Defrag Question

[Bill Lane]

Hi All:

I just ran Defrag for the first time today.

This operation was slower that my old Win98. It took about an hour to just do my C:/ drive.

I thought WinXP would be a whole lot better than that

I Defragged my C:/ & D:/ drives, but I stoped at that point because I didn't want to spend the rest of the day doing E:/, F:/, G:/, H:/, I:/ and J:/.

I copied the results in case you want me to post them.

Here's my system information ....

Motherboard: ChaintechS84PE Socket 487 ATX w/sound, LAN
Motherboard has the latest Chipset Drivers installed.
OS: WinXP Pro SP2 with latest up-dates from Microsoft
IE Ver. : 6.0 , Cipher Stringth: 128bit.
Outlook Express: 6
Ram: Two sticks of DDR PC2100 Unbuffered, NON-Parity = 512MB
CPU: Pentium4 2.4GHz/512/533/1.5v
Hard Drives: WD 80GB FATS 32, WD 20GB FATS 32.
DVD: Lite-On 16X Max
CDRW: Acer 12x8x32
Power Supply: Arrow 500 Watt
USB Card: Belkin 5-Port USB 2.0 PCI
Video Card: Chaintech, Product Number: AGP-RI93-64,
4xAGP compliant, 64MB DDR SDRAM, 300Hz RAMDAC,
2048x1536 maximum resolution in 32-bit color,
Microsoft 95/98/NT 4.0/2000/ME/XP.
Sprint Modem: 645 Series. Connect to motherboard USB Connection.
Sprint Software: USB to 10/100M Fast Ethernet Adapter Driver

I really appreciate all your help, and thanks ahead of time,

Bill Lane

[Cricket]

What's your question?

And how long was the computer together before you defragged? WinXP still needs to be defragged on a regular basis. And if your partitions are full of files, they'll take longer to defrag.

Cricket

[Bill Lane]

Hi Cricket:

My question is, is that normal to take over 45 minutes to defrag just the C:/ drive?

I installed WinXP Pro 3/14/05 over Win98. Everything went smooth, no real problems.

This was my first defrag with the new OS.

I'm running two hard drives both partitioned in four equal segments, and with Win98 with the ME Defrag installed, it just zipped through a defrag session in no time.

The WD 80GB has the OS on it.

Here's a picture of the results of the defrag ...

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane27/defrag.html

Looking at the results, it dosen't look like it did a very good job of defragging the C:/ drive.

If there's any way that I can speed up the process, I'd sure like to know.

Thanks,

Bill Lane

[doctorgonzo]

First, those pictures are perfectly normal. Drive D looks to be completely defragmented, and C looks like my C drive after I am done. The green unmovable file is probably your pagefile, and so it can't be defragmented using the defrag program that comes with Windows. You will almost never consolidate all your free space when you defragment, if that is what you are looking for.

You also said that you installed Windows XP over 98. That could very well account for the long time it took. Had you reformatted and done a clean install of XP instead of an upgrade, I think things would not have been nearly as fragmented. Windows XP and 98 are completely separate operating systems; they are fundamentally different. Doing an upgrade involves finding, replacing, and deleting so many files it's not surprising that the drive was heavily fragmented.

In the future, defragmenting probably won't take that much time.

[mark70]

Hi Bill, yes I too have found that win xp seems to be a little slow in the defragmenting process but i believe that you can speed it up a little by defraging in safe mode. This prevents programs that may be utilizing ram in the background from interfering with defrag. Programs such as the screensaver for example can cause it to restart over and over again or others that write to the drive during this time can also interfere, slowing it down. Its also recommended to defrag your drives before you install new programs as windows tends to scatter info around not always placing things in optimal positions. Others here can probably add tips to this but hope this helps a little - reguards Mark

[doctorgonzo]

Originally Posted by mark70 Hi Bill, yes I too have found that win xp seems to be a little slow in the defragmenting process but i believe that you can speed it up a little by defraging in safe mode. This prevents programs that may be utilizing ram in the background from interfering with defrag. Programs such as the screensaver for example can cause it to restart over and over again or others that write to the drive during this time can also interfere, slowing it down.

While that was true with the defrag program that came with previous versions of Windows, the Windows XP defragger does not need to be run in safe mode because the defrag process is not interrupted by disk activity or screen savers.

[Bill Lane]

Hi mark70 & doctorgonzo:

I know it was too soon, but while I was waiting to see if any posts were being made I ran defrag again, and it only took 3 minutes this time, I'll try it again in about a week.

Here's the results of the second defrag ...

http://home.earthlink.net/~billlane27/defrag-2.html

Thank you both,

Bill Lane

[Cricket]

You installed WinXP over Win98? That might be the reason the first defrag took so long. What file system are you using? Did you stick with FAT32 or did you convert to NTFS?

It's been recommended that you don't upgrade to WinXP from Win98 or WinME...doing a clean wipe of the hard drive and fresh install of WinXP is better. I think it's because of the way Win9x would slowly become messed up and this would carry over when you upgraded to WinXP. I heard the worst was going from WinME to WinXP...read about lots of problems when folks were doing that.

Cricket

[Bill Lane]

Hi Cricket:

Yes I should have done a clean install as I did with Win98, I really don't know what I was thinking, but it seems to have turned out okay, and maybe it's because I've always kept my drive defragged, and only use that first partition for my OS.

Anyway, sometime in the near future, I'm going to a clean install and convert to NTFS.

Thank you all again,

Bill Lane

[macko72]

Defrag of FAT 32 it is little bit slower than defrag of NTFS and first run of defrag normaly takes a little bit longer than usual, .
Just hint: next time try to use NTFS file system you will have less problems OS related.

[Bill Lane]

Thanks Again macko72, I'll do just that :-)

Bill Lane

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by Bill Lane Anyway, sometime in the near future, I'm going to a clean install and convert to NTFS.

No need to do a clean install to convert to NTFS. You can do that in Disk Management. Just gotta remember that once you convert, you can't go back to Fat32

[1badtech]

You can always get a third party defrag program and schedule a daily automatic defrag of all the drives.

[MaximumDMA]

Sorry there, but defrag can take what seems like hours when you have a large partition and haven't defragged in awhile. If I click the defrag button two days after I defrag the drive, it would take three minutes also. To maximize user capability along with a more efficient defrag format your drive and do a clean install of Windows XP. Trust me, upgrading leaves a bunch of useless files that are going to do nothing but take up space and cause you problems.
I can never tell you that running defrag will be faster under any circumstances (I am running an AMD 2800+ with 2GB of RAM and it is still up to an hour on the main 10 GB partition that holds the OS and the same time for each of the 20 GB partitions that hold data only), but I can give you helpful tips to aid you in doing a defrag that has been extremely helpful for me. Remember these are ones that are helpful to me, others may, and probably will disagree.
Windows XP Professional's basic defrag feature has always taken up a lot of time and rarely gives me any faster performance. I use Norton Systemworks Speed Disk to defrag. This moves files in order of frequency of usage and always puts system files first so they are easily retrieved by the system. It has without a doubt made my system faster and sometimes solved errors that I get from data that is hard for the disk to retrieve. Understand I do many things with my computer from build web pages to create video rendering ending somewher in the realm of graphics designing. So I use many programs that require large temp files and need to suck up all resources to render. After two weeks I have basically created what looks like hillbilly's have been shooting at my hard disk. I simply set the speed disk to do each drive one at a time when I go to bed and all is complete before I awake. Understandably as it gets in to the other drives the need to utilize system files is low, so they are faster to defrag. I realize many will look at it and say that Norton sucks up resources and runs so many different processes that can slow down your system, but I am running a very efficient system that is within the realm of the fastest (for now), and the resources it takes may take up a lot on a 1 GB processor, but on mine, I do not see an issue. I get Norton Anti-Virus, which is a must for some of the tech sites I visit because every great tech has some plan to run an active X control to install a ton of adware and spyware, or decides it is his turn to enter the virus world, spend a year on probation and get a high paying job at Microsoft or Symantec. Between Norton, AdAware, and Spybot, I am covered.
I hope this helps you. Like I said, many hate Norton, but I have found the speed disk feature to be invaluable. Good luck.

[glc]

As long as we are talking alternative defragmenters, I'll put in a plug for Diskeeper Pro. It can be set to automatically defragment in the background when it thinks it's needed and doesn't come with all the excess baggage of Symantec products. I haven't manually defragged in years.

[bobdavis]

Dear Bill,

I do a lot of defrags when computer fixing for friends, and I sometimes hit he snag where the first defrag is vveeerrryyyyy slow. This can take hours on older 98 machines, anyhow, a great trick that I use when the computer does not want to go through the procedure is this ( you see it stuck and then nothing happens), reboot the computer and hit the F8 key to go into safe mode, and from there you can defrag without using any extras for the resources and it will be greatly speeded up, then reboot when done. This really works wonders on all computer.

[MaximumDMA]

I do have to admit, the idea of background scanning seems good, but I ask what about the inability to defrag running files? I have never used Diskeeper Pro, so I do not know the statistics. I am not questioning anyone with more than 39,000 posts (homage paid), I am just curious how it is possible to get a great defrag while you are working. I render a lot of video and graphics so we might be in a different usage area, but if this is a good as you say, and you render graphics I am interested. The drawback to the Norton package is the mandatory install of protected recycle bin, I would love to have just Anti-Virus and Speed Disk. I still love it, it has proven most effective, and on my system I really get no lag because of it, but it does lock in unstoppable processes that if you disable nullifys one of the other features ability to start. My Wife has a Compaq (this is me sticking my finger in the back of my throat ) Presario 705US Notebook that Norton drags on. She uses it for office and she does some scrapbooking stuff on it. I need a disk defrag that works without sucking up resources. One other thing I am wondering about the manual vs auto defrag is what percentage of fragmentation it begins to defrag at. My one 30 GB partition (most are 20, root is 10) says that is shold be defragged after the drive hits 25% fragmentation. Out of 30 GB that is 7.5 GB. I mean that is a huge defraggmented drive. If I let it go that bad I would be lucky to boot in under two weeks. I wish I could set it lower, and I am giving an educated guess at 25% because that is what seems to raise a flag, I just analyzed 23% and it said it did not need ran. 28 will run a red flag. Also, does Diskeeper put the files in order of used? If you could send me a link to the specs, I am highly interested for the craptop.

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by bobdavis Dear Bill, I do a lot of defrags when computer fixing for friends, and I sometimes hit he snag where the first defrag is vveeerrryyyyy slow. This can take hours on older 98 machines, anyhow, a great trick that I use when the computer does not want to go through the procedure is this ( you see it stuck and then nothing happens), reboot the computer and hit the F8 key to go into safe mode, and from there you can defrag without using any extras for the resources and it will be greatly speeded up, then reboot when done. This really works wonders on all computer.

If you want to speed up a 98 defrag even more, download the Windows ME defrag tool, rename the 98 tool to Defrag.old and add the ME defrag tool

[glc]

http://www.executive.com/defrag/defrag.asp

I don't know exactly what it does - I just let it do its thing. It does each of my drives roughly once a day - and takes about 2 minutes to do each one. There are advanced options (defrag MFT, defrag pagefile, consolidate directories) that can be manually set to do on a reboot when nothing is locked.

Edit - you can set the smart scheduling to only defrag during certain hours and/or on certain days, so it doesn't kick in when you are working. It's very customizable. You can download a free trial.