XP expat returns to defrag issue

[ADKR]

I am using my older XP machine. Went to defrag. Wow! Look at the red in
the "Analyze". Never seen that much before, ever. Defrag. Still there.
Use 3rd party Smart Defrag. 59% fragmented before and after. Am trying
Diskeeper. Is this a newer way of reporting fragmentation that I never knew
about, or is my disk messed up? Thanks.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

1. Is the computer fully patched at Windows Update?

2. Do you always run Disk Cleanup before running Defrag?

Tip: Pick & use only one (1) defrag utility. None of them will ever agree
on what constitutes a properly defragged HDD.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Although the disk may well show a big red 'chunk' and be 59% fragmented - the
important thing is how many files are affected!

If you had ONE file of a size 2GB that was fragmented into 2 fragments only - AND -
you had a total of 4 GB of data on the disk - you would have 50% fragmentation (but
only ONE file affected).

Open Defrag - click on 'Analyse' - then open on the 'Report' button.

You will see a list of fragmented files, number of fragments and their file sizes
displayed.

you will also see the 'full path' to the fragmented files :

if they are in the %temp% directory - they can be 'cured' by deletion.

Same goes for "Temp Inet Files"

If they are in \System Volume Information\..
They are temporary too and will be overwritten eventually.

If they are in a few large video files of yours, don't worry either, as long as the
fragmentation is not spread out over the whole drive's Operating System files you're
okay.

If, after looking at the report and doing what you can to delete unwanted fragmented
files and disregarding any larger 'single' files - if you still really want to make a
more thorough defragmentation on the drive, I use Smart Defrag.

You can download 'Smart Defrag' by clicking on the link below :

http://www.techspot.com/downloadget.php?id=4843&file=1&evp=18bece27e2efb102676ac8f42927cb9a

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[HeyBub]

Although the disk may well show a big red 'chunk' and be 59%
fragmented - the important thing is how many files are affected!

If you had ONE file of a size 2GB that was fragmented into 2
fragments only - AND - you had a total of 4 GB of data on the disk -
you would have 50% fragmentation (but only ONE file affected).

Open Defrag - click on 'Analyse' - then open on the 'Report' button.

You will see a list of fragmented files, number of fragments and
their file sizes displayed.

you will also see the 'full path' to the fragmented files :

if they are in the %temp% directory - they can be 'cured' by deletion.

Same goes for "Temp Inet Files"

If they are in \System Volume Information\..
They are temporary too and will be overwritten eventually.

If they are in a few large video files of yours, don't worry either,
as long as the fragmentation is not spread out over the whole drive's
Operating System files you're okay.

If, after looking at the report and doing what you can to delete
unwanted fragmented files and disregarding any larger 'single' files
- if you still really want to make a more thorough defragmentation on
the drive, I use Smart Defrag.

AND

If the disk is formatted NTFS the degree of fragmentation doesn't really
matter much. NTFS optimizes fetches over even heavily fragmented media such
that the result is virtually undetectable from a completely unfragmented
volume.

 

[ADKR]

PA Bear - I am updated and disk clean with CCleaner first.

Tim - There were 42 fragmented files. 37 were large video files waiting to
be burned to a DVD. The other five were all connected to my anti-virus
program. Thanks for helping me to understand what is going on.

 

[Tim Meddick]

You're welcome.

It is good to be aware of the 'mechanics' of any issues rather than just trying to
'make the problem go away' as, sometimes, these issues can be ignored (and,
conversely, others require immediate attention).

As long as you defrag your system drive fairly regularly (once a month is reasonable)
it will [still] take care of any overly fragmented files - especially any operating
system files.

And, as you say, stuff like [temporary] files waiting to be burnt to DVD can be
totally ignored.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.