Defrag unmovable files in two different parts

[Sadeepan]

Hey,

I am much experienced with disk fragmentation. I noted green unmovable files together in one area all the time.Now I don't know the reason some large chunk of unmovable files to appear way out in about the middle of my free space.Me yet to find the perfect solution for this concern.Does any body know what caused the files to move ?.I need to know is there a defragmenter that will shift those files back where they used to be? I've tried Vopt which does a great job, but didn't move the files back either.

Any thoughts?

[MrChris-]

Defragmentation just like shifting files around so that neither the files nor the drive is fragmented.Giving all the fragments of a given file in contiguous addresses and organizing the files in such a manner that there is as little wasted space between files on the fastest parts of the drive.In XP with NTFS , you are able to defrag while windows and applications are running. But deliver some minor issues like Some areas are "off limits" things like your antivirus do not allow other things to write to spaces they reserve or alter their files, even temp ones. System restore likewise is basically inaccessible, the swap / paging file , hibernation file etc. There are many files which cannot be moved.

[Solomon]

Hey,you know what All defraggers are written with certain parameters. which won't shift certain files. When windows boots up, it looks in a certain place for the files and if they are not there, you have a no boot situation.Vopt is fine, but after testing 8 defraggers, I ended up with Perfect Disk for XP.Even it leaves the Master File Table (MFT) and the virtual [paging file] alone.But it can be used off line to remove . for lack of a better words, some glitches.But do not just go and try to defrag with several defraggers and the different parameters will cause things to get messed up, thus causing you to cdo a clean install.

[Dr. V]

The built-in defragmenter has no ability to exclude files from being defragmented.If you are fond of programming, you should write a program that opens these files for exclusive access may be you can get a 3rd party alternative. Most have the ability to exclude files.Else You can either choose not to defrag that particular hard drive, or create a new partition, move your image backups to it, then do not defrag that partition.

[padukone]

Yes, some system files are unmovable (eg Hiberfile.sys) during online defrag. However, newer defraggers can process some of the previously unprocessable files online..eg on XP, my Diskeeper 2009 pro defragged most of the MFT without the boot-time defrag. The pagefile, the rest of the MFT and the remaining metadata can be defragged completely with a boot-time defrag. It's usually the metadata that shows up as unmovable.

Not sure if Hiberfile is still undefraggable, since I don't use hibernation, but the best way to deal with that particular file is to disable hibernation, defrag the drive to get sufficient contiguous free space and then re-enable it..it wont fragment as much after that.

Anyway, don't worry too much about the file placement...it does not matter if there are some files in the 'middle' of the volume; as long as they are defragged, it's enough. Infact, I run Diskeeper in full auto mode..it works fine, and I don't micromanage the defrag..not worth the time.

Yeah, run just one defragger...multiple ones can create a mess.