need specialized defragger

[Dos-Man]

Hi,

I would like a defragger that does not insist
on defragging an entire disk drive the way
the Win 98 defragger does.

I would like to be able to scan and defrag individual files,
as well as folders and their children.

dos-man

 

[philo]

Hi,

I would like a defragger that does not insist
on defragging an entire disk drive the way
the Win 98 defragger does.

I would like to be able to scan and defrag individual files,
as well as folders and their children.

dos-man

i don;t know if there is a utility to specifically do what you requested

however i like norton speed disk for win98

in general it does a better job than the win98 defragger

and you do at least get a few options as to what you want to defrag

 

[philo]

oops

of course i goofed here

norton is not free ware...

but with the newer version now out

might be inexpensive-ware

 

[Alan]

Hi,

I would like a defragger that does not insist
on defragging an entire disk drive the way
the Win 98 defragger does.

I would like to be able to scan and defrag individual files,
as well as folders and their children.

I don't know about nested folders (you could probably do it by
recursion) but to "defrag" a single file, you only need to make a new
copy and delete the original. This could be done with a simple batch
file.

Scanning? Don't know how you'd manage that one

 

[H-Man]

Hi,

I would like a defragger that does not insist
on defragging an entire disk drive the way
the Win 98 defragger does.

I would like to be able to scan and defrag individual files,
as well as folders and their children.

Uhm, although it wouldn't be completely impossible to do what it is you
want, FAT file systems are not really built that way. AFAIK there is no file
system in common use that works that way. File systems don't really care
that all of the files for a particular folder are in one contiguous block.
In fact there would be absolutely no advantage in doing so. That would be
why you probably won't find anything to do this, although I may be wrong. My
question for you is, what is it you are trying to accomplish with this? I
can understand defragging individual files, this makes some sense to me, but
why entire folders? Or do you just want to defrag the individual files
within a folder?
HK

 

[H-Man]

I don't know about nested folders (you could probably do it by
recursion) but to "defrag" a single file, you only need to make a new
copy and delete the original. This could be done with a simple batch
file.

And this would guarantee that the file is re-written in a contiguous block?
AFAIK with the FAT file systems at least this is not guaranteed, and
therefore the file would not necessarily got defragged. I could be wrong
here it just AFAIK.

HK

 

[Alan]

And this would guarantee that the file is re-written in a contiguous
block? AFAIK with the FAT file systems at least this is not
guaranteed, and therefore the file would not necessarily got
defragged. I could be wrong here it just AFAIK.

I could also be wrong on this, but my *impression* was that, providing
there was enough contiguous space available, the file would be written
to the first available contiguous block of the appropriate size (I'm
dizzy I think ). As you say, this doesn't represent a guarantee then.

 

[Dos-Man]

question for you is, what is it you are trying to accomplish with this? I
can understand defragging individual files, this makes some sense to me, but
why entire folders? Or do you just want to defrag the individual files
within a folder?
HK

Well, I have found that my hard disk stays pretty much the same except for
the folder containing whatever project I am working on. Usually its a
VC++, VB5, or DELPHI 2.0 project. So the files in that folder are usually
being edited and saved often. What I would like to do is scandisk & defrag the
current project I am working on as opposed to defragging the whole hard
disk 99% of which is unchanged from the last defrag.

The solution I have come up with is to order 2 small 16 meg thumbdrives,
which I should recieve in the mail in 2 weeks or so. I will use these
as "blank workspaces" for projects I am working on. I can then avoid
"fragging" the hard disk and just copy the files and folders over to the
hard disk when I am done working on the project.

dos-man

 

[Offbreed]

Well, I have found that my hard disk stays pretty much the same except for
the folder containing whatever project I am working on. Usually its a
VC++, VB5, or DELPHI 2.0 project. So the files in that folder are usually
being edited and saved often. What I would like to do is scandisk & defrag the
current project I am working on as opposed to defragging the whole hard
disk 99% of which is unchanged from the last defrag.

<G> That can be annoying. Using "Fips" to create a partition at the
end of my HDD and using that for my work area sure speeds up
defragging both partitions.

Uhm, I *think* Fips is open source.

 

[charles]

Hi,

I would like a defragger that does not insist
on defragging an entire disk drive the way
the Win 98 defragger does.

I would like to be able to scan and defrag individual files,
as well as folders and their children.

dos-man

I assume you're using win98 since you ref'd that defragger but just in
case you're not and just for general interest there is contig from

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/contig.shtml

which does exactly what you're looking for but only works on windows NT4
and up systems.