Large block of unmovable data on disk defragment?

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Guest

I wanted to use the Windows defragment utility, but noticed that there is a
large chunk of data that is marked as unmovable. Why? What program would do
that? I would estimate 1-2GB worth. I just installed XP SP2 but deleted the
big restore point. My other PC does not do this...I just don't understand
what would be holding on to this much data space.
 
SteveL said:
Pagefile, MFT files
Click to expand...
Also Hibernation file.

Diskeeper can defrag the swap file(or so it says).

Also this free program:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml.

The problem seems to be that the swap file needs to be defragged at boot
time, before the os starts to use it. Easy to see how you could get the OS
confused if you tried to defrag the swap file while you were trying to swap
something. Reading and writing a file at the same time is sure to cause
trouble.

Also possible, but dangerous, to set the swap to zero, erase the swap file,
defrag, then turn swap back on. Problem is that you may need swap to boot if
you load lots of programs at boot. And you need to boot to turn swap back
on.

Hope this helps.

Dick Kistler
 
The way I see it It doesn't matter where the block of unmoveable files
are situated on the hard disc so long as they are together...

DD
 
mjmattson said:
The problem is that it is in the "middle" of the empty space on my
drive...why?
Click to expand...

Possible answers:
1. It's being trained to stay where it's put.
2. Everything's got to be somewhere.
3. The center of the drive is the optimum place for the swapfile.
 
mjmattson said:
The problem is that it is in the "middle" of the empty space on my
drive...why?
Click to expand...
Why would this be a problem? One of the reasons that Linux, for instance,
normally has a separate swap
partition is so that swap doesn't get fragmented like Windows.

The normal settings for the Windows swap let it increase and decrease as
your needs change. This means that it may be one large, contiguous file, if
the conditions are right for such a file to be created. Or it may be
fragmented, like any other file, if there is not enough open space in one
place for it to be contiguous. If it were contiguous, it would seem to allow
faster access, since the drive heads would have to move the smallest
distance.

Why it is in the middle of the empty space on the disk? This may have been
the "next" place to put the file when the current swap was created. I don't
know if Windows can do this, but another reason it was put there might be so
it can grow without fragmentation.

Dick Kistler
 
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