Can someone recommend a good defragmenter?

Hi,

I have an old Win 2000 system which I'm experimenting with before I attack my XP Pro system in anger.

It has a HD 0 which has a 10G partition containing C:. Of the 10G partition 8.5 G was used. I've deleted or moved about 4.5G off the partition leaving it with 4G used and 6G free.

Now, I wanted to defragment the drive so that I can resize the C: partition to about 4.5G and add a new partition on HD0 of the same size. I expected the defragmenter to move files to the front of the partition.

I've been trying to defragment the drive using the current (Home) version of Diskeeper with no luck. At first the drive was really defragmented. After the 1st defrag I estimate that more the 95% of files were within the first 4.5G of the partition. There were a small number of files which still occupied the second half of the partition (as fragmented files - shown in red). I've now done 4 defrags and 2 boot defrags and all the defragmented files are still there (even though there is 4G of free space to play with) and the original contiguous files now show multiple defrag files. I'm not impressed with this.

As I need to reduce the partition size to 4.5G from 10G I cannot have files above the 4.5G boundary. It seems that Diskeeper is not good enough for this.

Can anyone recommend a defrag utility that can be forced to move all files to the front of a partition which has a free evaluation period?

Or, can Diskeeper be forced to do what I want? (I don't know about the required option - if there is one).

TIA.

 

Hi, can you tell me which files are being left highly fragmented (do a report after analysis), I have a feeling that it is something like an index file or page file, which is in use all the time, which is why it cant be defragged... what might be worth doing is doing an offline defrag.

 

u can try DIRMS...its free.

http://www.dirms.com/home/homepage.asp

 

Hello ChairmanMeow,

Check out Raxco Perfect Disk 8.0. Probably one of the best defraggers around - http://www.raxco.com

Regards

 

Hi nickr,

The report follows at the end of this post. I did a boot time defrag to try and get diskeeper to move the files as Win 2000 will not have hold of them. However, it didn't move any file.

The only system file is the MFT which is in two fragments even though I selected the option to defrag the MFT. The pagefile is on drive D: and I turned hibernation off to get rid of the hiberfil.sys.



REPORT FOLLOWS:

Job Report
Volume (C:

Statistics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Volume Files
Volume size = 9,759 MB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 3,870 MB
Free space = 5,889 MB
Percent free space = 60 %

Fragmentation percentage
Volume fragmentation = 0 %
Data fragmentation = 0 %

Directory fragmentation
Total directories = 2,223
Fragmented directories = 0
Excess directory fragments = 0

File fragmentation
Total files = 33,660
Average file size = 114 KB
Total fragmented files = 86
Total excess fragments = 105
Average fragments per file = 1.00
Files with performance loss = 0

Paging file fragmentation
Paging/Swap file size = 0 bytes
Total fragments = 0

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 62,976 KB
MFT records In Use = 35,989
Percent MFT in use = 57 %
Total MFT fragments = 2


Most Fragmented Files
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File size Most fragmented files
12 8,192 bytes \WINNT\system32\config\software.LOG [Excess Allocation]
8 824 KB \WINNT\system32\wbem\Repository\CIM.REC
2 32 KB \Documents and Settings\User1\Local Settings\Temp\MMC1.tmp
1 582 KB \WINNT\system32\dllcache\catsrvut.dll [Excess Allocation]
1 448 KB \WINNT\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt
1 1,264 KB \WINNT\system32\dllcache\dsound3d.dll [Excess Allocation]
1 1,024 bytes \WINNT\system32\config\default.LOG [Excess Allocation]
1 668 KB \WINNT\setupapi.log
1 583 KB \WINNT\system32\dllcache\INETCOMM.DLL [Excess Allocation]
1 548 KB \WINNT\system32\dllcache\dao360.dll [Excess Allocation]

<<<< another 37 dllchache files - omitted from list >>>>

1 1,032 KB \WINNT\security\tmp.edb
1 1,024 bytes \Documents and Settings\User1\ntuser.dat.LOG [Excess Allocation]
1 646 KB \WINNT\security\logs\winlogon.log

 

Hi, folks: FYI, there is one product, UltimateDefrag, may suit your specific needs. There is a lengthy thread on this section. Have a nice one.

 

PerfectDisk used to have a 30 day free trial. It is a very good program that I have used for years with no problems.

 

If your requirement is to compact all your files into a 4.5 GB area, then I suggest that you try to approach that with imaging software.

Take an image of the 10 GB partition, repartition your drive by creating a 4.5 GB. Then restore the image into the new 4,5 GB partition.
Just make sure that it fits.

 

Thanks to all who recommended PerfectDisk.

I've downloaded the 30 day evaluation software and it has moved all the files that were ignored by Diskeeper below the 4.5G boundary APART from meta data files which I can't seem to move even by doing a boot defrag with the aggressive free space consolidation option selected.

The files starting C:\$ are all excluded.

 

wilbertnl,

That is exactly what I am trying to do. I've currently still got the 10G partition with all my data below about 3.5G apart from meta data files which PerfectDisk does not want to touch. I estimate that the meta data files are about 5.5G into the partition. There is now 60% free space on the partition.

Are you saying that I can back up the 10G partition then, after resizing the system partition to 4.5G, restore using the image file even though some of the original files were beyond 4.5G into the image (in my case just the meta data files). Will the image restore handle the relocation of the meta data files within this smaller partition?

Thanks for any advice.

 

Exactly.
As long as it fits...

 

Excellent!

I'll give it a try with IFW or IFD (evaluating those also).

 

You can also try these free ones:

http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/

Also:
http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/

 

I second Perman's choice : a very good prog whit many settings that make it suit your needs

MaB

 

I'm quoting the IFW documentation for restore from an image:

"The restore target must be large enough to accommodate the data from the source partition. The minimal amount of space required in the target is determined by the amount of space encompassed from the beginning of the source partition, to the last used area of the source partition. For example, if the partition backed up had 2G of data, and the last part of that data ended 15G from the start of the source partition, the target area would need to be at least 15G in size to accommodate the restore."

This seems to confirm the problem I am having. My meta data is approx 5.5G into the partition and I cannot move it to a lower value.

 

Acronis TrueImage doesn't have that limitation. And maybe other disk image solutions neither.

 

Fer shure!

 

Hate to miss out on something good, so can anyone tell me why PD is preferred over Diskeeper which I have always used. (Now Version 11.0)

 

i agreed with kennyboy i have been using diskeeper forever and hae the newest version also and no problems and its fast and you dont even know that its running like nod32 i have try profect disk before and it is slow and nothing like diskeeper

 

I have used both. Both work as advertised. Of the two, my personal preference is for PD8 which I use on most of my machines, but it is not an overwhelming preference. I have one DK 10 Pro install remaining, but that's only because I haven't spent the time to upgrade it to PD8 yet. I would tend to buy based on price.

Blue

 

One place to look is the white papers at http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/wp.cfm.

 

And to balance things out the white papers at Diskeeper:

http://www.diskeepereurope.com/en/07_general/whatsnew.htm

 

the master file table will contain the data itself if its more efficient to store it than to simply index its location

one of the thoughts that comes to mind is that the pagefile and the MFT's location is averaged for the best seek access by the OS (assuming the best space is available) and is often in the center of a partition. (as shown below)

What you could try is to employ a defrag like UltimateDefrag (now the 3rd time its been recommended, GUI is what is shown below) to condense your data around the MFT. Then resize in front of and in back of the partition and then move it to the ID (Outer Diameter) of the platter.

If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed.

though you maybe able to move the MFT w\ it.

when resizing and moving partitions Ive always found it well worth the time to do just one task and reboot before attempting the next


http://i14.tinypic.com/2qvqi3k.jpg

 

wilbertnl,

Thanks for the recommendation of Acronis TI 10. I've tried it out but the evaluation version does not allow you to do a backup when booting into TI. However, I did a backup while windows was running and I had to use it in anger as I'd screwed someting up - AND IT WORKED 100%.

I've now bought it on amazon (cheapest place for UK customers) purely because I was impressed with the boot it software. That is how I will be using it exclusively to back up the system partition - I DO NOT TRUST backing up a partition while windows is active.

However, I've found that I can use Paragon Partition Manager 8.0 to resize my system partion. It worked 100% - even though some old data was past the size of the new partition.

Sorry to those of you that this is obvious, but to me it was a revalation!

Best of all is that Paragon Partion Manager 8.0 was free with one of my magazines a couple of months ago.

 

free is always good but
just in case you loose it

Gparted can be downloaded for free any day of the week


screenshots