Defragging unmovable files

[ell46]

I've just done a defrag and noticed I have lots of unmovable files dotted all over the place, I've done a Google search which explains all about them, which I do understand, it seems there is a program called Diskkeeper that will defrag these files. I understand it isn't quite a simple as click and go, but I am concerned that my knowledge of such things is limited and if anything goes wrong I will really be in it, especially if I can't access the net for help.

 

Has anyone knowledge of this program, is it difficult to use and what are the chances of someone like me making a complete mess of it?

[Illiad86]

I used Diskeeper for awhile, it's a good one. Most aftermarket defrag programs have some sort of option for a "boot time defragmentation". When you restart, it defrags all the files that were in use when you were in Windows. I've never had a problem with it :smile: It's a safe thing to do...Diskeeper was pretty user friendly at the time I used it....but there's been many versions out since I last I used it.

 

From what I remember there's the option somewhere for the "boot time defrag" in the program, ya click the box and restart the computer and it will defrag the files before Windows starts.

 

From Diskeeper:

 

When installing Diskeeper, many users will schedule a boot-time defragmentation immediately after running the product. Even though a boot-time fragmentation is safe, in many instances, this is not necessary and a boot-time defragmentation will require the computer to be restarted to complete the process. A user should first determine if performing a boot-time defragmentation is necessary. (A person would not go to the car dealer to get an oil change if the oil in his car was changed yesterday.)

 

It is recommended to perform a boot-time defragmentation if the paging file or Master File Table (MFT ) becomes highly fragmented. Information on the fragmentation of the paging file and MFT can be found in the Diskeeper Job Report.

 

If the number of fragments of the paging file and MFT are 5 or less, there is no need to perform a boot-time defragmentation.

[ell46]

thank you that gives me a bit more confidence. My MFT is now split into 4 sections so near the magic 5 as for the immovable files there are over a 100 of those and they are the ones I don't like to see.

[Illiad86]

You could do it now if you want, but I've never really seen any difference in performance until the MFT is heavily fragmented.

[ell46]

I don't think it's that bad at the moment, but it does seem to heading that way. What I don't quite understand because I can't visualise how it works, is if things are constantly being uninstalled or deleted shouldn't these unmovable or MFT files get small and larger depending what's going on or is it a case of once it's written to disk it stays there and these files just get bigger and bigger even if that program etc is gone?

[Illiad86]

NTFS uses MFT entries to define the files to which they correspond. All information about a file, including its size, time and date stamps, permissions, and data content is either stored in MFT entries or in space external to the MFT but described by the MFT entries.

 

As files are added to an NTFS volume, more entries are added to the MFT and so the MFT increases in size. When files are deleted from an NTFS volume, their MFT entries are marked as free and may be reused, but the MFT does not shrink. Thus, space used by these entries is not reclaimed from the disk.

 

Wow, Microsoft actually explained something! :tongue:

 

The unmovable files you speak of are things that were running while you were defragmenting. You can't defragment a program or chunk if it's being used at the time. It's things like what's running in your task manager. That's why you do the boot time because it does it right before Windows starts, so the Windows programs aren't running, and then they can be defragmented.

[LHammonds]

Other free options:

 

Puran Defrag (Free Edition) (boot-time defrag, 32-bit/64-bit, autorun)

PageDefrag (32-bit only)

SpeeDefrag

UltraDefrag (Boot-time defrag)

 

Not Free:

O&O Defrag 12 - $50 (boot-time defrag, 32-bit/64-bit, autorun)

[ell46]

:biggrin: typical I didn't think about looking on MS, but now I've read it that makes sense, it's the heat melting my brain :laugh:

 

Thanks LHammonds I'll check those out, they didn't come up in my search, I probably didn't put in a very good search description.

[LHammonds]

I have my own collection. That is just a few of them that best-matched what you were looking for.

 

Puran Defrag is probably your best bet. It is the competition to Diskeeper but a recent license change made it available as a free product for home / non-commercial users.

 

LHammonds

[ell46]

I have my own collection. That is just a few of them that best-matched what you were looking for.

 

Puran Defrag is probably your best bet. It is the competition to Diskeeper but a recent license change made it available as a free product for home / non-commercial users.

 

LHammonds

 

Oooo even better I love a good freebie, will definitely try that one, thanks.