Cannot Completely Defrag HDD

After trying to defrag my HDD several times, I still always have some files that are in fragments. Does this mean there is something wrong with my HDD?

 

No it does not. Some files are in use when you run defrag and can't be moved. It's normal.

 

No, To defrag the disk fully you need a good amount of free disk space.So you should either use more intelligent defragger [there are posts about these, search for them].Or you should free more disk space.For example move a good amount of the data to free 20-25% and then try defragging.This should be much better.
(BTW, see the report, it the 'fragmented' files are just 2-4 pieces, it'll not be much of a problem.You should start worrying when they are in more fragments)

 

This is normal and nothing to worry about. No HDD can be 100% defragmented due to the constant reading/writing of data and because several files are locked in memory and can only be defragmented when not in use. Which is during a reboot.

Windows' native defrag utility cannot do that. There are several commercial products that claim they can do it, if it's important to you. As pointed out above there's plenty of info on the forums on Diskkeeper, PerfectDisk, and O&O, which are the main ones. I believe they all have free trial periods so that you can check them out and see if you like one or the other.

However, the native defrag utility is perfectly fine for most users.

 

Even after I defrag with windows, it still says I need to defragment again after an analysis.

 

The Windows defrag tool is not very good. It's slow and it leaves a lot to be desired. Get Diskeeper, it's the best and superfast, plus it can defrag in the background.

That said, my system files, which cannot be defragged are getting very fragmented. Does anyone know how to force Windows to defrag the system files? I remember that after I resized my paging file the first time, Windows organized everything neatly, after a check disk.

Anyone know how to force Windows to do that again (I can't resize the paging file anymore).

 

Never mind, I just found the set boot-time fragmentation option in Diskeeper, which will defrag the paging file.

 

Using my friends XPS 1710 and windows defrag utility, his report read that he had 0% total fragmentation and 0%file fragmentation and 0% free space fragmentation. Using disk keeper on my w3j, I never get zeros on any of those parts save free space.

The best I might get is 1% total fragmentation and 9% file fragmentation. Is this because my HDD light is constantly blinking? And is it normal for my HDD light to constantly blink? Not strongly, just pulsing.

 

If your computer is completely idling, your harddrive light should not be blinking at all.

When I say "idling" I really mean idling - that excludes any background applications and tasks which may frequently access the harddrive. Most people these days have a ton of background applications and even ad-ware hidden beneath. All of these programs inevitably add up to random harddrive accessing.

But I wouldn't consider it a problem unless it is slowing down your work to a point where it becomes pestering.

 

With a default Windows setup, random blinking still happens in some cases. It's some Windows service that it's doing it. One should be able to determine if a dangerous amount of disk accesses is happenning by checking the #of read/writes and read/write bytes in the Task Manager.

 

And if you use Vista, it's blinking all the time because of Microsoft's brilliant indexing scheme, which produces files three times as large as Google Desktop's and twice as slow!

 

Well I did a fresh install of Windows XP last night. After doing this and a defrag, my readings were finally zero for fragmentation. The HDD light still blinks once about every two seconds, but it is something I believe I can live with. I can't imagine it is a hardware problem and really don't want to send it into Asus because of my anal retentive nature.

If that is the only issue I have with my laptop, so be it!

 

Noone should worry about a few fragmented files left after defrag. It's simply a case of heuristically terminating the defrag algorithm. To put it simply, it's much better if defrag finishes in 10 minutes with 98% of the fragmentation resolved, than if it finishes in 1 hour with 100% of the fragmentation resolved.