Defrag Issue

[Colortec]

When I defrag my NTFS HDD I notice the following issue.

If you are familiar with the defrag interface you will be aware that there are two panels. One panel shows the user the 'estimated disk usage before defragmentation' and the other shows 'disk usage after defragmentation'.

The problem is, i can see little difference between the two after i defrag. I would expect the lower panel (after defrag) to be nice and contiguous but it is still gappy and has red lines indicating the existence of fragmented files even AFTER a defrag. Why is the defrag utility not defragging these files?

Why would this be?

[Ethel]

Do you analyse first and only defrag when told it is necessary?

[wildwood]

If you had a filing cabinet you would want to keep certain files in each folder so that you can easily find them. All the folders will fill up your filing cabinet but in those folders there is lots of room for more files.

On a hard drive, when these allocated spaces are full, the additional data will be dumped anywhere there is room. Your computer will eventually get slower and slower because much of the CPU's processing is kept busy looking for files in unfamiliar territory.

Defragmenting will re-organise the hard drive so that Windows can once again access the data rapidly. You might have noticed, If you have a lot of stuff of on a HDD the allocations are different as , say, when you first got the computer. In the beginning of defragging all the data on teh disk is scanned to estimate how and where Windows would like the allocations, that's why the old ('98) defragging used to hang so long on 10%. Fortunately, XP is more organised and defrags a lot faster.

[boobesque]

indeed, but in answer to your question, you cant move files that are in use at the time of defragging. hold ctrl + alt and press delete and you will see all of the programs in use. all of these programs rely on many files to work. if you have any unnesessary programs running then closing these would allow their files to be defraged.
you could instead find a boot time defrag tool which as im sure you can imagine, defrags the drive before it is booted, so only a minimal ammount of files would be in use. or you can use bootable cd's with defrag tools installed onto them in which case even less files are in use.
choice is yuors