Defragging should not take 2 days right?

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I am defragging my hard drive and its been a full 24 hrs and im around 50%. When I started it was 85% fragmented. My hd is 140gigs, and I had about 4% free space but the program said it needed at least 15% so I deleted a bunch of stuff and got it to that point. It still seems to be taking a whole lot longer then usuall, and I was wondering if there are any reasons why it is taking so long or if you think there might be a problem. Oh, i have 768megs of RAM that might have a bearing on it too. Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks!
 
yes too long for sure -- dunno but after deleting stuff did you empty the recycle bin? then reboot and try again is what I'd do.
 
another reason to defrag regularly...

boot safe mode and defrag from there to see if it help speed it up a little (less programs = less files used = less interuptions.. thats the theory..)
 
Defrag issue, also

I don't know. Microsoft gave support for OneLive Care backups that also run defrag tune ups. My incremental backups took 5 hours and only 24% of 80g is used on the hard drive. I'm new also. I keep a watch on your posts to see if I can learn from you. Microsoft never answered my question and the issue is unresolved. I have the maps attached so you can see the problem.

I found a virus and installed a program while trying to get rid of viruses, LOOK2ME virus. It was causing me to see double. I'm just now getting out of it! No replies until I can backup---last backup had to be aborted! I have an update for my backup program, SyncBackSE. I'll try to post again with some statistics (running Windows XP SP2) AND alot of spyware.:giddy:
 
When you download,move and remover files, over time your hd becomes fragmented and it takes the head on your HDD that much longer to access what ever files you are trying to use. This is why its important to defrag you system at least once a week.

Yes it will take that long to defrag if you do not have that much available space to begin with.

You should turn off all unneccessary progs running in the background and disable your screensaver when defrag. Don't touch the system while its defragging because you will just make it take that much longer
 
smore9648 said:
When you download,move and remover files, over time your hd becomes fragmented and it takes the head on your HDD that much longer to access what ever files you are trying to use. This is why its important to defrag you system at least once a week.

Yes it will take that long to defrag if you do not have that much available space to begin with.

You should turn off all unneccessary progs running in the background and disable your screensaver when defrag. Don't touch the system while its defragging because you will just make it take that much longer

I think it's time fora format and a clean install of the OS
 
1) important to stop as many programs (in background) as possible;
disconnect from the internet. You don't need ANY of the automatic updaters, firewall,
or AV products running IF disconnected. SOME defrag programs start all over if ANYTHING
gets modified while the defrag is in progress :(

2) defrag needs free space itself. think on what it wants to do;
make every file one contiguous set of sectors. this means that the free space
will need to be at least as large as the largest fragmented file! if that much is
not available, defrag is in a box and the i/o patterns are a nightmare, moving
the same block more than one and still not able to get it all in one clump!
moral: delete all contents of your syste temp and your private temp;
use the hd cleanup tool BEFORE attempting defrag.

3) some defrag programs allow you to defrag different ways;
(a)defrag programs, (b)defrag free space, (c)defrag everything.
if you have this option, defrag free space first -- make (a) run better latter
 
You could create a disk quota to manage your hard drive space so you'll always be capable of disk defragging. XP has a compression feature. If you right click on your cd drive you can 'check' a box that compresses your hard drive. Your computer sounds plenty fine to handle defragmentation. Then again it sounds like you have a **** load of stuff on there. Did you eventually get it to finish?
 
I would strongly suggest that no one should ever use disk compression. It makes data recovery and OS repair almost impossible as well as slowing down data acquisition and this will slow down your system too
 
amazing !!

95% full and 85% fragmented ...... gulp......

I wonder how defrag even started. Yes it could take that long, and yes it needs a REALLY good cleanout first, and PLEASE dont let it happen again.

You will be amazed how much perkier your PC will be once it is properly defragged. It will also be a lot less prone to crashes.

Learn and live (not the other way round).
 
You can cause the drive to lock up completely if it gets too bad, IMO you are pushing the limits on that drive.
 
smore9648 said:
You can cause the drive to lock up completely if it gets too bad, IMO you are pushing the limits on that drive.

Can you explain this lock-up?
 
It can definately take a long time on a slower drive/system, large capacity with little free space, and higher levels of fragmented files!

But still.. 24 hours seems very long. Is this a laptop with a big drive, by any chance? I've notice my HP laptop can take over 5 hours as it's slower, low rpm, low cache power reduced drive can be very, very slow...

I'd also be concerned if errors are the cause for the long defrag. I've had a few systems take >24 hours to defrag, but by putting my ear to the case, I could hear the HD making a contant/grinding noise (bad sectors) and thus basically timeout 7-8 times per block, then eventually move the file data from a "good" hit. Defrag isn't very aware of a failing drive and can fall prey to drive errors without even noticing.

I'd say cancel your defrag and try running a scandisk to ensure your drive isn't encountering errors/timing out frequently and needing recovery/retries during the process.
 
You could also reduce the size of your paging file(if your ram is quite low this may slow down your computer. If you have system restore enabled on the computer it automatically consumes I think 10-20% of your partition. Well if he's desperate for space I suggest the disk compression. Although accessing files immediately after compression may be a bit slow because of the uncompression, in the long run only files you don't use would be compressed thus saving space.
 
awesome thanks for all the help guys. i did the disk check and cleanup, then finally got the defrag to finish. i got it down to 15% fragmented so i defragged it again and got it to about 5. took a lot less time the second time. yea im definatly going to do that more regularly so it doesnt build up like that again

although when i say it took less time it still took me overnight to do it, so something still might be wrong. it wasnt like this the first few times i defragged it but its been a long time since. i think it was around 5 hours before. i dunno it might just be because my hd is full now and it wasnt before.
 
Big hard drives can take a long time, especially if you do not have anough RAM. Also Windows defrag isn't very good. I recommend diskeeper.
 
i was using norton speed disk part of norton system works. ive seen a lot about diskeeper on these forums. i assume its pretty good?
 
It's normally the recommended 3rd party utility. I've heard complaints that it doesn't place all the files in order and has the tendency to spread them out. It has multiple defragmentation options. Unfortunately you only get a free trial run of it. I've heard that perfectdisk is a better product though.
 
1. Reboot the PC
2. Press F8, then select safe mode without networking
3. Once Windows XP Pro loads in Safe mode, click on start
4. Click on run
5. Type: cmd
6. type: defrag c: /f

This won't take as long as it would under XP Pro with everything loaded.
 
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