Robin said:
I've got PD12.5 and wonder what you mean by 'offline'. As far as I know
you can only defrag system files with a boot time defrag, which runs
before any other apps are loaded.
And a defragmenter should only run, if CHKDSK is clean.
It sounds like maybe, something is amiss in the partition,
that is only visible when PerfectDisk runs.
*******
You can "re-layout" a partition. But I only do that for FAT32.
(Since NTFS has permissions, it might be a bit tougher to do well.)
Using a second OS, I copy the C: files to a backup disk,
reformat the WinXP C: that needs to be fixed, then copy
the files back. I use Robocopy to make the copy.
Then, I have to run the WinXP recovery console (from the
installer disc), and use "fixboot" to put the partition
boot sector back (not the MBR one). (I tried doing that
the other day, with a Win7 disc and "bootsect" or the like,
and it didn't work. I still needed to use my WinXP CD and
do "fixboot" to fix it. It would appear the OS installer
disc still holds the best repair tool.)
The reason that's possible, is because this is a dual boot system.
If you didn't have a second Windows OS, you could try using a Win7 or
Win8 "preview" version, long enough to do it. The license
key for the Win8 preview is still good until mid-January.
Linux is fine for some kinds of maintenance like this, but
at least for NTFS, I don't think it knows anything about
permissions. Making a cleaned up partition that way, might
not work so well. For FAT32, it might be less of an issue
(Linux and Windows might be equal, in their ability to work
with FAT32). As for EXFAT, nobody cared...
I still
haven't tested or worked with EXFAT.
Paul