T
Tiberius
Vista is so user friendly.. what you could do with XP with the interface now
you need a command line.. LOL
Simplicity or crapicity? Vista is such a fiasco...
End Of Comment, start of article:
http://keznews.com/3487_How_to_Perform_a_Full_Manual_Defrag_of_Your_HDD_under_Vista
If you have tried doing a defragmentation of your hard disk under Windows
Vista, you would have noticed that the defrag utility does not really give
you any detailed information about your hard disk fragmentation level, show
you the defragmentation progress while defragging, and in certain situations
even defragment when you ask it to. Thanks to myhousefor this article.
This guide shows you how you can perform a full defrag of your hard disk
under Vista and get at least a basic report on your hard disk fragmentation
before and after defragmentation.
What's Happening Here
There are a number of changes between Windows Vista's defragmenter and XP's
defrag tool. In general, Vista's defragger is designed for the average user
and is thus tuned for automatic behind-the-scenes work: by default, the
defrag utility is scheduled to run weekly. It defragments all the partitions
on all your hard disks automatically. Unlike the Windows XP defragmentation
tool however, it will only defragment files with fragments smaller than 64
MB on NTFS file systems. The lack of any useful user interface in the Vista
defrag utility is consistent with this design decision of having an
automated defragger running behind the scenes without user intervention.
Before you get too upset, let me say that this is a generally useful setting
for the average user. Let's face it, if you are reading this, you are not an
average user. Many users I know don't defragment their hard disks. They
don't even know the concept, let alone how to get it done or what use it may
serve. The default Vista setting is sensible for such users - a weekly
schedule is more than adequate: too frequent and the constant
defragmentation causes additional wear and tear on the hard disk for very
little additional gain. And for most people, not moving file fragments if
they are more than 64 MB is a good compromise - it speeds up the whole
defragging process, and the fragments are large enough so that in most cases
they don't cause significant slowdowns in the system.
Manual Defragmentation
There are of course reasons why you might want to override this default
mechanism. For example, a full defragmentation of the hard disk may speed up
certain hard disk backup operations. If you're doing it on a large scale
with many computers, the time savings when backing up a properly defragged
hard disk compared to one where the files are broken into many fragments may
be significant. Another possible reason might be if you are capturing video
on your computer and don't want any frames to be skipped if the disk is
fragmented without a contiguous free space for the entire video file, the
hard disk head may have to skip over occupied sectors in the middle of
recording, causing your recording software to skip frames.
To get Vista's defragger to give you some information about your hard disk,
and to control which hard disk or partition it defragments, you will need to
use the command line defragmentation utility. It will still not give you any
feedback while defragmenting, just as the GUI version of the defragmenter
will not, but at least you can get information on the fragmentation level of
your hard disk, control whether to defragment even if the file fragments are
larger than 64 MB, and control which partition or hard disk to defragment.
To use the command line defrag tool in Windows Vista, you have to run the
Command Prompt as an administrator. In Vista, this is not automatic even if
you are logged in as the administrator. Click the Windows button (previously
the Start button in earlier versions of Windows), the All Programs menu item
and the Accessories menu item. Right click the "Command Prompt" button and
select "Run as administrator". A command prompt window will appear.
Everything you run in this Window will be run with administrator rights.
1. To view a file fragmentation analysis of (say) your C: drive, type:
defrag c: -a -v
The "-a" parameter tells the defragger to perform a fragmentation analysis.
The "-v" option tells it to be verbose in its report. If you want a report
on drive D: or some other drive, substitute that drive letter in place of
c:.
Be aware that defrag may tell you that you have no fragmented files even if
you have some. On NTFS partitions, the reporting function of defrag does not
consider fragmented files with fragments greater than 64 MB as fragmented.
If you need truly detailed information, you may have to consider getting a
third party defragmenter such as those listed on the Free Defragmentation
Utilities page on thefreecountry.com.
2. To defragment a particular drive, say C:, type:
defrag c: -v -r
The "-r" option tells the defragmentation utility to treat files that are
fragmented with 64 MB fragments or larger as though they are not fragmented.
This partial defragmentation is the default for "defrag", and it's the only
way the GUI defragmenter in Vista works.
You can also force the defragmenter to defragment everything. That is, even
if the file fragments are larger than 64MB, the Vista defragmenter will
still attempt to put the file into contiguous sectors. To do this, run the
defragger with the following options:
defrag c: -v -w
As you have probably have guessed, "-w" tells the Vista defrag tool to do a
full defragmentation. All file fragments will be consolidated where
possible.
you need a command line.. LOL
Simplicity or crapicity? Vista is such a fiasco...
End Of Comment, start of article:
http://keznews.com/3487_How_to_Perform_a_Full_Manual_Defrag_of_Your_HDD_under_Vista
If you have tried doing a defragmentation of your hard disk under Windows
Vista, you would have noticed that the defrag utility does not really give
you any detailed information about your hard disk fragmentation level, show
you the defragmentation progress while defragging, and in certain situations
even defragment when you ask it to. Thanks to myhousefor this article.
This guide shows you how you can perform a full defrag of your hard disk
under Vista and get at least a basic report on your hard disk fragmentation
before and after defragmentation.
What's Happening Here
There are a number of changes between Windows Vista's defragmenter and XP's
defrag tool. In general, Vista's defragger is designed for the average user
and is thus tuned for automatic behind-the-scenes work: by default, the
defrag utility is scheduled to run weekly. It defragments all the partitions
on all your hard disks automatically. Unlike the Windows XP defragmentation
tool however, it will only defragment files with fragments smaller than 64
MB on NTFS file systems. The lack of any useful user interface in the Vista
defrag utility is consistent with this design decision of having an
automated defragger running behind the scenes without user intervention.
Before you get too upset, let me say that this is a generally useful setting
for the average user. Let's face it, if you are reading this, you are not an
average user. Many users I know don't defragment their hard disks. They
don't even know the concept, let alone how to get it done or what use it may
serve. The default Vista setting is sensible for such users - a weekly
schedule is more than adequate: too frequent and the constant
defragmentation causes additional wear and tear on the hard disk for very
little additional gain. And for most people, not moving file fragments if
they are more than 64 MB is a good compromise - it speeds up the whole
defragging process, and the fragments are large enough so that in most cases
they don't cause significant slowdowns in the system.
Manual Defragmentation
There are of course reasons why you might want to override this default
mechanism. For example, a full defragmentation of the hard disk may speed up
certain hard disk backup operations. If you're doing it on a large scale
with many computers, the time savings when backing up a properly defragged
hard disk compared to one where the files are broken into many fragments may
be significant. Another possible reason might be if you are capturing video
on your computer and don't want any frames to be skipped if the disk is
fragmented without a contiguous free space for the entire video file, the
hard disk head may have to skip over occupied sectors in the middle of
recording, causing your recording software to skip frames.
To get Vista's defragger to give you some information about your hard disk,
and to control which hard disk or partition it defragments, you will need to
use the command line defragmentation utility. It will still not give you any
feedback while defragmenting, just as the GUI version of the defragmenter
will not, but at least you can get information on the fragmentation level of
your hard disk, control whether to defragment even if the file fragments are
larger than 64 MB, and control which partition or hard disk to defragment.
To use the command line defrag tool in Windows Vista, you have to run the
Command Prompt as an administrator. In Vista, this is not automatic even if
you are logged in as the administrator. Click the Windows button (previously
the Start button in earlier versions of Windows), the All Programs menu item
and the Accessories menu item. Right click the "Command Prompt" button and
select "Run as administrator". A command prompt window will appear.
Everything you run in this Window will be run with administrator rights.
1. To view a file fragmentation analysis of (say) your C: drive, type:
defrag c: -a -v
The "-a" parameter tells the defragger to perform a fragmentation analysis.
The "-v" option tells it to be verbose in its report. If you want a report
on drive D: or some other drive, substitute that drive letter in place of
c:.
Be aware that defrag may tell you that you have no fragmented files even if
you have some. On NTFS partitions, the reporting function of defrag does not
consider fragmented files with fragments greater than 64 MB as fragmented.
If you need truly detailed information, you may have to consider getting a
third party defragmenter such as those listed on the Free Defragmentation
Utilities page on thefreecountry.com.
2. To defragment a particular drive, say C:, type:
defrag c: -v -r
The "-r" option tells the defragmentation utility to treat files that are
fragmented with 64 MB fragments or larger as though they are not fragmented.
This partial defragmentation is the default for "defrag", and it's the only
way the GUI defragmenter in Vista works.
You can also force the defragmenter to defragment everything. That is, even
if the file fragments are larger than 64MB, the Vista defragmenter will
still attempt to put the file into contiguous sectors. To do this, run the
defragger with the following options:
defrag c: -v -w
As you have probably have guessed, "-w" tells the Vista defrag tool to do a
full defragmentation. All file fragments will be consolidated where
possible.
