norel

When you defragged freespace did you use the 'allow fragmentation' option? If not, you might try it. That option does a better job of recovering all the free space. Theoretically Defraggler shouldn't move any files to the end unless that option's selected. Go to Settings>Options>Defrag Tab and make sure 'Move large files to the end of the drive' isn't checked. If it is, uncheck it and run 'Defrag Freespace (allow fragmentation)'.

Hi, I don't know off hand what could be causing it but if there are red blocks showing, click them and see what they are; that might give you some clues. I was also thinking it might be Windows Indexing Service or Google Desktop, if you have either of those enabled, but I don't think they do anything that would cause fragging, but I'm no expert so it might be worth looking into. Good luck.

You can, and probably should stop. It amazes me that people will let a defrag run this long in the first place. If it's taking 6, 8, 12 hours or more that's not normal and it would be better to stop and try to figure out what's wrong. You might need to dump some unnecessary files and/or eliminate any partitions you might have. Defragging in Safe Mode can also slow things to a crawl; you get a more thorough defrag but sometimes you have to ask if it's worth it.

Fragmentation at the end of the drive isn't really anything to worry about. It doesn't look very nice, but theoretically those files are never used so spaces and fragmentation aren't as big of a deal. But it sounds like yours is pretty excessive. You might try running two or three cycles with the 'Move' option left on; sometimes it takes that for it to figure out exactly where everything goes. Each successive run should be faster than the one before it. To me moving large files to the end, 'archiving' as it's sometimes called, is more trouble than it's worth; it never seems to work quite as well as if you just let Defraggler do it's thing and put everything where it wants to on the outer tracks. Just because files are large that doesn't necessarily mean they're never used. Putting them at the end can actually worsen performance. Good luck.

Great! That might not completely solve the problem but at least it can't hurt.

Is the built-in Vista defragger on? It runs automatically in the background if you don't disable it. If you defragged a month ago with Defraggler, the Vista defragger may have run several times since then and undone everything Defraggler did. Start>My Computer>Right Click Hard Drive C>Properties>Tools>Defragment Now>Uncheck 'Run on a schedule'.

Are the 1600+ fragmented files showing up a red blocks? If so, you might click on one of them and the 'Highlighted' tab will open, it lists all the files that are in that block. You can select some or all of them and click the 'Defrag Checked' button. That should defrag them but might leave empty spaces. You should also run an analysis, then look at the blocks. You might notice some of them are darker than others. The darker they are the more data is in that block; the lighter they are the more free space. If you have a lot with free space, it probably wouldn't hurt to run a Defrag Freespace: Action>Advanced>Defrag Freespace (allow fragmentation). This will reclaim all your free space. Then you can run a standard defrag and you should have a lot better results than the first time, emphasis on should.

After you defragged did Defraggler report 0% fragmentation? That seems like a lot of fragmentation to acquire after just one email.

You might try turning off System Restore temporarily; doing so automatically deletes all your restore points so just be aware of that. Or you could delete all but the most recent restore point with the Disk Cleanup utility or CCleaner. System Restore files can't be defragged anyway and can take up huge amounts of space. I've had a lot better results by simply taking them out of the equation then creating a fresh restore point when I'm done defragging.

enthusiast_385, that seems like a logical assumption. Have you tried deleting all but the most recent restore point with the Disk Cleanup utility or CCleaner? It would be interesting to see if it makes a difference.

Defraggler stopped showing my Reserved MFT Space after a defrag today. I analyzed with Auslogics & Smart Defrag and they both show it. My computer works fine, it just bugs me not knowing why it did this. I have Vista but it did the very same thing on my mom's XP machine. Anyone have any ideas? Edit: Never mind, my own stupidity, all is well.

How full is the drive you're working on? Defraggler needs free space to work properly. Have you run a full scan yet? I've had a lot better luck doing full scans in Safe Mode. You might give that a try then see if it works properly.

It might be a good idea. Smart Defrag has an Auto Defrag that works in the backgorund but Smart Defrag's utterly worthless in my opinion. The Windows defragger sorta works like this. You set a time for a scheduled defrag and if your computer's not on when the time comes it automatically starts the next time you boot up and works till its done; if you shut down before it finishes, it starts where it left off the next time you boot. At least this is how it's supposed to work; I've never tried it. Defraggler's scheduled defrag might work like too, I don't know. I shy away from stuff that works in the background unless it absolutely crucial. When services like Indexing run in the background, some antivirus programs scan everything while its on then you have a whole other layer of background work going on. It might be a good option to have for those who want it; but you might look into how Defraggler's scheduled defrag works, it might already do basically what you want.

Run an analysis and then click some of the red blocks. Are they System Volume Information files? These are mostly System Restore files that can't be defragged, but Defraggler reports them anyway. Also, the Windows defragger normally only reports fragments smaller than 64 MB, so when it says 0% that doesn't include anything over 64 MB. After you defrag, you should have a block of blue squares across the top without any red. If you have a lot of red in this area something's wrong. The System Volume Information files should be separate somewhere below the blue.

If you have a new system Defraggler should work a lot better than before unless you have Vista or Windows 7, then there are a couple of things you should probably be aware of first. Auslogics 3 has been getting a lot of hype for its so-called optimizer. As far as I can tell, the only thing it has that Defraggler doesn't is an option to move frequently used files to the fastest part of the drive but there's no way to verify it. You can't click individual blocks and see what's there like you can with Defraggler. I think Defraggler does a pretty good job of optimizing anyway, even though it doesn't have anything that's called that. Defraggler still has more options than Auslogics 3, like the ability to move large unused files to the slow end of the drive. I didn't notice any speed differences either, they both performed about the same for me.

redhawk, I don't know if there's any point in defragging them or not, that's not really where I was going. The point is Defraggler doesn't defrag them because they're normally locked and inaccessible, so why not report that. When an inexperienced user runs a defrag, they don't know what C:\System Volume Information is and probably don't care. All they know is they defragged and Defraggler left 50% of their files fragmented.

I've been reading back through all the previous threads and time & again the same subject comes up- why is Defraggler reporting 40% or 50% fragmentation after a defrag? Inevitably the fragmented files turn out to be System Volume (System Restore) files which cannot be accessed, at least not in Vista or Windows 7. I have Defraggler installed on an XP system and this isn't even an issue. With more and more people using Vista and Windows 7 it seems like it would be a good time for this issue to be addressed. It's confusing as all get-out for the average user. Other products simply report these files as unmovable; it seems Defraggler should be able to do that, or ignore them altogether, as it seems to do in XP. I do have say though, other than this Defraggler blows the competition away.

On my mom's machine with XP it's a line and a half maximized, but restored down it's still about 3/4 of a line.

I figured I'd better check in with an update. After I reduced the maximum size of system restore storage, Defraggler started deleting my restore points. Apparently this is a known issue with Vista. So I changed it back to the default, 15% of total disk size, and it's working fine; only now I'm back to big patches of red where the system restore files are located. I don't understand why Piriform doesn't program Defraggler to report these files as unmovable instead of fragmented. It's completely confusing, especially to a novice, to still have up to 50% fragmentation after a defrag.

I've recently noticed on my Defraggler I can't see all the blocks unless the window is maximized. My MFT for example is one block if restored down but three when maximized. There are also a lot of red blocks I can't see unless maximized.

On the Defraggler interface there's a 'File List' tab; after you run an analysis it lists all the fragmented files from the most fragmented to the least. But you can also hover your mouse over any block and you'll get a message that tells you how many files are in the block. Then click the block and a 'Highlighted' tab will appear that shows you the details of each file. It's also a good idea to maximize the window or you may not be able to see all the blocks.

I've been using Defraggler a lot the last couple of days and watching what it does. Quick defrag only defrags. Standard defrag defrags, but also tries to optimize the files on your drive. It may be limited in how well it can do this though, depending on many factors. There are things you can do to improve Defraggler's ability to effectively optimize; most of them are already documented.

I have Vista and was having exactly the same problem. As Aethec said they are system restore files. I'll tell you what I did to fix it. You can't defrag them as they currently are, even in safe mode. What I did was disable system restore; doing this automatically deletes all your system restore files. Then you can run defrag in safe mode and you should be able to get 0% across the board. Then restart and enable system restore again and create a new restore point. All your system restore files should then be defragged and stay that way, at least I hope they do for a while anyway. So far so good. I also found this helpful site that shows how to limit the size of system restore so you can prevent it from getting out of control in the future. There's a link there that also tells how to do it in Windows 7. Before I started with all this my system restore was using close 20 GB of space, even though I delete all but the most recent restore point on a regular basis. After deleting everything and creating a new restore point, my disk usage was 80 MB so I limited usage to 1 GB. Give it a try and let us know how it works. Edit: Spoke to soon. My system restore files are already fragmented and disk usage is up to 160 MB. It looks like system restore continually builds up data as it goes. If any of that data is fragmented then it carries over into the system restore file, at least that's my shade tree analysis. Defraggler displays these fragmented files in its report of the drive state. I can't really see any way of avoiding it unless Defraggler was programmed to ignore them in its report. But at least I know what it is now and by llimiting system restore I should be able to keep it under control.

Do you have XP? On my Vista system the MFT is only one square but on my mom's XP it's a whole line, but hers has always been that way so I don't know. I just assumed the different operating systems displayed differently. I'll be interested to hear what others say about it. Edit: Just had a thought. Did you recently update to a different service pack, that might cause it to display differently, but it's just a guess.

I was thinking about posting a suggestion but thought it might be better to ask a question here first; it's about the drive map. Defraggler is by far the best defragger I've found for Vista, but even after following all the guidelines - cleaning first, deleting hiberfile.sys, deleting unnecessary restore points, defragging in safe mode, etc. - there are still blocks that are left red. I'm assuming it's because they're inaccessible for some reason. If I highlight a red block and try to defrag the individual files, some of them defrag but othes won't. This doesn't really concern me, but I was wondering if there's an easy way to tell if they're simply unmovable or still fragmented? Other defraggers usually distinguish between the two with different colors. Does Defraggler have something like this that I'm overlooking? Thanks.