XP system has compressed almost all files on the drive (how? fix?)

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XP Guy

I was looking at the XP system of a friend.

His main comment was that it was running more slowly than usual. Some
apps were giving errors.

I looked at the list of running apps, running services, the auto-run
section, the system tray. Didn't seem to have anything unnecessary or
unexplained running.

I browsed the hard drive and almost all the files I came across were
shown in blue (not black). I enabled attribute display and sure enough
the files were compressed.

I looked at the folder attributes and followed a few folder trees from
bottom to top and none of them showed that the compressed attribute was
set. The drive itself was not configured as compressed.

Is there any obvious (or arcane) system setting that could result in
compressing practically all the files currently on the drive?

I did a file search for all files created, modified or accessed in the
last 3 months, and sorted the list by each of those 3 characteristics,
but could not see any pattern that would indicated when the file
compression was done.

Perhaps one of the event logs might tell when it was done, by what
method or process?

More importantly, is there any easy way to decompress all the files?
Perhaps an appropriately-crafted command line function? (decompress c:
/all ???)

Will a Norton Ghost operation (create a clone of the drive) do that?
 
Disk Cleanup will do that if you run it and leave that option selected.
Go to the highest level compressed item, Select all, r-click, select
properties, advanced and UNcheck Compressed and apply
 
XP Guy

Disk CleanUp does compress files but I would not expect files regularly
accessed to be compressed. I doubt that file compression as practiced by
Disk CleanUp would significantly slow your computer. It will be
something else.

Using images from Ghost could restore an image made at a time when the
system badly needed housekeeping.

What is the CPU and how much RAM does the computer have? Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties to get this
information.

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

I would be interested in seeing a Disk Defragmenter report . Open Disk
Defragmenter and click on Analyse. Select View Report and click on Save
As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt in your My Documents Folder and post a
copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it is more
informative.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Gerry said:
Disk CleanUp does compress files but I would not expect files
regularly accessed to be compressed. I doubt that file
compression as practiced by Disk CleanUp would significantly
slow your computer. It will be something else.
Click to expand...

Compress old files option in disk cleanup was NOT checked. It's
properties for file compression was set to 50 days (but again, it was
not enabled). Disk Cleanup reports that something like 11 mb would be
recovered if it was enabled.
What is the CPU and how much RAM does the computer have?
Click to expand...

P4 Celeron 2.66 ghz, 2gb ram, XP-pro SP2 fully patched as of about 2
months ago (auto-updating is not enabled - I manually perform updates on
it periodically).
Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the
Performance Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total,
the Limit and the Peak?
Click to expand...

System fully booted, no apps running.

Commit charge (k)
Total: 200,000 - 210,000
Limit: 2,700,000
Peak: 227,400
Physical memory total: 2,088,432
Available: 1,657,904
System Cache: 354,640
I would be interested in seeing a Disk Defragmenter report.
Click to expand...

I saved it but don't have it handy right now. There were about 2 dozen
fragged files. The analysis said that defrag wasn't necessary. I did
it anyways. After defrag there were no fragged files, mft segments = 2.

So like I said, disk cleanup was not set to compress old files, the
drive itself is not set for drive compression, no folders are marked as
compressed.

Some stats:

About 75 to 80% of the files in /windows/system32 are compressed. In
total, that folder (and all sub-folders) has 1.33 gb in 7k files, but
size on disk is 963 mb. About 1/2 the files in /windows/system are
compressed. No files in c: root is compressed.

In every other folder I look at on the drive, most or all the files are
compressed.

The entire drive (excluding files in c: root) has 95 gb in 215k files,
size on disk is 81 gb. Drive capacity is 320 gb (single partition,
ntfs).
 
XP

If you right click your C drive in Windows Explorer and select
Properties in the General tab there is an option to compress the drive.
Has this been checked? Compressing the drive is rarely recommended as it
does slow performance.

You can get more from a Disk Defragmenter report than is generally
realised. The comment "The analysis said that defrag wasn't necessary"
is misleading. The files and folders which are fragmented are those
regularly accessed and many of the files not fragmented are those rarely
or never accessed. I would still be interested in seeing a Disk
Defragmented report before defragmentation.

Your total and peak figures under Commit Charge are unusually low. Lack
of anti-virus and anti-spyware software might explain. Do you know the
reason? Are the figures typical?.

Try HD Tune only gives information and does not fix any
problems.

Download and run it and see what it turns up. You want HD Tune
(freeware) version 2.55 not HD Tune Pro (not Freeware) version 3.00.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
and copy into a further message. The active mode could provide an
answer.

Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy to
Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Make sure you do a full
surface scan with HD Tune.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Gerry said:
If you right click your C drive in Windows Explorer and select
Properties in the General tab there is an option to compress
the drive. Has this been checked?
No.

Your total and peak figures under Commit Charge are unusually
low. Lack of anti-virus and anti-spyware software might
explain. Do you know the reason? Are the figures typical?.
Click to expand...

I looked at commit charge again and see about 225,000, peak 317,444
(this was after I had run defrag).

When I look at Disk Cleanup, it throws up a progress bar and says
"Scanning: Compress old files". That takes about 1 full minute. Then
the option list comes up. Compress old files is not checked, but the
number given for the amount of space saved is strange. It's printed as
"11,198,18". The commas look to be in the wrong location.

This system has Norton AntiVirus 2002 installed and running. NAV was
widely criticized several years ago for being bloat-ware and slowing
down a system, but that really started with NAV 2003 and above, which
used very complicated installation control mechanisms to prevent users
from reactivating it's yearly license by uninstalling and reinstalling
it. NAV 2002 allows you do to exactly that. I believe that Spybot SD
tea timer is also running on startup. But hardly anything else.

Task manager shows 28 running processes from all users. I configured
this system last fall, and was very agressive at turning of unneeded
services (and there are many).

When I first looked into this problem, a few other things were
running. Googleupdate.exe (I think that was the name) and
jusched.exe. I keep turning jusched off (java control panel) on all the
systems I manage, but they have a tendency to come back at some point.
I went into the registry and nuked google update to prevent it from
starting up.
Try HD Tune only gives information and does not fix any
problems.
Click to expand...

Here are the results from defrag (before I defragged the drive) and the
results from HD tune. I did not let the surface scan run to completion
because of time constraints.

=========================================

Volume (C:)
Volume size = 298 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 82.44 GB
Free space = 216 GB
Percent free space = 72 %

Volume fragmentation

Total fragmentation = 1 %
File fragmentation = 2 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 214,788
Average file size = 552 KB
Total fragmented files = 1,192
Total excess fragments = 14,214
Average fragments per file = 1.06

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 768 MB
Total fragments = 1

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 11,858
Fragmented folders = 31
Excess folder fragments = 354

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 233 MB
MFT record count = 228,869
Percent MFT in use = 95 %
Total MFT fragments = 2

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Fragments / File Size / Most fragmented files

2,693 181 MB \Documents and Settings\a
1,287 180 MB \Documents and Settings\b
652 41 MB \System Volume Information\_restore().rbf
511 65 MB \Documents and Settings\c
241 19 MB \Documents and Settings\new user\Local Settings\d
151 9 MB \Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\xul.dll
151 9 MB \WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\DataColl\CollectedData_254.xml
145 9 MB \Documents and Settings\e
145 602 KB \Documents and Settings\new user\()\ShellManager_Log.txt
140 31 MB \Documents and Settings\new user\()\filesystem_nodes.MYD
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054006.dll
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054005.dll
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054015.dll
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054008.dll
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054016.dll
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054013.dll
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054012.dll
129 8 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP226\A0054007.dll
118 35 MB \Documents and Settings\f
102 49 MB \Documents and Settings\g
95 6 MB \Documents and Settings\h
91 64 MB \Documents and Settings\i
89 182 MB \Documents and Settings\j
89 63 MB \Documents and Settings\k
86 5 MB \Documents and Settings\l
69 4 MB \Documents and Settings\m
67 34 MB \Documents and Settings\n
60 4 MB \Documents and Settings\o
59 4 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP227\A0057171.msi
59 4 MB \System Volume Information\_restore{}\RP227\A0056891.msi


HD Tune: WDC WD3200AAJB-00WGA Information

Firmware version : 00.02C01
Serial number : WD-WCARW2863xxx
Capacity : 298.1 GB (~320.1 GB)
Buffer size : 8192 KB
Standard : ATA/ATAPI-8
Supported mode : UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)
Current mode : UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)

S.M.A.R.T : yes
48-bit Address : yes
Read Look-Ahead : yes
Write Cache : yes
Host Protected Area : yes
Device Configuration Overlay : yes
Automatic Acoustic Management: yes
Power Management : yes
Advanced Power Management : no
Power-up in Standby : no
Security Mode : yes
Firmware Upgradable : yes

Partition : 1
Drive letter : C:\
Label :
Capacity : 305242 MB
Usage : 27.67%
Type : NTFS
Bootable : Yes

HD Tune: WDC WD3200AAJB-00WGA Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 1.8 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 72.4 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 46.6 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.2 ms
Burst Rate : 68.6 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 14.3%

HD Tune: WDC WD3200AAJB-00WGA Health

ID Current / Worst / Threshold / Data / Status

(01) Raw Read Error Rate 200 200 51 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 161 156 21 4916 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 127 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 200 200 140 0 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 200 200 51 0 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 100 100 0 727 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 51 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 51 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 125 Ok
(C0) Power Off Retract Count 200 200 0 15 Ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count 200 200 0 127 Ok
(C2) Temperature 112 102 0 35 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 200 200 51 0 Ok

Power On Time : 727
Health Status : Ok

HD Tune: WDC WD3200AAJB-00WGA Error Scan

Scanned data : 128324 MB
Damaged Blocks : 0.0 %
Elapsed Time : 32:52
 
XP Guy

With 2 gb RAM I cannot see why you felt the need to turn off services.
This can have unexpected consequences further down the line.

Why do you retain an anti-virus programme that is out of date? There are
plenty of freeware up to date alternatives.

Why are these files so fragmented? What are the files?
2,693 181 MB \Documents and Settings\a
1,287 180 MB \Documents and Settings\b


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Gerry said:
With 2 gb RAM I cannot see why you felt the need to turn off
services. This can have unexpected consequences further down
the line.
Click to expand...

The role of the computer is mostly well defined and once it was first
set up and configured it really doesn't see a lot of new software being
installed. It is not operating as part of a domain, nor does it
interact with any machines on the local lan (but it does have full-time
internet access). Unneeded services can be a vulnerability as far as
malware and network worms are concerned, and at the very least turning
them off will decrease system startup time.
Why do you retain an anti-virus programme that is out of date?
Click to expand...

NAV 2002 is fully updated by the periodic application of Symantec
Intelligent Updater. Virus definitions and scan engine .DLL's are
updated to current release versions.
Why are these files so fragmented? What are the files?

2,693 181 MB \Documents and Settings\a
1,287 180 MB \Documents and Settings\b
Click to expand...

"a" is an Adobe Illustrator file, and "b" looks like a pdf version of
the same file.

The last time I performed sys admin on this system was about 2 to 3
months ago. At the time, I would have updated NAV 2002, Spybot SD, MVPS
hosts file, Sun JAVA jre, Firefox, Acrobat, and performed manual windoze
update. I purged the recycle bin, deleted all but the last restore
point, and defragged the drive, then run a full virus scan. I didn't
notice (nor did I look to see) if there was unusual application of drive
or file compression as I see currently.
 
XP said:
Top Poaster and Full Quoter Bob I wrote:




Compress old files was _not_ selected in Disk Cleanup.
Click to expand...

Something elected to do it. That can be unchecked after the files have
been compressed, and the files will stay compressed as there isn't an
"uncompress" in Disk Cleanup.
 
Bob I said:
Something elected to do it. That can be unchecked after the files have
been compressed, and the files will stay compressed as there isn't an
"uncompress" in Disk Cleanup.
Click to expand...

Not in Disk Cleanup, no, but there is a command that does it.

At a command prompt, use the COMPACT command.

COMPACT /? - displays usage information.

COMPACT /U /S - uncompress all files in and below the current directory,
for example.

PP.
 
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