Defragment

UniqueEarthling

I'm using Windows Live care. It's free (for 3 months) and has a built in tuner, defragmenter, virus checker, firewall and phishing filter.

You need a Windows live ID to download - http://www.windowsonecare.com/

It doesn't slow the PC down and, personally, I've found it to be pretty good.

I agree, somewhat, with what was said about modern disks not really needing the defrag tool. I was always told if you are still using FAT file systems then defrag is useful but if you are using NTFS it is less necessary (but not unnecessary)

Life_On_Mars

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/PageDefrag.mspx

and

http://www.dirms.com

are both pretty good if you want to try something more than the default Windows defrag tool.

imho

http://safety.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

UniqueEarthling


Is that the one you meant to say ? anyone who uses this ,it has to be run on Internet Explorer ,take hours the first time you use it. I did think it was good,but found i had trouble seeing a web page ,and the answer was to clear out all my junk on computer,BUT Windows live safety scanner should have done that ! it does say it has. So i dont use it anymore.

UniqueEarthling

imho wrote:

http://safety.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

UniqueEarthling


Is that the one you meant to say ? anyone who uses this ,it has to be run on Internet Explorer ,take hours the first time you use it. I did think it was good,but found i had trouble seeing a web page ,and the answer was to clear out all my junk on computer,BUT Windows live safety scanner should have done that ! it does say it has. So i dont use it anymore.

That's the one . The other link works fine for me but it could just be because I'm already logged in somewhere lol.

Yes, it does take a while to set up because it updates to IE7 but, now I'm used to it, I prefer it (though I wouldn't get rid of Firefox altogether ... there is still the odd occasion IE complains about my viewing choices )

HappyMedium_2

Thanks Imho, I've downloaded and used it, looks good.

IvanOpinion

What annoys me most about Micorosfts defrag is that it does not compress the stuff back up on the disk therefore if you have large fragmented files it often can not defragment them because it can not find enough contiguous stirage

Ivan

wolfman

And the standard Windows one doesn't defrag the Master File Table.

I don't really use Windows much any more, but when I did I used O&O Defrag. It's much faster, and I'd leave it on a schedule once a week (after my full av scans, etc...). Helped keep things running nice and smooth.

Lemmy_Caution

Strange thing happened after I defragmented recently. For around a year I always had around 57% available space. Now, I have not removed any programs recently, in fact I have added an all in one printer thing, but now I have 91% available space. Any ideas as to why this should happen?

UniqueEarthling

Prior to defragmenting, you can imagine the contents on your disk to look like this.

XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
X00X00X0XX0X0X0X0XX0XXXX0XX0X0X
X00X00X0XX0X0X0X0XX0XXXX0XX0X0X
XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
X00X00X0XX0X0X0X0XX0XXXX0XX0X0X
XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
XX0XXX000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000

where the X is data and the 0 is a gap. Although there are gaps between data, they often go unused because the space is not large enough to fit the new stuff in one lump.

After defragmenting, the data is moved into adjoining spaces like this

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX0000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000

and you gain more 'useable' space.

This could account for some of your extra space but the gain you speak of is a lot more than I would normally expect Maybe someone else can suggest another possibility.

crox

I find that my pc's are always more responsive and reliable after a boot time defrag, but that requires something more than the bog standard windows affair.

Further to UniqueEarthling you might actually get something like

xxxyyxxzzzzzxxy

where x y and z are seperrate programmes but because of the way file systems work (even ntfs) files get crammed in to gaps.