I'm sorry to start this off with an accusation, but I've just had my computer taken in for repairs because it kept BSODing and even its start up files weren't able to work. The guy doing repairs told me that it was corrupted, but I've been maintaining my computer with Defraggler. I recall there being a huge risk of screwing up my computer, so I want to know if that's what happened.
For specifics, I run Windows Vista, HP Pavilion.
Don't know where you read it or heard it, but defragging a drive will not screw your system up, unless during the process something really bad happens.
Like a power failure, a lightning strike, a flood that sets your system under water or something like that.
Ofcourse your system was corrupted, but you did not needed that guy to tell you.
You already knew that, hence the bsod's and not booting.
Defragging is a old and kinda obsolete thing nowadays.
In the old days of fat systems and when systems where much slower than nowadays, it sure could made a lot of difference when it came to speed.
You really would have noticed a difference between a fragmented system and a defragmented one.
Since the introduction of NTFS systems there is almost no need anymore for defragging.
The reasons for it are that files are stored in a entirely different way on drives as that fat did.
Also the systems have become much faster and that causes it any slowdowns caused by fragmentation not to be noticed anymore by the users.
Let's say you travel place A to B and the distance is 1000 km (or if you wish 1000 miles)
You do this with a car and it takes you 10 hours. (this is the fragmented version of the car)
Now you defrag the car and it weights 1 kg less.
You take the same journey but since the car is lighter, it will take you 9 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds.
Is it faster? Yes it is. But will you notice the difference if you don't look at the stopwatch to see how long it took? No, you won't.
You could compare a drive with a closet with clothing.
Two exact the same closets with exact the same clothing in them.
In the fragmented closet everything is there but it is not ordered.
Finding the cloths you need will take some time.
In the other closet (the non fragmented one), everything is nicely ordered.
It is easier and faster to find what you want.
Alright. Thank you. I needed confirmation.
how old was the hard drive?
it's next to impossible that DF corrupted your PC, worst thing that could happen is the file that was being moved by DF could have been 'scrambled' if DF somehow terminated mid-use.
a more likely scenario is the extra load put on the hard drive by using DF pushed it over the edge and brought forward an event that was on the cards anyway.
how old was the hard drive?
it's next to impossible that DF corrupted your PC, worst thing that could happen is the file that was being moved by DF could have been 'scrambled' if DF somehow terminated mid-use.
a more likely scenario is the extra load put on the hard drive by using DF pushed it over the edge and brought forward an event that was on the cards anyway.
Considering that my hard drive is seven years old, yeah, that's my safe bet. I'll get some answer as to what happened, but thank you for answering. You and Ache managed to help alleviate my stress. Perhaps it was so old that the files began to deteriorate. I don't know.
Most likely the hard drive developed bad sectors which corrupted the files that lived on those areas, or the disk controller was failing, or the bearing, or the PC got malware, or who knows what else.
7 years is a good run though.
A stat I heard about 4 years ago was that the average life span of a mechanical drive was in the area of 2-3 years.
Which is why backups should be an important task - but sadly, seldom are.
Most likely the hard drive developed bad sectors which corrupted the files that lived on those areas, or the disk controller was failing, or the bearing, or the PC got malware, or who knows what else.
7 years is a good run though.
A stat I heard about 4 years ago was that the average life span of a mechanical drive was in the area of 2-3 years.
Which is why backups should be an important task - but sadly, seldom are.
That's exactly what I heard too. In about 3 years, new machines become "obsolete" and their selling rate degrades at a rate similar to bananas.
I suggest you get/run the hd drive diagnostic util from the drive manufacturer and see what it tells you.
Alright, sorry for bumping this, but I figured I give you all a status update.
Turns out my Computer’s CPU chip burnt out and had to be replaced, so Defraggler didn’t have anything to do with it. That said, I have a lot of fragmented files, most of them partaining to the System32 folder, though all of them aren’t even half a gigabyte in size.
My questions are:
My questions are:
- Should I defragment the files or let Windows do the work?
- Will defragmenting actually do anything remarkably signifigant? (Referring to Ache's post)
- Will it disrupt any files and screw it up?
1) Let DF do the work.
2) If the drive is heavily fragmented then, yes, you should see a significant change. Otherwise it may just be a slight improvement. Usually people do it too regularly and see no difference.
3) very, very, VERY unlikely. Like a bad apple in a case, you only hear about the one time something went wrong, not the 99 other times it worked perfectly.
1) Let DF do the work.
2) If the drive is heavily fragmented then, yes, you should see a significant change. Otherwise it may just be a slight improvement. Usually people do it too regularly and see no difference.
3) very, very, VERY unlikely. Like a bad apple in a case, you only hear about the one time something went wrong, not the 99 other times it worked perfectly.
Thank you. You actually pushed me away from the comfort zone and had me defrag my files for the first time in two weeks. Windows already did the work for me, so I just defragged what it didn't, rebooted it to make sure it didn't screw anything up and it worked wonderfully.
I wasn't able to defrag this one file, "Memory.DMP", since the defragging gets aborted when I go about it, so I believe there's nothing I can do about that, but other than that, everything else works perfectly, I hope.
I'll probably defrag a little less regularly than before, however. Thank you guys a thousand for this. I apologize for starting another question, but I might as well ask it, since it's what caused me to post my three questions:
Does svchost.exe get affected by fragmented files? I ask because svchost.exe took a huge chunk of memory when the files were fragmented, but after I defragged, they went back to normal. I might assume not, because my belief is that it only acts up when Windows needs to download updates or when Superfetch needs to be used. Thank you guys a thousand.
Hello Psyga315 - I'm sorry to hear about your problems with your CPU. If you want to put your mind at ease concerning your system files and hard drive, here's two things you can do.
1.) The next time you boot Vista, press F8 at startup and boot into Safe Mode. Open the Command Prompt, and enter "chkdsk C: /f /r" (without the quotes). This will tell you if there are any system files located on bad sectors on the drive, attempt to move them to different sectors, and attempt to repair them if they have been corrupted. Just be sure to do this when you don't need your machine, since it can take quite a long time to run.
2.) If the above process reports any bad sectors on the drive, open Defraggler and click the Health tab. Then go to this page to see if any of the S.M.A.R.T. attributes reported are serious issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T. (Note - the attributes table is pretty far down the page). I feel #5, #196, #197, and #198 are the really serious ones that indicate your drive is in the process of failing, and you should take steps to back up any important files while you still can. Two things you need to avoid when it comes to hard drives: don't allow them to suffer a power outage or power spike, and don't drop them, even a 2-3 inch drop can damage them internally.
One more thing, have you tried running a boot time defrag using Defraggler? Open the program and go to Settings>Boot Time Defrag>Run Once. This will defragment some of the system files that cannot be accessed while Windows is running.
scvhost.exe is just a file so could get fragmented itself and could also be affected by other fragged files since that program is used for many things.
A quick look into Task Manager shows I'm currently running 12 of them, all doing different system tasks.
Initially when you start the PC you'll see svchost doing some heavy CPU cycles but they tend to settle down reasonably quickly - all depends on what they are doing.
As @Derek891 says, doing a Safe Mode DF or setting it to run at boot time will DF those files locked by Windows and your security software.
The chkdsk command isn't a bad idea either as, although you have found your root cause, it will verify the integrity of your drive and, if for no other reason, will give you a warm-fuzzy feeling.
And as you say, run DF less, I do mine maybe once every 3 or 4 months and even then it's just to sort the Fragments column and do the ones with more than 10 frags then sort the Size column and do the ones greater than 10,000KB.
Alright then. I guess that's all the questions I have. Thank you all.
You would have no need to defrag "Memory.DMP" if you deleted it
So far as I know it is created by a BSOD to give obscure clues upon the cause of the BSOD.
I suggest you wait a few days before taking action in case a moderator or other expert has a valid reason for retaining that file.
CCleaner cleans up Windows.DMP files by default on an ordinary clean (which is why I copy the .dmp file to another location if I have to upload it to somewhere when I'm testing software for conflicts)
If it's a full memory dump it can take up gigabytes of space, whereas you can set your system to just produce small ones.
If the OP is having repeated BSOD then the tech should be aware enough to be able to use them for troubleshooting.