Defragging

[Ridah]

I use Defraggler to defrag my hard drive, how come after defragging my drive there are still blocks of red remaining? I even go into them individually, check all the files in the block, and attempt to defrag them but it doesn't work.

[TheAtomicKid]

Possibly they're unmoveable for some reason or another. Windows being active means some stuff can't be defragged... you have a boot time option with the windows defragger for stuff like that. Defraggler has some options in the menus. (just checked mine, and it's an older version, so you _should_ have them as well, unless yours is even older than mine)

Atomic

[Blackjack]

I use Defraggler too. I generally can't seem to get my couple hard drives defragmented further than maybe 14-15% defragmented. I've tried running chkdsk but found no problems. And I tried running the built-in defragmenter the other day but it's still in that range of fragmentation after the process.

*Thanks for tip, I did set the boot time option. While it doesn't make any difference in the fragmentation percentage number, it does seem to make basic Windows stuff (start up, web browsing etc.) more spry.

I noticed there's also an option to move larger files (adjustable size threshold) to end of drive during whole drive defrag [Settings>Options>Defrag] to speed up things though i guess that doesn't affect fragmentation percentage either.

[heloder]

Are you guys sure your page file isn't part of the fragmentation you're seeing? You can disable it, reboot, defrag, and then re-enable it if that's the case.

[Blackjack]

Are you guys sure your page file isn't part of the fragmentation you're seeing? You can disable it, reboot, defrag, and then re-enable it if that's the case.

I was going to ask about it, thanks, I understand that better now.  I'll try that tonight.

Yes, when I look at my "drive map", the red sectors have these sort of gibberish names (e.g., just making this up: EI-*3-#3&*-$642)-^2)#-6&5*-^!-, something like that?). I figure either that's a page file or some sort of "system restore" file that has a randomized name.

[heloder]

On here, Defraggler colors the page file tan, though. It could very well be system restore files. I don't have system restore enabled so I couldn't say for sure, but looking around it appears that they are stored as randomly numbered files and folders similar to that (x:\system volume information\_restore{558C94FD-3C7F-4954-A02D-26679E6D849E}).

Disabling system restore and then re-enabling it should get rid of them so that space can be defragmented if you want.

[Ridah]

Would it be a horrible idea to keep it off? I'm the type of person where, if shit hits the fan, I reformat or just buy a new drive. I back all my stuff up anyways.

[heloder]

I haven't had it enabled in years. If you back up your stuff and aren't averse to the idea of reformatting in the event of total catastrophe then I see little point in keeping it on.

I really can't remember the last time one of my installs got to the point where I needed to reformat, anyway. I got a piece of malware on here once but I was able to clean it up easily enough with Malwarebytes. Any other kind of issue I've ever had could be fixed manually. I struggle to think of a situation where system restore would be vital to me.

That said, most people should probably keep it enabled on the off chance that it could save them from some grief. Its performance impact and HDD usage is probably of little concern to most with modern hardware.

[Blackjack]

Would it be a horrible idea to keep it off? I'm the type of person where, if shit hits the fan, I reformat or just buy a new drive. I back all my stuff up anyways.

I think he's just suggesting a temporary disabling to clear up the fragmentation a bit, right?

I leave System Restore on. I've used it countless times on XP and Vista 64-bit when games or utilities have screwed up my system in explicable ways. The most recent time was when I futilely used a recommended registry cleaner utility thinking it would fix some Steam problems (Those were the ones I had to enable beta Steam updates to fix.). The registry "cleaner" caused my system to crash and produce blue screen error messages that I have never ever seen it do before and which it hasn't done since a successful restore.

A few games over the years have also fubared my system, and system restore to a day or two earlier has always fixed it just fine. Now the third-party programs I tried using earlier on Win98 and stuff that tried to do what System Restore does never worked for me -- they just made things worse. System Restore and I however are good friends.   If the price is a little more fragmentation, then screw it, I won't worry about it.