Its not supposed to give you any more free space, it just puts parts of files together so it speeds up hard drive access times somewhat.
 

Another question.....when I check to see if I need to defragement it tells me that I SHOULD defrage. So I do. The next day I check again it says you SHOULD defrage your hard drive. So what do I do there?

Yeah it tells me to do it as well, and i only installed WinXP yesterday
 
If youve just done it then i wouldnt bother doing it again, leave it a month or 2 at least

you can also get those messages to keep defraging if you happen to have large files on that drive. If you saved some big downloads or something then windows doesn't handle them that well. If you do keep anything but windows on C: (other than installed programs that is) then you might wanna try moving them to another partition and see if that helps any.
S

You should actually defrag your harddrive every 2 weeks or so. Waiting for a month or 2 months is not a good thing. To keep your hdd nice and neat you should do at least twice a month. Maybe more depending on how many things you install and delete.

thats a little odd because i almost never get a message that i should defrag.
i have a small swapfile and a 4.5gig system partition
maybe once a month does it get fragged enough to recommend defragging.
 
hint: when u install windows then increase your swapfile size... it usually becomes fragged perm. the swapfile will also frag if it's not set to a static size.
that coupled with a heavy system drive causes quick fragmentation

FRAGMENTATION the Condition, the Cause, the CURE by: Craig Jensen
Online book: http://www.execsoft.com/fragbook/fragbook.htm
 
When you find out you have fragmentation, your next concern should be, "How bad is it?" If the Disk Analysis reveals a Mean Fragments Per File (fragmentation rating) of 1.2 (badly fragmented) or more, you may be in trouble. You had better do something about that fast, before the system stops altogether.
 
If you think I am exaggerating, consider this: One site, with a combination system/user disk with 4.9 fragments per file required nearly half an hour for each user to log on. This dropped to a few seconds once the main disk was defragmented. Another system, with an incredible 18.7 fragments per file, was literally unusable until defragmented.
 
A fragmentation rating of 1.2 means there are 20% more pieces of files on the disk than there are files, indicating perhaps 20% extra computer work needed. It should be pointed out that these numbers are merely indicators. If only a few files are badly fragmented while the rest are contiguous, and those few fragmented files are never accessed, the fragmentation may have no performance impact at all. On the other hand, if your applications are accessing the fragmented files heavily, the performance impact could be much greater than 20%. You have to look further to be sure. For example, if there were 1,000 files and only one of those files is ever used, but that one is fragmented into 200 pieces (20% of the total fragments on the disk), you have a serious problem, much worse than the 20% figure would indicate. In other words, it is not the fact that a file is fragmented that causes performance problems, it is the computer's attempts to access the file that degrade performance.
 
 
DISKEEPER LITE (Freeware!)
http://www.execsoft.com/freeware/diskeeper-lite/download.asp
 
DISKEEPER: Fastest Windows defragmenter ever built. Defragments drives much more thoroughly than the disk defragmenter in Windows 2000/XP and is able to do so 300% to 500% faster!
 
Keeping your system up and running is the first priority. If your system goes down, work doesn’t get done and money and time are wasted.
 
Fragmentation causes rapid declines in stability. System crashes, slow file access and even blue screens are often due to fragmentation. Think of how much time, money and aggravation you’d save if you solved your system problems before they occurred.
 
Uptime is your business. Diskeeper will be the best coworker you ever had.
 
The Diskeeper difference:
Tested in independent labs to increase system performance up to 200% or more.
The most advanced defragmentation technology available.
National Software Testing Lab (NSTL) proven 300-500% faster and more thorough than the built-in defragmenter.
Optimized for Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows 98 and Windows NT

Thanks for cutting-n-pasting the marketing material from Executive Software's web site. However, you forgot to include marketing material from the other defrag vendors - who also claim to be the fastest defragmenter available for Windows - have the most advanced defrag technology, etc
 
- Greg/Raxco Software
MVP Windows Storage Management/File System
 
Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software - www.raxco.com, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

yea well neither perfect disk of diskeeper are the fastest
O&O Defrag is the best

Well, at least he made a decent post that was pretty helpful . Of course, that was the worst abuse of frames in a single page that I can recall in recent memory...

beware of the combination of
 
diskeeper 8.x
adaptec u160 scsi
and nav 7.x corp
 
messed up things pretty good for me

Quote:Thanks for cutting-n-pasting the marketing material from Executive Software's web site. However, you forgot to include marketing material from the other defrag vendors - who also claim to be the fastest defragmenter available for Windows - have the most advanced defrag technology, etc

- Greg/Raxco Software
MVP Windows Storage Management/File System

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software - www.raxco.com, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

Simply put.... IMHO, PERFECTDISK didn't stand up to DISKEEPER. I have literally tried them all (defrag progs). On the other hand, if DK didn't exist, I'd use PD w/o a second thought. Regarding actual usage of DK and myself not representing a software company, DK does what it claims.

How did PD not stand up to Diskeeper? Was it a matter of speed or was it something else?
 
- Greg/Raxco Software