recover files?

Not really. But NTFS is extremely resistant to file-system
corruption, so losing files that way is unheard of. I've never seen
an NTFS partition become corrupted.

NTFS is also designed such that deleted files cannot be recovered (for
security reasons). The data isn't actually erased (unless you set a
special option that isn't exposed via the user interfaces), but the
design of the file structure is such that it's extraordinarily
difficult to determine where a given file might have been once the
file is deleted. Thus, on NTFS, don't delete a file unless you really
want it gone forever, because you can't just flip a bit to get it
back.

 

[Mxsmanic]

Not sure what all the hate is about but defragmenting is always a good
option no matter the file system or structure...

Some structures don't require it, or don't require it often enough to
worry about. File systems that map each block individually (such as
classic UNIX file systems) do not become fragmented in structure,
although physical block locations can become very dispersed. Mapping
blocks individually is very inefficient, though, so many recent file
systems use clusters or extents, and this can lead to fragmentation
under certain circumstances.

Fragmentation is mostly a problem on servers. Desktop users usually
don't pound heavily enough against the file system to create
fragmentation. Nevertheless, FAT is rather prone to it.

 

[Rod Speed]

Not very, unless the file structure is operating close to capacity and
files are constantly being created, deleted, and grown or shrunk.
Servers often meet these criteria, but desktops usually don't.


It's vastly superior to FAT and pretty much damage-proof, but it can
get fragmented if you are using almost all the capacity of your disks
and you modify the structure a lot.

I defrag once in a great while, but since I'm not anywhere close to
capacity on the drives, there usually isn't much fragmentation.


Not really. But NTFS is extremely resistant to file-system
corruption, so losing files that way is unheard of. I've never seen
an NTFS partition become corrupted.

NTFS is also designed such that deleted files
cannot be recovered (for security reasons).

Its rather more complicated than that.

I run an NTFS partition for the PVR, and those files are so
big and I normally do get close to just enough free space
on the drive for the evening's recording, that I do delete
a file after its be watched, and very occasionally do that in
error, usually when I havent watched everything in a particular
file. Some of the utes can undelete some of the files fine.

The data isn't actually erased (unless you set a special option
that isn't exposed via the user interfaces), but the design of the
file structure is such that it's extraordinarily difficult to determine
where a given file might have been once the file is deleted.

I'd like to turn that off myself, if necessary by using something
that does preserve the data needed to so a reliable undelete.

Full backup isnt a viable option in this particular situation,
essentially because I fly so close to the wind space wise.
I can need 50G of free space for a particular evening etc.

Thus, on NTFS, don't delete a file unless you really want it
gone forever, because you can't just flip a bit to get it back.

You can sometimes.

 

[Mxsmanic]

I'd like to turn that off myself, if necessary by using something
that does preserve the data needed to so a reliable undelete.

I can't remember the last time I deleted a file by accident, but I
have backups in any case, and so I prefer a secure delete.

Full backup isnt a viable option in this particular situation,
essentially because I fly so close to the wind space wise.
I can need 50G of free space for a particular evening etc.

Buy more disk space. Full backup is always an option.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed writes

I can't remember the last time I deleted a file by accident, but
I have backups in any case, and so I prefer a secure delete.

It would obviously be better if you could specify what you prefer.

Buy more disk space. Full backup is always an option.

More viable to be able to turn off whatever stops some
deletes from being reversed given that particular use.