Defrag FAT32 Flash Drive -- Automatic compacting? MS XP SP3

I decided to defrag my flash drive that I use to carry files from computer to computer, updating everything with SyncToy2.

I've defragged HDs before but never flash drives. When MS's Defragger finished it automatically started compacting the files. I never saw that before. MS's website said compacting was an option -- but I never chose it.

I couldn't tell if I wanted it so I stopped the process at 3%compacting. Needless to say, I could not remove the flash drive because it wouldn't stop flashing (no pun intended) and I ended up shutting down the Computer and then restarting.

Upon restart windows automatically ran chkdsk on the flash drive and said there were all kinds of problems and went through a gazillion "truncating files", etc and then finished and then loaded the OS.

Scared that the files were corrupted somehow, I am in the process of copying them onto a separate folder on my Laptop HD and am planning to do a new SyncToy run with the Laptop files and the flash drive. (I am doing that instead of copying because I will hopefully avoid a date of files problem in the MS SyncToy program.)

But I can't figure out -- is compacting files the normal last step of defraging. At first I was confusing it with compressing -- which I definitely don't want to do. But MS talks about selecting the option to compact after defraging -- I cannot find anywhere on the program or help the so-called "option" to select or not select compacting.

Can anyone help?

(I hate when I am doing a revamp of all my computers and files -- I come up with soooo many questions... But then I learn a lot from all you guys )

 

There's no need to defrag a flashdrive.

Also... I think Windows XP's defrager automatically compacts the data. I don't think there's an option to turn it off in the GUI.

 

What does the compacting do?

(And you are certainly correct that there is no option for not compacting. -- Isn't it Weird that MS refers to such?)

Why is there no need to defrag a flash drive?

I have a 16 GB flash drive and I need all the space I can get. (I am looking into a 32 GB one -- but haven't decided on one yet.)

Doesn't defraging the Flash Drive give me more space and make it faster during syncs?

-- the syncing is horribly slow right now -- I have been using SyncToy from MS , tried SureSync -- had problems going between NTFS (laptop) and FAT32 (flash drive.) Someone suggested GoodSync but reading it --it seems to have the same issue.

 

Here's why you should not defrag a flash drive:

http://ask-leo.com/should_i_defragment_my_usb_flash_drive.html

 

If you insist on doing this 'just because'....

a) copy all of the flash files to a hard drive.
b) 'quick format' the flash drive.
c) copy all of the files from the hard drive back to the flash drive.

I'll bet those three steps will take you less time than you've already spent looking for a 'flash defragger'. And you're only subjecting the flash drive to one big read/write cycle instead of thousands.

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you... that was just the info I needed....

 

On the built-in Windows defragmenter, I believe that "compacting" means that it's putting contiguous files next to each other instead of leaving them all spread out over the whole space of the partition - essentially, one can think of it as defragmenting the empty space - or like pushing all the books on a shelf of your bookcase to one side so that all the empty space ends up at the other end of the shelf. As such, it's not something you should worry about.

In terms of defragmenting a flash drive, I'll go along with the others' advice.