Looking for a GOOD defragger.

[Guest]

Anyone else remember the days of the DOS disk defragmenter, when things were
nicely laid out to show the whole contents of the hard drive on a single
screen in a meaningful way, it cleaned up ALL empty spaces between files and
packed everything into a minimal space on the hard drive, and was fully
functional (although extremely slow) if you had so much as a single block of
hard drive space free? Back in the days where the defragment actually
finished, come hell or high water, instead of stopping for no reason and
giving useless error messages, if errors are given at all? I'm looking for a
defragger that has all the power of the original DOS program, but works for
Windows XP. Quite frankly, there's no justifiable reason why anyone should
need to wipe out 10 gigs of files to defrag a 60 gig drive, nor should it
leave all that empty space between files without even giving you an option to
tighten up the space BETWEEN files, too. If anyone can point me in the
direction of a defrag program, fully functional under Windows XP which also
gets around those built in XP defragger's limitations, I'd be much obliged.
Thanks in advance. L8r.

 

[David Candy]

Why don't you commit suicide? Do us all a favour.

 

[Guest]

Why don't you commit suicide? Do us all a favour.

That's a little extreme, don't you think?

 

[David Candy]

What do you expect? How important is this?

 

[Guest]

What do you expect? How important is this?

Quite frankly, I consider it pretty important to be able to optimise my
system without having to gut a major portion of the data on it to do so. If
you don't see how that could be of any relevance, then please stop posting
here and troll somewhere else. L8r.

 

[Will Denny]

Quite frankly, I consider it pretty important to be able to optimise my
system without having to gut a major portion of the data on it to do so.
If
you don't see how that could be of any relevance, then please stop posting
here and troll somewhere else. L8r.

Mr Candy (to you) is not a troll. His questions are quite valid.

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

Quite frankly, I consider it pretty important to be able to optimise
my system without having to gut a major portion of the data on it to
do so. If you don't see how that could be of any relevance, then
please stop posting here and troll somewhere else. L8r.

Just ignore David. He's forgotten to take his meds again...

In answer to your question I use Raxco's PerfectDisk and have never had a
problem with it. It will defrag a drive with as little as 1% free space
(though more is obviously beneficial). It also defrags boot and runtime
files. In addition, it can also be set to run as a scheduled task (I have it
set to defrag once a week at 2am, therefore it doesn't interrupt my work,
unless I'm burning the midnight candle at both ends again, or summat! ;o))

A 30-day, fully functional, free trial can be downloaded from www.raxco.com
(just follow the download link).

 

[Will Denny]

Just ignore David. He's forgotten to take his meds again...

In answer to your question I use Raxco's PerfectDisk and have never had a
problem with it. It will defrag a drive with as little as 1% free space
(though more is obviously beneficial). It also defrags boot and runtime
files. In addition, it can also be set to run as a scheduled task (I have
it set to defrag once a week at 2am, therefore it doesn't interrupt my
work, unless I'm burning the midnight candle at both ends again, or
summat! ;o))

A 30-day, fully functional, free trial can be downloaded from
www.raxco.com (just follow the download link).

How are you getting on with v7.0?

 

[Guest]

Mr Candy (to you) is not a troll. His questions are quite valid.

Oh really? And how, pray tell, is his question on why I don't just do
everyone a favour by committing suicide "valid" to this thread? Please do
enlighten me, I'd love to know. L8r.

 

[Guest]

Just ignore David. He's forgotten to take his meds again...

In answer to your question I use Raxco's PerfectDisk and have never had a
problem with it. It will defrag a drive with as little as 1% free space
(though more is obviously beneficial). It also defrags boot and runtime
files. In addition, it can also be set to run as a scheduled task (I have it
set to defrag once a week at 2am, therefore it doesn't interrupt my work,
unless I'm burning the midnight candle at both ends again, or summat! ;o))

A 30-day, fully functional, free trial can be downloaded from www.raxco.com
(just follow the download link).

Thank you, both for your advice and for being the only one so far to take my
post seriously enough to provide a worthwhile reply. L8r.

 

[Guest]

I like "VOPTXP" Shareware do a google search for it

Robin0800

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

How are you getting on with v7.0?

I like the interface better than 6 (the first version I used). There is a
slight bug, in that it misreports the page file as damaged when it clearly
isn't (the colour of the indicator remains either red or yellow, not green
as it should be). I have just upgraded for £17. It's better than Diskeeper
certainly (I hated that).

 

[Quaoar]

How are you getting on with v7.0?

v7.0 is a significant performance improvement. Defrag is now *very*
fast; I estimate perhaps x2 or greater than previous versions. No more
refusal to defrag based on its rules - now user choice. Not as fast yet
as OO, but fast enough to not be obtrusive.

Q

 

[Will Denny]

I like the interface better than 6 (the first version I used). There is a
slight bug, in that it misreports the page file as damaged when it clearly
isn't (the colour of the indicator remains either red or yellow, not green
as it should be). I have just upgraded for £17. It's better than Diskeeper
certainly (I hated that).

That bug was, supposedly, going to be fixed!! Agree with you on the
interface - much clearer to work with.

 

[Peter]

Ms Tick...what was it about Diskeeper you didn't like (I use Diskeeper Pro
8.0)??

 

[Will Denny]

v7.0 is a significant performance improvement. Defrag is now *very* fast;
I estimate perhaps x2 or greater than previous versions. No more refusal
to defrag based on its rules - now user choice. Not as fast yet as OO,
but fast enough to not be obtrusive.

Hi

Yes, a lot faster. Probably up to x2. It's also a lot better as it doesn't
need as much free hard disk/partition space to operate, as already pointed
out.

 

[Greg Hayes/Raxco Software]

It will be fixed as part of the first update to PDV7 (release date soon).

- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP - Windows File System

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a
commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

Want to email me? Delete ntloader.

 

[Ted Zieglar]

"Quite frankly, I consider it pretty important to be able to optimise my
system without having to gut a major portion of the data on it to do so."

I must admit, I always chuckle when I read posts from standalone computer
users who feel they must defragment their hard disks down to the last
percent in order to "optimise" their systems, and feel the need to purchase
third party products to do so. As if it matters.

Now, if you're running a server on a busy network, that's one thing. Your
disks can become dramatically fragmented in no time, and you need heavy duty
defragging to keep the network humming. But a home user? Even with a typical
home network, the extra performance to be gained by using anything other
than XP's own defragmenter is so miniscule as to exist only in the user's
mind.

But hey, if there's money to be made, why not go for it, right? If you can
convince people (scare them, actually) that their performance will suffer
unless they have full time high power defragging, why not play off their
ignorance? After all, look at how many people buy natural remedies from
radio infomercials.