Defragging

Sanius

So i'm trying to defrag my system 100% (or near it) but cannot. It's still heavily fragmented after I ran a check because windows could not finish it, and it gave me a list of files. It was mainly all of STALKER and some system backup stuff and EA items. Thing is, I really want to defrag these because they both stutter really bad at times (STALKER and 2142) and I think it's time to defrag them, but..I can't. Hell, in safe mode it gives me the same problem. What's going on?

capable heart

What percentage of free space remaining is there on the drive you are trying to defragment? Usually the 15% mark is recommended for maintaining efficiency of the defrag. Barring that issue, are any of the fragmented filed, like, really freaking huge?

Dashui

You could try using Diskeeper. It's a really good defragging software. Other than that, you could check to see if the drive is dirty or not by running this command:

fsutil dirty query C:

If it is, you'll have to repair the drive. Windows can do it by right clicking the partition, properties, and then tools and error checking. Make sure both boxes are checked and hit Start. I had to do this to be able to defrag one of my drives, because the drive had some errors on it. It took awhile, but it fixed it (it won't delete any data, don't worry) and now I can defrag it and it runs much better.

Sanius

capable heart wrote: »

What percentage of free space remaining is there on the drive you are trying to defragment? Usually the 15% mark is recommended for maintaining efficiency of the defrag. Barring that issue, are any of the fragmented filed, like, really freaking huge?

15%. The biggest is 3 gigs, but mainly it's 600 mb.

Hell, it's been doing this for awhile. Should I just go ahead and reformat? I haven't for..uh..

two years.

Dashui

Or you could read my post, check to see if the drive is dirty, and then run error checking and fixing which should fix your problem and be on your merry way without formatting at all.

Jelloblimp

Sanius wrote: »

capable heart wrote: »

What percentage of free space remaining is there on the drive you are trying to defragment? Usually the 15% mark is recommended for maintaining efficiency of the defrag. Barring that issue, are any of the fragmented filed, like, really freaking huge?

15%. The biggest is 3 gigs, but mainly it's 600 mb.

Hell, it's been doing this for awhile. Should I just go ahead and reformat? I haven't for..uh..

two years.

I defragged when I joined the forums...Defraged last weekend with JkDefrag.

Urian

I just use the regular defrag program with Windows. Is that considered good?

Dashui

Urian wrote: »

I just use the regular defrag program with Windows. Is that considered good?

It works fine. It just lacks a nice UI, I find. Diskeeper tells you a lot more information and has more options, but Windows defragger does it's job sufficiently.

harvest

Dashui wrote: »

Urian wrote: »

I just use the regular defrag program with Windows. Is that considered good?

It works fine. It just lacks a nice UI, I find. Diskeeper tells you a lot more information and has more options, but Windows defragger does it's job sufficiently.

The built-in WinXP defragger is Diskeeper sans the fancy UI and scheduling options.

In any case I prefer O&O's defrag utility. The idle-time and realtime defrag work great, and keep my disk from ever needing a complete defrag.

Ahhsee

I defragged using that JkDefrag software, as the windows defrag utility would get stuck at 15%. Thanks to it moving things around, my hdd will not boot. Getting a BSoD for ntoskrnl.exe in safe mode and normal. I have it connected to a backup computer now, checking for errors, but this is pretty annoying.

Guess I'll stick with the windows programs from now on, when messing with windows.

First time these forums have let me down

Ahhsee

Well, tried everything short of formatting, and no luck. Looks like the defragging killed the windows installation. I understand why it happened, but if it "uses the windows protocol" for that stuff, why did it happen?

Oh well, at least I can backup all my files on this PC, and then start fresh.

Although, I'm considering if I even want to. May just pitch the desktop PC to my brother who needs one, and pick up a crummy el-cheapo laptop. Might get me out of my house a bit more too.

Malvient

Diskeeper's "Set it and forget it" scheduling is just lovely. Every few weeks I remember to defrag and go to do it, and Diskeeper has already done it while I wasn't looking.

Jelloblimp

öhsee wrote: »

Well, tried everything short of formatting, and no luck. Looks like the defragging killed the windows installation. I understand why it happened, but if it "uses the windows protocol" for that stuff, why did it happen?(...)

Man thats some bad voodoo, JkDefrag worked for me & I had no idea defragging even could mess up windows . Guess ill dump Jk aswell to avoid the risk of loosing data.

Anyone know the difference between diskeeper 7 (free) versus their demo of diskeeper 2007?

Stregone

It sounds like your drive had problems anyways. I'd be paranoid it was about to fail if mine acted like that.

Ahhsee

Stregone wrote: »

It sounds like your drive had problems anyways. I'd be paranoid it was about to fail if mine acted like that.

If that was the case, I wouldn't have been so mad at the time. I would have chalked it up to hardware issues, and moved on. The problem is this though... I can load the drive FINE in another pc as a slave. It just won't boot. The drive is fine, but the bootsector is completely screwed, or the windows install is.

Either way, there were no issues before defragging, and loads once I did. It's just small trial and error things that make me not do certain things anymore. Like, I don't edit my registry, EVER. Learned from problems in the past that even though the most well meaning attempt, even if you know what you're doing, and the program you're using is fine, it can still screw things to high hell.

So, Defragging is one of those things I'll have to add to the list.

What really bugged me in the end though, the fact that this PC notices no disk errors or anything. It's not like it's picking up a problem to fix. Oh well. I just moved my music downstairs for a while, til I format, and made sure to load my bookmarks down here. Closer to the kitchen, further from the bathroom...

Not sure if that's an upgrade.

Dírhael

harvest wrote: »

Dashui wrote: »

Urian wrote: »

I just use the regular defrag program with Windows. Is that considered good?

It works fine. It just lacks a nice UI, I find. Diskeeper tells you a lot more information and has more options, but Windows defragger does it's job sufficiently.

The built-in WinXP defragger is Diskeeper sans the fancy UI and scheduling options.

That's both true and false. It's true that it is built on a version of Diskeeper (a very old version), but it's lacking a lot more than just the UI and scheduling options. It can't defrag the MFT, which is *the* most important part of the file system as far as performance is conserned. Also, it doesn't even do a good job with the few areas it can do something with. No, the defrag application that comes bundled with Windows is terrible, there's just no other word that describes it better.

Dírhael

öhsee wrote: »

If that was the case, I wouldn't have been so mad at the time. I would have chalked it up to hardware issues, and moved on. The problem is this though... I can load the drive FINE in another pc as a slave. It just won't boot. The drive is fine, but the bootsector is completely screwed, or the windows install is.

Either way, there were no issues before defragging, and loads once I did. It's just small trial and error things that make me not do certain things anymore. Like, I don't edit my registry, EVER. Learned from problems in the past that even though the most well meaning attempt, even if you know what you're doing, and the program you're using is fine, it can still screw things to high hell.

So, Defragging is one of those things I'll have to add to the list.

What really bugged me in the end though, the fact that this PC notices no disk errors or anything. It's not like it's picking up a problem to fix. Oh well. I just moved my music downstairs for a while, til I format, and made sure to load my bookmarks down here. Closer to the kitchen, further from the bathroom...

Not sure if that's an upgrade.

To fix your boot sector, put the disk back in your PC and then find your XP CD and boot from it. Instead of starting installing WinXP though, you should press "R" when prompted to drop into the recovery console. There you should type the following:

fixmbr
fixboot

Then remove the CD and reboot. You should now have no problems getting back into Windows again.

Ahhsee

Dìrhael wrote: »

To fix your boot sector, put the disk back in your PC and then find your XP CD and boot from it. Instead of starting installing WinXP though, you should press "R" when prompted to drop into the recovery console. There you should type the following:

fixmbr
fixboot

Then remove the CD and reboot. You should now have no problems getting back into Windows again.

This work the same for win2k? XP has never had working drivers for my sound card, so I never installed it. Stuck using win2k, so if this is a valid fix, I'll have to dig my cd out...

Dírhael

öhsee wrote: »

This work the same for win2k? XP has never had working drivers for my sound card, so I never installed it. Stuck using win2k, so if this is a valid fix, I'll have to dig my cd out...

As far as I can remember, yes it should work the same with 2k (and 2003). They all use the same boot loader so there's no reason for it not to work.

mspencer

After fixing your filesystem corruption or drive problem:

If you have another drive handy, or some other place you can temporarily store your file (off of your filesystem) you can move your fragmented large file to another filesystem, deleting the original, then defrag, and then move the large file back onto your original filesystem.

cooljammer00

man, now I'm all afraid to lose my data.

would it be diligent to start windows in safe mode and then defrag? and also fix my errors?

Santa Claustrophobia

It may also help when defragging to uninstall large programs, such as games, so that larger sections of free space is created. When the program is reinstalled, more of it will go in the same place and prevent a lot of disk searching.