Analyzed FAT32 disk and got " Excess directory fragments "

  • Thread starter Thread starter - Bobb -
  • Start date Start date
B

- Bobb -

I did a search at MS webpage and got nothing matching, so if someone could
help me out with the info:

I ran ANALYZE on my disk drive
it said - "defrag not needed "and this is part
of the info returned when I chose "View Report":

Directory fragmentation
Total directories = 9,018
Fragmented directories = 64
Excess directory fragments = 148

What exactly is "Excess directory fragments" ?? and would defragging get rid
of them? Do I care ?

Thanks.
 
- Bobb - said:
I did a search at MS webpage and got nothing matching, so if someone
could help me out with the info:

I ran ANALYZE on my disk drive
it said - "defrag not needed "and this is part
of the info returned when I chose "View Report":

Directory fragmentation
Total directories = 9,018
Fragmented directories = 64
Excess directory fragments = 148

What exactly is "Excess directory fragments" ?? and would defragging
get rid of them? Do I care ?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

From a search at http://support.microsoft.com for Windows 2000 on "disk
defragmenter analyze" was listed their
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;318759 KB
article. It has a link to
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;300978. They
don't detail the output of their Analyze output so apparently you are
supposed to divine this yourself.

The disk defragmenter in Windows 2000 is a limited version of Diskeeper.
The online manual at
http://www1.execsoft.com/Diskeeper-Users-Guide70.pdf. Page 26 is
supposed to describe the analysis report.
 
I did a search at MS webpage and got nothing matching, so if someone
could
help me out with the info:

I ran ANALYZE on my disk drive
it said - "defrag not needed "and this is part
of the info returned when I chose "View Report":

Directory fragmentation
Total directories = 9,018
Fragmented directories = 64
Excess directory fragments = 148

What exactly is "Excess directory fragments" ?? and would defragging get
rid
of them? Do I care ?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Just a guess, but I think it's saying you have 9018 directories that are
stored in 9,166 pieces.
And that 64 direcitories are siored in 2 or more pices.

Yes, defraggng would get rid of (most) of them. Does not appear harmful.
 
Ah, you clearly forgot MS BOB
..
Anyway, hope your rant made you feel better. ;-)
 
Networking from Novell ?

Novell was IPX/SPX and was based upon the Xerox Networking Specification (XNS). MS
Networking is based upon SMB and NetBIOS an IBM and MS collaboration but I believe it was an
IBM construct and then modified for LAN Manager.

And you forget MS just bought RAV.

Dave
 
- Bobb - said:
They got defrag from DiskKeeper, IE from Netscape, the GUI,mouse from
Apple(via Xerox) , bought DOS, Excel from Lotus(Visicalc), media
player from Real, networking from Novell , java from Sun,Netmeeting
from AOL, and on and on. Is there ANYTHING that Microsoft does
"support". Something that they designed from scratch ? rather than
remarketing/copying/reverse-engineering a "simple working version" of
the work of others ? and then patching it when "we" report problems
with it.
Click to expand...

Microsoft has long contracted, borrowed, or bought other technologies to
encompass the best that the industry has (or is economical enough to put
into a low-cost operating system). If Microsoft wrote and controlled
all the software that got incorporated into its operating system then
indeed it would be a powerful monopoly. In fact, some of the
instability of Windows can be attributed to all the non-Microsoft
software that gets incorporated into Windows. Gee, you think Windows
would be so easy to install if they refused to include all the hardware
drives for all those non-Microsoft devices out there? If the Backup
program included in Windows were the full-blown Veritas product, are you
going to pay for the Windows PLUS the full cost of the full-blown
version of the backup program? Would you want to pay the full royalties
for the full-blown version of Kodak's image viewer rather than get the
limited version included in Windows? If you don't want all those
limited versions of those products, you are very free to go out and buy
all that software in its full-blown version - and pay for it, too!
Windows encompasses a lot of technology they don't own, and if they
didn't then users like you would bitch that you can't do anything with
the operating system without having to buy full versions of lots of
utilities, imaging software, backup software, and the like and at full
price. You pay a couple hundred bucks for an OS and then expect it to
include full versions of all software it embodies, embraces, or
incorporates? If it included full versions of all this software, you
couldn't afford it.

Oh, and you would prefer Microsoft not to patch their products when "we"
have problems with it? So you never run updates, you never update the
device drivers, you never install patches for software and instead you
stick with a static and stagnate version of the OS, drivers, software,
and whatnot? Yeah, right. Name me ONE operating system that doesn't
have patches. I've worked on mainframes (Unisys, IBM AIX, MVS, VM,
AS-400, HP-UX, Sun Solaris) and smaller systems and they ALL need
patches - and because of what "we" users discover. You think any one
company has the financial resources to purchase all the equipment and
manpower to test on every possible hardware platform under every
possible configuration of devices with every possible combination of all
the software that exists out there?
 
- Bobb - said:
Thanks for the path. ( I didn't include "analyze" in my search there)
I went to http://www1.execsoft.com/Diskeeper-Users-Guide70.pdf (pg
37 of 105) and the manual sounds like a lawyers' definition. I've
attached it. It says that the "excess dir frag section" displays the
total # of directory fragments on the drive - yeahhhhh , soooo ...
they still don't explain "excess", like is 85 of them OK but 87 of
them are bad ... and why ?

My drives works fine, I thought it was gonna be a simple question, so
don't go nuts trying to find it, but if someone does know and can
summarize it, it'd just be nice to know what these "report summaries"
mean.

thanks
bobb
Click to expand...

Say you have 5 directories. Directory 1 is contiguous to directory 2 is
contiguous with the first part of directory 3. Say directory 3 is
fragmented into 3 fragments, the first part that is contiguous with
directory 2, another part off by itself and not contiguous with any
other directory fragment, and the last part that is contiguous with
directory 4. Directory 4 is contiguous with directory 5. You end up
with:

Dir1 -> Dir2 -> Dir3 (fragment 1)
Dir3 (fragment 2)
Dir3 (fragment 3) -> Dir4 -> Dir5

The report would show there are 5 total directories. Only 1 directory
is fragmented. There are 3 excess directory fragments (I don't know why
they call them "excess"). Only 1 directory is itself fragmented. But
there are 3 directory-type fragments total (with one or more contiguous
directories within each fragment "chain").

Look at it another way, if only 1 directory were fragmented, the
"Fragmented Directories" count would be 1. That just tells you the
number of directories that have *some* fragmentation but not by how much
it is fragmented (i.e., how many pieces). That directory might be
sliced up into 3 fragments. So the 1 fragmented file (Fragmented
Directories) creates 3 excess directory-type fragments (Excess Directory
Fragments). (I might actually be off by 1 in the excess value but I
won't get into why.)

Notice that Diskeeper's description of Excess Directory Fragments says
it measures "each additional piece of any fragmented directories. If
there were 100 directories and 20 were fragmented, each of those 20
fragmented directories has at least 2 pieces or more but one or more of
those pieces might still be contiguous with another directory. Note
that directories are defragmented by placing them contiguous to each
other on the disk. So this count may even include disconnected
directory files but which are not fragmented (i.e., they are contiguous
with other directories but it isn't sliced up, either). Could be that
none of them are fragmented but they are not contiguous on the disk and
instead are scattered around (which happens when you install new
programs or create new directories after a defrag).

The definition is too vague so it is unclear if it just measures how
many total pieces the fragmented directories are fragmented into, or if
it also includes directories that are not in themselves fragmented but
are not contiguous to other directory-type files.

Whether or not defragmenting the drive will improve these directories
statistics depends on the version of Windows and the file system (FAT16,
FAT32, NTFS) that you use.
 
I guess I missed that mystical era in which the aim of a business was solely
to benefit mankind. There are plenty of other options out there - heck, get
a Mac.
 
The arguments claiming that limited versions of embedded other-vendor
products or the incorporation of a "feature" that competes with another
product will drive others out of business hasn't panned out. If you use
the Windows version of Defragmenter but want better than its provides
then you look to buy Diskeeper or Norton SpeedDisk or something else.
It spurs the consumer to buy something better if they want better.
Windows XP came out with its ICF (Internet Connection Firewall). Did it
stop users from getting a much better firewall, like ZoneAlarm Pro or
Norton Internet Security? No, and in fact is spurs users to find
something better who want something more than just minimal and iffy
protection. If the user doesn't want better then they wouldn't have
bought the full version anyway so no sale is lost. And if that minimal
version weren't available, you think those users that won't buy the full
version are not going to buy the operating system for their other
applications? So you think the inclusion of Notepad killed off the
makers of word processors? After all, it is not an OS-critical
application as you could edit a file in binary using debug.exe. Enjoy!

The same claim you make that Microsoft is "marketing" their product by
making it easier with more non-OS critical features also goes for every
other operating system. Why do you think there are "packaged" versions
of Linux that cost money but make it easier for users to install with
drivers are already included and include other handy non-OS critical
applications? According to you, "marketing"! Windows is NOT the only
operating system, even for Intel boxes, and there are lots of
applications that will run on other operating systems or written in,
say, Java to run across lots of platforms, or you can get alternate
applications for another platform. So Microsoft still is a competitor
in the OS market yet you think they shouldn't be allowed to compete by
making their product more attractive to its potential customers and to
retain current customers? They've got a product to sell and will try to
make it shine brighter than their competitors to lure customers and thus
revenue. That's nothing unique to Microsoft.
 
Back
Top