Defrag Question -

[deeelare]

Fellow Trainzers,

I have two hard drives, C: and E:,
Drive C: is no problem, when I analyze and it says "time to defrag", I defrag and until I recieve the "time to defrag" everything is good !
Drive E: however is a different story, I can defrag it, but if I analyze it always gives me the message "time to defrag" !
As a test, I defrag drive E:, it gives me a "defrag completed" message, I immediately run the "analyze", and it gives me the "time to defrag" message ?? What the heck ?? I am certain it is something I am overlooking or possibly the HD is going South ?

Thanks in advance --- DLR

 

[deeelare]

PS: Has anyone heard from Ed (Euphod) lately, or did he mistakenly put his ownself on his "ignore list" ?
Ed, hope everything is good ! ---DLR

 

[seeseeme]

PS: Has anyone heard from Ed (Euphod) lately, or did he mistakenly put his ownself on his "ignore list" ?
Ed, hope everything is good ! ---DLR

Thats a good point now that you mention it. I have not seen him for a little while but I am not sure how long ago.

On your defrag, I do mine each week no matter was is going on. I run various programs to check for Viruses, spam etc on different nights, I just think its a good idea.

Hope this helps.

Craig

 

[ex-railwayman]

Hello deeelare, what model PC do you use please, maybe that could be a factor. I have a new Acer, but it never "tells" me to defrag, I do it automatically once a week on both drives that I use. Never heard of a machine that actually prompts you to do something, you must have something extraordinarily good, does it make you cups of tea as well, whilst you play Trainz.....:hehe:

I haven't seen Ed on the forum either, but he has been busy lately, I downloaded a couple of fuel tankers he re-skinned and put up on TPR the other week, he must be too busy to bother about us, he's keeping his fans happy with his creations....

Cheerz. ex-railwayman. :wave:

 

[deeelare]

seeseeme,
Yes, I do the 'defrag analyze" every week or so !
ex-railwayman,
When I stated it 'tells me', I was referring to when I run the 'defrag-analyze' utility, Win Pro sp2 , it tells me to defrag . Taking this unclear statement that I made into consideration , and adding it to my original post, any ideas why my E: Hard Drive continually tells me to defrag ?

PS: Ed, was it something I said ? We miss you, here and at TPR !

---DLR

 

[sethmcs]

A Question and a Theory.....

Question: How full is your E drive? The performance of drives seems to decrease once they are over 50% full.

Theory: I worried about where is Ed too and came up with a theory.:hehe: I checked the member profile and he visited the forum a few hours ago but no post. Ah ha, Ed gave up posting for Lent!

Researched a little further. Lent starts February 6 last post February 7.

So much for theories.

 

[titaniclover]

Dear or Dear Where Has Our little Ed Gone, Where or Where Can He Be?

Wierd system you must have.

Never has mine "told" me to defrag. If it did I would be in good shape! But alas it does not.:hehe:

As for poor Ed, no sign of him. If he did put himself on his ignore list I would like to know how indeed! Poor man's idea got the best of him, but that happens to most of us anyway.

Maybe, he has possesed your "E" Drive and caused it to defrag to drive you crazy.:hehe: ("E"= Ed/Euphod)

But theories dont get us anywhere does it! No its facts!
I've been reading to many Agatha Christie mystery novels lately I think.

Back to the midnight oil burning for me then!

Cheers,
Adam
TCS Route Builder

EDIT: Ed cant hide for too long! See look at this!

Last Activity: Yesterday 08:57 PM

 

[Bill69]

seeseeme,
Yes, I do the 'defrag analyze" every week or so !
ex-railwayman,
When I stated it 'tells me', I was referring to when I run the 'defrag-analyze' utility, Win Pro sp2 , it tells me to defrag . Taking this unclear statement that I made into consideration , and adding it to my original post, any ideas why my E: Hard Drive continually tells me to defrag ?

PS: Ed, was it something I said ? We miss you, here and at TPR !

---DLR

Hi deeelare,

Yes win xp pro defrag will tell you if you need to defrag after you run the analize section. The threshold for defrag can be set to a percentage of fragmentation, perhaps you have this set too low. The other thing is, do you have Trainz on your E drive? In the trainz program there are a large number of files that can't be moved so there is usually an empty section between the files that can be moved at the front of the disk and the files that can't be moved closer to the middle of the disk. This empty section could fool the defrag program into thinking the gap can be filled.

Cheers,
Bill69

 

[john259]

In the trainz program there are a large number of files that can't be moved

Bill,

Apologies for questioning it but are you sure about that? My understanding (could well be wrong!) is that the only files which can't be moved are swap files (=page files, =virtual memory). There's nothing special AFAIK about any of the Trainz program or data files - unless someone with more knowledge knows different of course.

BTW, I think the most likely reason for the defragger continuing to advise further defragging is a low amount of hard disk space. I seem to recollect that with less than 15% free space defragging won't be done thoroughly.

John

 

[deeelare]

Thanks for the replies -

More info - Trainz is on my C: drive NTFS, E: drive is 30G with 60% free space, however it is FAT32 ?
If this additional info helps someone supply an answer, great, otherwise I'll just live with it .

And thanks again ---DLR

 

[john259]

Well it ain't the free space then

It might be worth you posting this issue on the Microsoft forums.

John

 

[Wol_HH]

deeelare,

convert drive E to ntfs.
fat32 has problems with large partitions.

Drive C is not your Boot-drive?
Windows and Trainz must in a separate partition.

Wol_HH

 

[Bill69]

Hi john259,

I have three drives, C: is only for windows and related OS files, D: is for all my applications except trainz and E: is for Trainz only, nothing else on E: at all. When I defrag, drive C and drive D end up with all files compacted at the start of each disk but E drive always has a large section of empty space between the compacted files and a section of files that defrag says can't be moved. ATM my E: has 90 gig free space so it is not lack of free space that causes this. Also MemMax reports my page files as being 100% free, so it can't be page files. So what can it be other than something to do with the Trainz database files?

Wol_HH,
I have found that windows will not allow drives over 40gig to be formatted fat32. All drives over 40gig are forced to NTFS.

Cheers,
Bill69

 

[john259]

Hi Bill,

I have three drives, C: is only for windows and related OS files, D: is for all my applications except trainz and E: is for Trainz only, nothing else on E: at all.

That sounds ideal.

When I defrag, drive C and drive D end up with all files compacted at the start of each disk but E drive always has a large section of empty space between the compacted files and a section of files that defrag says can't be moved.

That's quite normal and not a problem, it is almost certainly the page file. The entire page file space is always reserved even if only part of it is used, and it's always unmovable.

What I don't understand is why defrag keeps saying you need to defrag, when you've got so much free space on that drive. That's a mystery to me.

However, AFAIK it's highly unlikely to affect Trainz performance or anything else, so I'd be tempted to ignore it. But if it worries you, ask the guys on the Microsoft forum, one of them will almost certainly know the answer.

(I'm not an expert on Windows and all this is only what I think is happening, so someone more knowledgeable might well post some corrections here to what I've said.)

John

 

[Wol_HH]

Hi john259,

I have three drives, C: is only for windows and related OS files, D: is for all my applications except trainz and E: is for Trainz only, nothing else on E: at all. When I defrag, drive C and drive D end up with all files compacted at the start of each disk but E drive always has a large section of empty space between the compacted files and a section of files that defrag says can't be moved. ATM my E: has 90 gig free space so it is not lack of free space that causes this. Also MemMax reports my page files as being 100% free, so it can't be page files. So what can it be other than something to do with the Trainz database files?

Wol_HH,
I have found that windows will not allow drives over 40gig to be formatted fat32. All drives over 40gig are forced to NTFS.

Cheers,
Bill69

Win98/ME has fat32 only (who has this OS installed?). I mean he should convert his drive E (fat32) to ntfs), I think this is the best way.
Question: where is drive D?

Wol_HH

 

[john259]

Bill,

Which version of Windows are you using?

Is E: formatted FAT32 or NTFS?

John

 

[Bill69]

Hi john259,

Yes I see what you mean, it could very well be an area reserved for page files, and although it is empty it is still reserved and unmovable.

A small clarification. My defrag does not tell me it needs to be defraged, quite the oposite in fact it tells me I do not have to defrag the drive. I was only suggesting that deeelare may have his defrag threshold set too low, and is being told the drive needs defraging because of this.

BTW I defrag my drives once per week, they are all scheduled to defrag overnight, Monday C: Tuesday D: Wednesday E: and the only time my computer is switched off is if I am going to be away for 2 or 3 days.
I believe hard disks last much longer if they are kept running, not switched off and on evey day.

Cheers,
Bill69

PS. all my drives are formatted NTFS, I have 2 x 80gig drives C: and D: both IDE. E: is a 150gig SATA raid drive. OS is Win XP Pro with service pack 2

 

[deeelare]

Thanks to all of you that made input;

Bill69- Where do I set the "percentage of defrag" ?

Wol HH- My E: drive is not partitioned, C: is my boot drive, D: is my DVD reader ( It is D: because I installed the second hard drive (E: ) later) .

John 259- I will go to the MS Forum , after trying Bill's suggestion..

I think I will try Bill's suggestion and if it doesn't work, I will ignore it !
Thanks again for your time and ideas ---DLR

Edit--Wol HH - Where do I find the info, Trainz and WinXP Pro cannot be on the same drive ?

 

[john259]

Many apologies to everyone, I've been getting confused between Bill69 and deeelare. There's no excuse for doing that, sorry.

John

 

[Bill69]

Thanks to all of you that made input;

Bill69- Where do I set the "percentage of defrag" ?

Hi deeelare,

I think I am a bit poo faced now. I just went to check on where you set the threshold and find it can't be done in windows defrag. I have been using Norton speed disk instead of windows defrag. Sorry it is a long time since I set it up I forgot I was using Norton.



This is my setting in Norton. Sorry about the confusion I guess you might just ave to ignore it.

Cheers,
Bill69