I think this "Pacman" is full of ****. I have used Diskkeeper7 for some time now without any problems and it does it all in one pass.
 
Just make sure to run chksk.exe /F first to fix any filesystem errors berore running the defrag to avoid any corruption. Most likely "Pacman" had not
 
/Toby

Doesn't Diskeeper analyze the disk first? I had 5.4 some times complaining the drive needed a chkdsk.

It does, but if you can ignore the warning by pressing defrag again.

I've been using 7.0 for a while now, and it does just fine. I think Speeddisk does a little better but takes longer and won't do a boot time defrag.

But why doesn't it finish the job in one pass, or at least two or three? I've run it like 10 times and it only moves half a file or something every time! And my friend has never been able to get his HD fully defragmented! There are no pagefile on the drive, its the system drive, and there are 28% space left. My friend has a laptop and he got the pagefile on the drive since its the only partition.

Even though you have a total of 28% free space available on the partition, all of that free space may not be usable by defragmenters as Microsoft's defrag APIs don't let defragmenters use the free space INSIDE of the MFT Reserved Zone. Diskeeper strongly recommends that you have at least 25-20% usable free space in order to effectively defragment. Anything less than that it Diskeeper can exhibit the behavior that you are seeing.
 
In all fairness, Diskeeper V7 has been out since last fall and does a little better job than Diskeeper V6.
 
"I have tried Perfect Disk, but didnt find it to my liking." If you don't mind me asking, what didn't you like about PerfectDisk?
 
- Greg/Raxco Software
 
Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag product and a competitor to Diskeeper, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"I've been using 7.0 for a while now, and it does just fine. I think Speeddisk does a little better but takes longer and won't do a boot time defrag."
 
SpeedDisk doesn't use the defrag APIs provided by Microsoft as a part of the operating system. It can defragment the files that normally have to be done at boot time by other defragmenters (Diskeeper, PerfectDisk, O&O Defrag) can be done online. That is why SpeedDisk doesn't have a boot time defrag capability. That's also why SpeedDisk can be service pack/hotfix dependent.
 
- Greg/Raxco Sofware
 
Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag product and a competitor to SpeedDisk, as a systems engineer in the support department.

i use diskeeper server 7.0 and after uninstalling it, the MS defrag doesn't come back. I cannot reinstall it either!!! When i run the executable it says a bunch of registry error!! Anyone had this problem yet?

Quote:
Even though you have a total of 28% free space available on the partition, all of that free space may not be usable by defragmenters as Microsoft's defrag APIs don't let defragmenters use the free space INSIDE of the MFT Reserved Zone. Diskeeper strongly recommends that you have at least 25-20% usable free space in order to effectively defragment. Anything less than that it Diskeeper can exhibit the behavior that you are seeing.

In all fairness, Diskeeper V7 has been out since last fall and does a little better job than Diskeeper V6.

"I have tried Perfect Disk, but didnt find it to my liking." If you don't mind me asking, what didn't you like about PerfectDisk?

It seemed slower, and had squares that showed the progression, like the defragmenter that comes with windows 98/me. It also arranged the data a way I didnt like, if I understood correctly, the most used at start of drive and the less use later on the drive. The colors was also a miss, it was hard to see how files where fragmented or not fragmented.

I dont know its a long time since I used it and my memory is no good, but the whole application with the menu at the left i didnt like either. I might try it again a second time and see if I have "grown" on it. it has happened before...

Well my friend has a lot of space available, but can never defrag the HD. He's pagefile is very fragmented too, but for a boot-time defrag doesn't he need at least diskeeper 6? I heard diskeeper 5 messes up on a boot time or MFT defragmentation. Does speedisk defragment the pagefile online?

Defragging the page file can be done by other means also. Just boot to DOS (diskette or dual boot) and delete the damned thing. It recreates itself as a consequtive file when you boot back to W2K/XP. With NTFS I'd suggest you just move it to another partition and back, with the same effect.
 
H.

"Defragging the page file can be done by other means also. Just boot to DOS (diskette or dual boot) and delete the damned thing. It recreates itself as a consequtive file when you boot back to W2K/XP. With NTFS I'd suggest you just move it to another partition and back, with the same effect."
 
There is a bug in NT4 through WinXP where if you boot to dos and delete the pagefile and then reboot the system so that it re-creates the pagefile, the OS doesn't mark the pagfile as opened for exclusive access and if you try to defragment, the system will BSOD.
 
- Greg/Raxco Software

"Defragging the page file can be done by other means also. Just boot to DOS (diskette or dual boot) and delete the damned thing. It recreates itself as a consequtive file when you boot back to W2K/XP. With NTFS I'd suggest you just move it to another partition and back, with the same effect."
 
The pagefile will only be re-created contiguously if there is a sufficient amount of contiguous free space the size of the pagefile. If there isn't, then the pagefile will be created fragmented.
 
- Greg/Raxco Software

Quote:
There is a bug in NT4 through WinXP where if you boot to dos and delete the pagefile and then reboot the system so that it re-creates the pagefile, the OS doesn't mark the pagfile as opened for exclusive access and if you try to defragment, the system will BSOD.

- Greg/Raxco Software

;(

Let's hear it for M$ Quality Control...

About M$ and windows... (oh oh what have you done)
 
The whole windows serie (including NT 4, 5, 5.1) is a whole mess if you ask me. System files and programs everywhere in no appearnt order, lots of settings saved around in the registry. Uninstalling drivers and some stuff may be left behind and mess things up (my brother can't play Starship Troopers anymore until he reinstalls the OS). It's a complete mess, its fantastic they managed to make it stable.
 
There should be more constructive (or what to call it) folders that contain the drivers, and you could just delete that folder and the pointer to it and the drivers would be completely gone. Or maybe that would make the OS slower I dont know...
 
But I do know I have used the same Eudora 3.0 Pro since I had win95, and I still have my settings and my email! This is impossible (I haven't found a working way yet) with Outlook express that comes with win2k and winXP, but Eudora stores the settings and the email and the addresses and the configuration EVERYTHING in the folder where its installed!
 
That way I can just copy the whole folder to a backupserver (the application is rather small, 5MB) and that's it. Reinstall, reformat all I want and just create a shortcut and it's back just they way I had it, windows size, emails open etc etc. Just click "check email" and all just works!
 
It would be nice if it was like this instead of a wizard installer that copies a lot of files, feeds up the registry, and creates a lot of useless (?) shortcuts.
 
I don't know, but I think it would be much better even for newbies to learn how to unpack a files content to a folder, move that folder to where you want it and create a shortcut to the .exe file on your desktop. That way they would understand how easy it can work, and have much more control and feel "safe" when they do stuff because they knows how it works!
 
It would be hard for complete newbies (old people) but I do belive a standard "walkthrough" could be set as required before anyone should use a PC. This document must not be too big, but include what I just explained to you in a super-easy step-by-step walkthrough.

I've been using Outlook Express for email at home since I got Win95 in 1996. I still have every email since then, and my address book too. I've carried them over from Win95 to Win98, Win98SE, Win2k, and now WinXP. There's one folder to back up for the emails, and one file for the address book.
 
And Diskeeper 7 - Never had a problem with it yet.

Yeah, but you can't backup your message rules & blocked senders list, which is a major pain in the arse. The problem is that they are stored in a different location in the registry every time. Ok, so it's roughly the same location, but it's like where 98 kept email messages by default, the last folder/section of path was some [seemingly] random hex number - XP does the same in the registry with the message rules. What we need is a prog that knows how to find the correct key for message rules, then backs it up, & then when you're reinstalling it can detect where the data should go & put it back.