Tagged Questions

2
votes
1answer
100 views

How to defragment a large TrueCrypt volume that has barely any free space

I have a TrueCrypt 7.1a volume that is about 50 GB in size, formatted with NTFS and has close to 100 MB of free space. I have close to 300,000 files in it. When I was setting this up, I did this ...
2
votes
1answer
67 views

Can you defrag an encrypted file system

I just encrypted my entire hard drive with truecrypt and was wondering can I still defrag it? Or will that not work anymore or break something.
0
votes
1answer
99 views

Does a hard drive “working hard”, i.e. when defragmenting or otherwise continuously active, significantly affect a laptop's temperature?

Trying to diagnose and fix an overheating Acer 5735 laptop, running speedfan and doing general workload to try and cause the overheat conditions. I notice that windows xp is badly fragmented according ...
0
votes
3answers
249 views

Is Windows defragmentation recommended before installing Linux?

I want to have both Windows and Linux installed on one HDD. I always install Windows first because GRUB recognizes Windows and auto-configure its config files. So I installed Windows, installed some ...
8
votes
5answers
962 views

How can I tell if one defrag utility is better than another? [closed]

There's a lot of free defrag utilities (such as Smart Defrag, Auslogics Disk Defrag, JKDefrag, Defraggler, and there's alot more) But are they actually any better than the built in Windows one? And ...
2
votes
2answers
532 views

Windows 7 inbuilt and 3rd party (de)fragmentation related queries

I have a pretty good idea of how files end up getting fragmented. That said, I just copied ~3,200 files of varying sizes (from a few KB to ~20GB) from an external USB HDD to an internal, freshly ...
2
votes
2answers
537 views

Defragment - windows - better defragment free space or files?

I had read once here : Defragmenting all the fragmented files before CCleaner means that larger contiguous areas will be released for use instead of more and more, and smaller and smaller ...
2
votes
2answers
390 views

Frequently used files utility

Is there a Windows utility that would analyse which files are being most frequently used on one's machine? It should be able to store this statistics over several user sessions... It would help one's ...
3
votes
3answers
180 views

Defragmenting a large amount of files (35GB) over night

I'm trying to defrag my HP G60-116ea laptop using Piriform Defraggler. Even their quick scan has been on 0 percent for about 30 minutes. There are 34GB of fragmented files. I'm presuming this is a ...
1
vote
2answers
457 views

Scan Disk then Defrag, or Defrag then Scan Disk (in Windows)?

Which one should I do first in Windows 7? Scan Disk or Defragmenter?
6
votes
5answers
844 views

Why does Windows Defragmenter do nearly nothing on a disk with 23% empty space?

While trying to defragment a 80 GB NTFS (4 KB cluster size) volume on Windows XP, I encountered a strange problem: the defragmentation process is very quick, but also very useless. Graphically, I ...
1
vote
1answer
1k views

Disk Defrag slowing computer down?

I asked How to speed up my computer? in another post and one answer was to run disk defrag. I have done this before and in the majority of cases (with multiple computers not just one) it seems to ...
2
votes
4answers
422 views

How to find out how often my Windows partition has been defragmented?

I know that Windows uses its defrag program to defragment my partition sometimes when my system goes to an idle state. Also, sometimes I used to execute defrag by myself in order to increase ...
0
votes
2answers
870 views

What Windows app can I use to defragment a FAT32 drive's directories at boot time?

What (Windows app) can I use to defragment FAT32 directories? I used to be a fan of PerfectDisk, but they've disabled the feature in their latest versions, and I have drives that I need to use both ...
6
votes
4answers
15k views

How do you defragment the MFT on an NTFS disk?

A while ago, I nearly filled my hard drive, much more than the recommended maximum of 85% of capacity. I believe that NTFS started storing files in the space reserved for the Master File Table (MFT) ...
5
votes
4answers
183 views

what's the rate of return of defragmenting our hard disk?

I know some people who swore by Disk Defragmenting. But basically I was wondering if the result (a more responsive computer) is worth the effort (running defragmenter - in a 2GB ram environment that ...
14
votes
2answers
2k views

Why do disks fragment?

As a part of regular Windows maintenance, I defragment my hard drive. But why does the hard drive fragment on NTFS and FAT* systems? Apparantly ext* does not, why is this? Should I also be ...
4
votes
1answer
821 views

Does anyone know if it's 'normal' that you can't defrag an Outlook .ost file?

I've tried defragmenting my hard disk to see if Outlook performance improves. The .ost file shows 1000+ fragments but even after a post-defragmentation restart - never launching Outlook - it still ...
1
vote
4answers
9k views

Defrag C: /b really works to Windows boot optimization?

The command Defrag %SystemDrive% /b really works to optimize Windows boot time? (The defrag /b option is not documented by Microsoft). I am trying to use it in an attempt to optimize the files on the ...
7
votes
2answers
612 views

What block allocation algorithm does NTFS use?

On Windows XP 64, I downloaded a 1.2 GB file and it ended as fragmented as the image shows. Unfortunately, before taking the snapshot from Piriform Defraggler I defragmented the other files, so you ...
5
votes
1answer
234 views

Is it safe to edit files during the defragmentation process?

Assuming I'm on an NTFS partition, is it just as safe to edit files during defragmentation as when not? Is there any added risk, even if very small? If not, how does the operating system ensure the ...
4
votes
1answer
684 views

Defragment before Windows reinstall?

I'm going to reinstall Windows XP on a used machine soon. The data on the hard drive is heavily fragmented at the moment. I'm going to format the drive when reinstalling Windows so is there any sense ...
1
vote
1answer
2k views

Defragging ntfs external hard disk from ubuntu

I'd like to defrag an external hard disk; it's formatted as NTFS for compatibility with windows when friends need files off of it. However, I use only ubuntu. I've tried running defraggler under ...
0
votes
4answers
338 views

what damage can be caused if scandisk is not run before defrag

I would like to know what the damage to a drive can be if a scandisk is not performed before a disk defrag. I have looked up some sites that say a scandisk should be run to correct any issues that ...
3
votes
5answers
2k views

What's the fastest application for defragmenting NTFS?

For daily/weekly use, so not copying whole disk/partition to disk/partition. What's the fastest way in Windows to defragment NTFS? Edited to add: This is on a 2 Tb hard drive, used for storage only, ...
2
votes
6answers
5k views

Is it Safe to Defragment your Computer when you have low disk space

Is it safe to de-fragment your disk when you have low disk space? What could be the consequences? What are the advantages and disadvantages of de-fragmenting. Is it possible to resume de-fragmentation ...
10
votes
3answers
894 views

How do defragmenting programs work?

a) What algorithm would a typical defragmenting program use to get rid of the fragmentation? b) In Defraggler, I have a quick defrag option and a defrag option. Assuming defrag would do a normal ...
0
votes
0answers
74 views

Defragment the Windows registry? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Is it worth cleaning the registry? Are there benefits to defragmenting the Windows registry? Or at least rewrite it in some way so as to take less space? Is there a ...
1
vote
1answer
1k views

How to remove NTFS system files from a previous Vista installation

Tl;dr: Can't delete inaccessible (because system file and without owner) C:\$Extend\$UsnJrnl:$J. I'm trying to shrink my system partition under Win Vista. It's all fine, except that in front of the ...
0
votes
1answer
45 views

What are the A0xxxxxx.DLL files?

If you've ever watched a windows computer defrag a drive, you might have noticed that many of the files that are fragmented and need fixed have names like A0833773.DLL. If you know regular ...
2
votes
4answers
2k views

Defragmentation and 15% minimum space with Windows XP

Why does Windows XP require a minimum space of 15% of the HDD to complete a defrag of a NTFS drive? Is there a better utility which doesn't have this limitation and yet does the job?
1
vote
6answers
1k views

What happens to a backup file if it is defragmented?

I have a 22 gig XP backup file (.bkf) on a usb external drive. Windows disk defragmenter tells me the external volume should be defragmented. Should I spend the time and effort to defragment the ...
11
votes
4answers
7k views

Does Defragmenting really help? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Is defragging relevant to improving disk performance anymore? It used to be that defragmenting a hard drive gave a significant boost to performance. In the DOS days I ...
6
votes
3answers
2k views

How to measure performance gain with defragmentation?

I believe I understand the basic concepts of fragmentation of data on hard-drives, and the concept of defragmentation to counter the effects of this. What I don't really understand is how one actually ...
0
votes
2answers
579 views

Fine-grained control of O&O Defrag?

I am using O&O Defrag to defragment the files on my computer (Windows, NTFS file system). Is it possible to specify that particular folders (and the files/folders within them) be placed in the ...
17
votes
7answers
1k views

Is defragging relevant to improving disk performance anymore?

Does it stil make much difference, now that we have much faster and larger HDDs? Generally I find if disk performance is getting too slow, it's probably because of too little free space, and the ...
2
votes
1answer
762 views

How often should I defragment drives formatted as NTFS?

I've heard claims from some people that you don't need to defragment hard drives formatted as NTFS (perhaps even from Microsoft at one time), while others say it needs considerably less defragmenting ...
26
votes
6answers
3k views

Why can't you defragment Solid State Drives?

I keep hearing that this is a huge no-no. Why is this? I run Ubuntu mostly so it doesn't affect me, but I was just wondering.