Vista Disk Defrag

  • Thread starter Thread starter David B. Mathews
  • Start date Start date
D

David B. Mathews

I hate the way the Vista Defrag works. I can no longer see what it is doing
nor can I tell it which drives to defrag. Since I have 2 drives, each
having 1 terabytes of space this can be a very slow process. There is no
reason for it to try to defrag the 2nd drive as I am using it for backups
and storing pictures/music on. What else is out there that you guys/gals
would recommend? I downloaded a copy of Perfect Disk trial that I'm trying
out. The other one I was looking at is Disk keeper. Perfect Disk has the
window to show me what it doing, haven't investigated Disk keeper yet.
Suggestions?
 
I have been using System Mechanic 7 which has a defrag mode. I find the
program useful but would not recommend it just for the defrag.
 
Does it put up a screen that shows what is happening as Windows defrag used
to do?
 
'David B. Mathews' said:
I hate the way the Vista Defrag works. I can no longer see what it is
doing nor can I tell it which drives to defrag. Since I have 2 drives,
each having 1 terabytes of space this can be a very slow process. There is
no reason for it to try to defrag the 2nd drive as I am using it for
backups and storing pictures/music on. What else is out there that you
guys/gals would recommend? I downloaded a copy of Perfect Disk trial that
I'm trying out. The other one I was looking at is Disk keeper. Perfect
Disk has the window to show me what it doing, haven't investigated Disk
keeper yet. Suggestions?
Click to expand...
_____

Try the command line version of defrag that is part of Windows Vista. Open
the Command Prompt window as an administrator (right click and choose 'Run
as administrator' from the fly-out menu). Enter defrag /? to get the
list of parameters. If you use defrag C: - a -v defrag will
analyze the drive selected and display a fragmentation report. You can then
choose to defrag or not. The report is not pretty, but the price is right.

The results of defrag /? are shown below


Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>defrag /?
Description: Locates and consolidates fragmented files on local volumes to
improve system performance.

Syntax: defrag <volume> -a [-v]
defrag <volume> [{-r | -w}] [-f] [-v]
defrag -c [{-r | -w}] [-f] [-v]

Parameters:

Value Description

<volume> Specifies the drive letter or mount point path of the volume
to
be defragmented or analyzed.

-c Defragments all volumes on this computer.

-a Performs fragmentation analysis only.

-r Performs partial defragmentation (default). Attempts to
consolidate only fragments smaller than 64 megabytes (MB).

-w Performs full defragmentation. Attempts to consolidate all
file
fragments, regardless of their size.

-f Forces defragmentation of the volume when free space is low.

-v Specifies verbose mode. The defragmentation and analysis
output
is more detailed.

-? Displays this help information.

Examples:

defrag d:
defrag d:\vol\mountpoint -w -f
defrag d: -a -v
defrag -c -v

C:\Windows\system32>

Phil Weldon
 
David B. Mathews said:
I hate the way the Vista Defrag works. I can no longer see what it is
doing nor can I tell it which drives to defrag. Since I have 2 drives,
each having 1 terabytes of space this can be a very slow process. There is
no reason for it to try to defrag the 2nd drive as I am using it for
backups and storing pictures/music on. What else is out there that you
guys/gals would recommend? I downloaded a copy of Perfect Disk trial that
I'm trying out. The other one I was looking at is Disk keeper. Perfect
Disk has the window to show me what it doing, haven't investigated Disk
keeper yet. Suggestions?
Click to expand...

JKDefrag is freeware that works very well on my Home Premium system.
 
David B. Mathews said:
I hate the way the Vista Defrag works. I can no longer see what it is
doing nor can I tell it which drives to defrag. Since I have 2 drives,
each having 1 terabytes of space this can be a very slow process. There
is no reason for it to try to defrag the 2nd drive as I am using it for
backups and storing pictures/music on. What else is out there that you
guys/gals would recommend? I downloaded a copy of Perfect Disk trial that
I'm trying out. The other one I was looking at is Disk keeper. Perfect
Disk has the window to show me what it doing, haven't investigated Disk
keeper yet. Suggestions?
Click to expand...
this is the one I use with great success..
http://www.vopt.com/
gives real time feedback on the progress of the defrag
 
Yes it does....and I also use 2 drives and it asks me which drive I want to
defrag then proceeds to do same
 
I hate the way the Vista Defrag works. I can no longer see what it is doing
nor can I tell it which drives to defrag. Since I have 2 drives, each
having 1 terabytes of space this can be a very slow process. There is no
reason for it to try to defrag the 2nd drive as I am using it for backups
and storing pictures/music on. What else is out there that you guys/gals
would recommend? I downloaded a copy of Perfect Disk trial that I'm trying
out. The other one I was looking at is Disk keeper. Perfect Disk has the
window to show me what it doing, haven't investigated Disk keeper yet.
Suggestions?
Click to expand...

I've been using Diskeeper since NT4. I've never had issues with it. I
even had one computer at work that would sometimes reboot in the middle
of a defrag (a hardware problem) and no data was ever lost.

I have 2007 Pro on my home Vista system, although I think I could have
stuck with the more basic Home version. The pro version just adds
FragShield and 64-bit support. I generally have auto-defrag off, and run
a manual defrag before shutting down for the day. You do get a display,
and it even shows the file being moved on the bottom of the display.
There are also all sorts of other options, most of which I don't bother
with.
 
Thanks to all for your replies. I have decided to go with Perfect Disk as
both it and Diskeeper seem almost the same. PD had a couple of small things
DK didn't have at this time but were going to add, but the deciding factor
was I found PD on sale for a $1 cheaper and FREE shipping and I wanted the
Retail packaging as updates seem to want that or if you go with the
competition down the road they want proof that you owned another brand.
 
Back
Top