2 questions - Win7 Defrag and Typing issues

[Retribution]

Yesterday I installed Windows 7. Twice, because I installed the wrong chipset driver the first time. This morning, I decided to defragment my drive. After an hour and a half, it is still on pass 1, 43% consolidated. I read that it usually makes about 7 passes. Does the amount of time it takes to do each decrease as time goes on?

 

Also, after I installed Windows 7, I have had a problem with typing text. Occasionally, when typing, the cursor will go back several words, and I'll end up typing something in between the words I have already typed. Thanks in advance.

[LHammonds]

Yesterday I installed Windows 7. Twice, because I installed the wrong chipset driver the first time. This morning, I decided to defragment my drive. After an hour and a half, it is still on pass 1, 43% consolidated. I read that it usually makes about 7 passes. Does the amount of time it takes to do each decrease as time goes on?

I will assume you are not using a solid state drive (SSD) since it does not need to be defragged to increase performance.

 

The 1st time you defrag a system will likely take the longest. Once the files are defragged, they will remain that way. It is the process of laying down new or temp files that create fragmentation and a 2nd defrag will only be defragging the new files (mainly).

 

I design my system using partitions (drive letters) in such a way that I never need to defrag certain parts of my system once I defragged.

 

Drive C: - Only has my OS.

Drive D: - Only has temp files (all temp variables, internet cache, etc. is directed to this drive)

Drive E: - Only applications and games.

Drive F: - Data

Drive G: - Video

 

In this scenario, I defrag drive C: one time after I get my system setup and will likely never need to defrag it again

Drive D: is fragged all the time but I typically purge the temp files before starting the defrag process...even though it really won't help much.

Drive E: also only needs to be defragged one time unless I add a new game or app. Even then, defrag runs very quickly since most of it is not fragged.

Drive F: is set to defrag about once a month but usually does not impact performance of the PC even when it is fragged since it does not load much data at one time.

Drive G: is also set to defrag about once a month but fragmentation here is noticeable when editing video so it is important that I keep this drive organized well.

 

EDIT: I just installed Win7 x64 Ultimate on my work PC. I started the Defrag process and it finished the defrag of C: in about 4 minutes.

 

PC: Dell Optiplex 745

- Intel Core2, 2.66 GHz

- 4 GB RAM

 

Drive C: 100 GB (15 GB in use by Win7 OS)

Drive D: 1.3 TB (0 TB in use...will be data drive but empty now)

Drive E: 10 GB (6 GB in use as TEMP and swap files)

 

LHammonds

[JimboUK]

I use this, it's a lot quicker. http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

[Thor.]

Hey i have a question about defragmenters, does anyone know of one that does "boot files" for a faster boot lol, anyway it would be great if there was a freeware version to.

[Vagrant0]

As far as defragmenting goes, the time it takes is dependent on the size of the drive and how full it is. This is why I typically try to keep the OS partition on a smaller drive, since it often gets written to the most during normal operation (higher chance of fragmenting). That way, it doesn't take quite as long to defragment, even when full. To further reduce the frequency of fragmentation being an issue, I also usually try to retain some fairly large files, or file groups which are rarely accessed on any of the drives. This Ballast helps artificially fill out the drive, lowers overall drive fragmentation, and lowers the chances that any one file will get extremely fragmented. Extracted BSA files perform this task rather nicely since they can eat up a large amount of data that can be deleted later without losing anything. And until then, you can make regular use of them for modding. Other large file groupings, like a collection of mod downloads also work rather well.

 

For the typing issue, only thing I can think of is a keyboard/mouse that isn't functioning properly. Havn't noticed anything like that happening myself.

 

As far as I know, only Noton's speeddisk did anything with boot files, although I'm really not too sure on that.