Disc defragging.My XP defrag never has worked.

[vole]

My defragmenter freezes at 1%.I dont want to mess with stuff out of my depth apart from defragging on safe mode which is a pain.I have seen free downloads but am unsure about them.Any suggestions please?I keep my pc pretty well maintained and dont really know why I have this problem in the 1st place.Thanks.

[AdamW]

Vole,

 

Make sure that there is nothing running in the background, ie in the task tray bottom right.. ensure most things are stopped, as this will stop defrag working!

 

Adam

[vole]

Thanks Adam but how do I find that out?

[AdamW]

Mole,

 

Right click on each item and choose close, don't worry these will start again once you re-start windows

things like anti virus and MS office will stop defrag working

 

Adam

[Wookie]

You could also try looking for "Diskeeper Lite" (I think that's what it is called.). It used to be a good alternative.

[vole]

Thanks guys!!

[pin]

Start->Run type msconfig and press enter

 

In the window that pops up select "diagnostic startup", click apply and follow the prompts. It will want to restart, let it and when it does run your defrag from there, when done just go back into msconfig and select "normal startup".

 

Windows defrag is half a job, it doesn't do half the things it should. Not free but have a look at http://www.disktrix.com/UDIntroduction.htm

[Hunter]

After I ruined my RAID hard drives from Defraging, I now simply dont bother. Does not seem to slow the PC, or make it more unreliable... I have heard of people having to re-instal windows many times after defrag. But it completley killed my disc drives, they were too faulty after the re-instal, and had to be replaced :blink:

 

I keep the trash bin clean, and the cache gets a clear up every month or two.. other then that nothing else gets done. Oh.. of course a backup of my photos now and then..

[vole]

Thanks.I find the xp defrag does not even run in safe mode.Sticks at 1%.My pc runs ok so may just leave it be as i dread problems and fixes.Cheers fellers.

[the hitman]

I defragged my pc on monday , and by wednesday i had the blue screen of death, and had to wipe off everything and reinstall windows. just got it going again last night. This was the only way i could get it started , as my computer skills are on par with my cocker spanials. :blink:

[Hunter]

'Dont fix it if it 'aint broke' :blink:

[dazza]

[vole]

Will deffo leave alone then.Had BSOD before,it cost me £150.

[pin]

Windows is inefficient in allocating and re-allocating disk blocks for use. Inherently by design the system it uses will require re-optimisation by de fragmentation.

 

Windows uses your disk as virtual memory, windows in fact prefers to use virtual memory when it doesn't need to and uses extra ram as system cache which isn't ideal. Once a disk is badly fragmented the drive has to do many more seeks and reads to get information, as well as write in a non contiguous fashion which means more seeks and many more smaller writes. This makes your PC slow, FACT.

 

De fragmenting in itself is not a risky procedure, hidden from you is the fact that the PC runs chkdisk to detect any errors first, only if that succeeds (which might mean errors found and fixed) will defrag run. The one that comes with windows isn't very good, it's reliable and won't break your PC but it fails to do many of the things a decent 3rd party tool will do (proper rotational optimisation, for example)

 

Those that have had bad experiences will have been purely coincidental. A RAID set is presented to the system as a logical volume and therefore windows knows nothing of the actual makeup of the disks (unless we are talking about software RAID).

 

That said, de fragmentation can be thought of as a "disk exerciser", it makes it work hard with many hundreds of thousands of seeks, reads and writes. If there was an underlying problem with the disk then this might actually provoke the failure, it wasn't defrag that broke, it was the disk.

[white fox]

Pin's post is spot on.

 

I use Diskeeper, much more advanced than MS.

 

Recall I had to pay for it though.

 

WF

[Bazooka Joe]

http://www.disktrix.com/UDIntroduction.htm

 

 

What have you to lose, it's free for 30 days.......

 

BJ.

[pin]

Yep, so good I already linked it

 

In my opinion it's the best there is out there at the moment, I read their white paper, they know a thing or two these guys. I use it where I am forced to use windows, and it certainly lives up to it's claims.

 

One of the simplest things it does well which the built in doesn't is to place frequently used files on the outer tracks of the disk.

 

Think about it, the disk spins at a constant speed. The outside edge of the disk is travelling faster than the middle section which means it passes under the read head more often than does the middle. This means the computer can read data from the outside areas faster than it can from the middle. Put all the frequently read files there and you will fetch them faster from the disk, which means your computer is faster.

 

It does so many other things, and whilst a lot of them (and indeed the example above) are not strictly de fragmentation tasks, they are optimisations and make a real difference.

[myuserid]

I was an advanced pc/windows user until 12 months ago when I had a go with my brother-in-laws iMac. They are far more advanced and you never have any of these stupid defrag issues, just leave the mac to run itself, haven't looked back since

 

Highly recommend them.

[vole]

Cheers for all the responses which I have read carefully.I am just waiting for my trial version ultimate Defrag.Fingers x ed and thanks!

[vole]

Tried the MSConfig and got a bit mixed up somehow.The Disktrix looked good but could not open the downloaded file.

FINALLY i found a free download called Auslogic defrag.Real easy and freed up 8% disc space.Would recommend to fellow pc numpties.Thanks for all encouragement.

[pin]

Delete and re-download it - it's worth it