How often do you defrag ?
 

I do it once a month.

How about you ?

Never because the way a file system works, it does not do much once you have modified a file afterwards.

:confused:

Defrag is a useful and vital program installed within Windows that should be run on a regular basis to optimise your hard drive for use.

The purpose of the program is to optimise the data currently stored on your computer so that the programs installed can launch quicker.

It also helps stop the hard drive from working harder by having all the data stored in a more organised way and causes less wear and tear during normal operation.

Living in the days of FAT16 obviously.

Defraggers do it in hard drives!

Not so, I'm on Win2K and a regular defrag DOES make a difference

No, fat32.

There's no need to get personal!
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Well, I won't use any smilies ( need sadies ) the guy \ girl that doesn't do a regular defrag is just looking for trouble IMHO, of course. I do virus, spybot, hi-jack this, trogan hunter, defrag and a host of other things about twice a month ( BB always on, always busy ) you would not belive the thing I get, luckily nortons takes care of the virus side, the rest is down to good " house keeping "

Look after your pc and your pc will look after you, remember a pc's not for life it's untill the next best thing comes out !!!

I can't remember when i last defregged. I'll do one after.:)

My 'C' drive I defrag every week, cus it doesnt take too long to do (about 10 mins). My 'D' drive though has to take its chances, cus its such a slow old thing it takes about an hour to defrag (its an old 1.2Gb seagate and I reckon it must have a spindle speed of about 10 RPM)!

It's true that NTFS is less prone to fragmentation than FAT, but it still occurs.

The way P2P programmes work can cause very bad fragmentation aswell, as they are constantly adding little bits to a file at the first available place on the disk, rather than writting it all sequentially.

The Art Of Defragging
 

I defrag my computer once a week as I spend a lot of time adding, removing and updating programs.

I'm on Windows 98 Second Edition and I notice that my computer processes applications noticeably faster after I have defragged it.

Not to mention the extra space it frees up!!

:)

Cheers everyone! Something else I didn't realise I had to do with my PC (only got it in Feb this year).
*rolls sleeves up* so where do I start?

Once in a blue moon.

Once a month.

mine is fat32 and the other is NTFS and they are both done once a week....

lol:D
I 'do' mine weekly

once every six to eight weeks.do it manually and never get rounds to doing anything i should

I try & remember to scan for spyware/trojans daily, virus scan every time it's updated, defrag probably once a month.

Gaz

i do the spyware bit all the time.have to cos of my son.take yesterday for example ( and he never sets a restore point) he downloaded some mp3 to wav program BUT says yes to the rest of the rubbish.so we have bargain buddy ( like bonzai buddy) and god knows wot else.jv power tools only removes so much as well.i still have summat in the registry and in the _restore folder.it's a full time job checking for updates for the hundreds of programs one uses

I defrag my FAT32drives once a week (auto) NTFS drives once a month (auto)

All the other drives are ext3, which I havn't defraged in over a year, but they are still 99% contiguous (or however you spell the damn word!)

Approx. once a month here, unless I've been installing/uninstalling software (as I did recently with various Virus checkers) and I *know* the HD is going to be be a bit fragged. I consider that a special occasion.

FAQ : Defrag- The Easy Way
http://66.246.16.46/faq/faq_defrag.htm

:)

About every 6 months. I just checked & the disk was more fragmented than expected. I think it must be all those XP security updates. Must check more often.

So it's just been defragged.

Thanks Karl!

*puts away Mr Sheen and hides Marigold gloves* :rolleyes:

Hello

I agree with the method suggested in karl's link.

Safe mode is the solution.

Ron
:) :) :) :)

i've always ctrl/alt/deleted and shut down everything with no problem.scandisk then defrag

but defrag once every 6 months??

Has anyone seen that site where they rip open and old hard drive and start cleaning it with toothpaste in order to format it.

I think it was toothpaste they were using. I was just wondering if anyone actually fell for it?

WOT? toothpaste is good for spots i know that

The freezing the hard drive to recover data one is the best one I came across....and it's not a myth. :)

Has been know to work on hdd's that have failed for whatever reason, also it works on some rechargable batteries that no longer hold there charge

i only do it when fragmentation goes above 20% (bloody rare) as of yet my new 40g harddrive hasnt been done, but my knackered old 20g one has to be done regularly. bloody me moving mp3s around all over the palce :spin:

I was amazed when I first heard about it last year though. :)

Even I'm not that stupid (believe it or not!) :dunce:
Wonder if anyone has fallen for it tho?

my hard drives both smell minty fresh :D

ROFL! :D :D :D

And no cavities or plaque either!

surely everyone knows it only works if you floss between the platters as well as fill the case with Listerine before putting the cover back on!:D

Gaz

And now sponsored by Aquafresh. :D

Try SpyBot for getting rid of those sorts of nasties. Seems to be about the favourite spyware checker around, and it's free.

Only defrag my HD about every 6 months or so - not _nearly_ enough (slaps wrist - owch - that hurt!) :(

Hi Patrick

agree with you about spybot, I also use adaware 6 (free) & Bulletproof Systems Spyware Remover (had to pay for that one). That's probably a bit OTT, but often one will pick up something the others have missed.

Be careful with the wrist slapping - you'll get your RSI back:D

Gaz

Not quite the same, but there is a site where some character shows how to rip open a hard drive and then reinstall the working parts in a transparent plastic case so that you can see all the bits moving. You really do have to admire him.

Relax!
 

One of the little known benefits of defragging, especially, if like me, you use Norton Utilities which has a multicoloured defrag, is that it is very soothing watching all the blocks move around. I'd call it the PC equivalent of a fish tank. Has anyone else found this?

Once a year on the NTFS based boxes as that is all they need, & on the rare occasion that a FAT32 box is left running, once every 3 months. The speed and size of todays hard disks negates any performance increase that you may see through a defrag especially on NTFS.

patrickp


i use spybot AND adaware cos neither of them catch it all.i've got spyware guard and syware blaster as well.the latest program i'm trying is agnitum tauscan monitor ( for trojans. only a trial tho)

that sounds like over kill..........

look i only follow the advice of that lot over in PCA and sum of them in HH

lemming comes to mind........:-))

care to emphasise?

of course,lemming, a small rodent who blindly follow one another on a course of action that will lead to destruction..

Well now I haven't got a clue! i've got Windows XP, I think I saw something once when i was bored (and looking at stuff on the computer) that defrags the system - or was I hallucinating again? :spin: :confused: :dunce:

morpheus.definately not me

I have only got Zone alarm and AVG...

BO-PEEP i did not mean you looked like a lemming, what do you look like? :confused:

and my firewall is always causing problems.time to change i think.i look like a woman actually

your mail box is full, so can you empty it?

outlook? this one isn't cos i cleared it this morning.just going to look.think it's cos i subscribed to these threads

won't be a sec

Today so far just from this forum I reckon I've received nearly 400.

ooooooooooooooooooops.must unsubscribe.there were 20 messages from here.i'd know they were there if i could keep outlook open but i can't cos of that bloody password box

PK.all pm's are they?

I'm talking about e-mails. :D

ZA will help protect against the effects of trojans, but won't stop you picking one up.

AVG is not the best anti virus out there imo and doesn't detect "spyware"

I think you would be surprised what spybot or adaware would find on your system - "horses for courses" springs to mind.

To continue the theme of the allegory you proposed for bo-peep I would suggest Ostrich might be apt - as in "head in the sand":D

Gaz

ZA is ****.got rid cos it stopped system restore from working.got outpost firewall and that keeps sending me messages of summat going wrong.u restart and it's lost all information so the will u allow this program box is always coming up.have uninstalled,got rid of remnants in the registry and re-installed.still the same.AVG didn't pick up a couple of viruses my son managed to get onto the pc a couple of weeks ago

and now i've unsubscribed to the threads in here i don't know where the hell i am

your NTL mail box is full, so no one can send any mail

it is NOT full. nthell buggering about again it must be.i'm changing addy's to the suzie005 hotmail account

can sumbody help please.i'm getting messages sent here to be told my inbox is full and it isn't.i'm getting emails telling me it's full and it isn't

Every So Often, Never get around to finishing the defrag :p:walk:

homealone, if anything ever happened on here, it would be a case of pressing the Go-Back button, sorted..

It counts the TOTAL amount of PMs so empty the trash folder and the sent items folder. ;)

not the email box, it is the PM box

i c.empty the trash.ooooooooooooooooooooo no wonder it;s overloaded.cheers for that PK

That is what I'm talking about. :)

Vbulletin always counts the total amount of PMs doesn't matter where they are within the PM box.

good god.mmmmmmmmmmmmmm now i know.anyway i deleted sent messages ( the net didn't stop did it?) but i can't find trash

There isn't a trash folder sorry.

You could always untick the save a copy box at the bottom of the message before hand so it doesn't fill up your sent items box.

you'll have to send instructions to me cos i don't know and sumbody told me in god knows wot thread on how to save them to a folder.i've never cleared all my messages out in NTHW and i've been there ages ( inbox i have)

These Threads are getting OT, I Dont even know whats going on :S

I've PMed you. :)

Back on thread then!
I've just de-fragged my computer!
First time ever! Using the control panel.
:D :D :D :D :D

If you use Diskkeeper to defrag an NTFS machine, never, never, never, ever, ever, ever use the option that defrags at the DOS prompt. What you will find is that it is literally impossible to stop it(and I mean it; no use asking tech support, they can't stop it either) . And as it runs for quite a few hours, you might as well clear your desk and go home.

If your computer is being particularly irritating, what you need to do is to frag it. :-)

That sounds fun. :)

I never have to defrag my main OS - the file system in use on that never needs defragging (it keeps itself tidy automatically).
The Windows system does get defragged though - but probably not as regularly as it should...

I used to defrag a lot more often with 95/98/ME - pages and pages of small blocks gently shuffling themselves about - somehow soothing:D Now I've got this 2000 all you get is one multicoloured bar:( No entertainment value in that at all. Friday afternoons just aren't the same!

Anyone using 98SE, like me, could usefully set their swap file manually (rather than letting windows do it) to about twice to three times their RAM size (both min and max settings).

That way the swap files isn't expanding and contracting and fragmenting your file system.

Works for me .. I've not seen more than 6% fragmentation in 6 months (although I do defrag once a week if I remember). :D

Hi all
i run Defrag after i have had a good clearout of all the useless crap that collects on the HDD s about once a month as a rule, or when the drives are 10% fragmented , file system is NTFS

:) :)