Defraggler handling of "orphaned" files and folders

[gguldens]

Folks,

First some background. I am running Win XP as a guest on VMware Server 2.0.2. I have Defraggler set to run daily at 03:17am. Now to the problem. When running Defraggler manually over the last few months to analyze the virtual hard disk, what I am seeing are increasing numbers of small uncontiguous areas of my hard drive that are not getting handled by Defraggler. When I do an analysis only and show the files list I am seeing files and folders that are not in my Windows Explorer directory tree. What I believe is happening is that my guest OS is dying rather ungracefully while Defraggler is running and these "orphaned" files are the result of Defraggler doing--but not completing--the move of various files around on the dish and the Guest OS crashes before Defraggler can re-link these moved--or partially moved--files back into the directory chains.

 

I have found that id I display the files after an analysis and check all the files names then do a "defrag checked" Defraggler will actually defragment the listed files. When doing a full disk defrag, however, Defraggler ignores the "orphaned" smaller files scattered all over the drive and fills in around them.

 

So, my suggestion is to have an option in Defraggler to find and flag these "orphaned" files and folders. Then have a button to allow me to unallocate these "orphaned" files. I believe it is safest to just unallocate them rather than try to link them as files because there is no assurance that the "orphan" is the complete file and that Defraggler may have been interrupted after only partially moving these files.

 

Thanks,

Greg Guldenschuh

[romanoff]

Hi,

 

I think what you want to do is to run a free space defrag. The best one for the job in your case would be Defrag freespace (allow fragmentation).

 

To run it go to menu Action->Advanced->Defrag freespace (allow fragmentation).

 

Best regards

Romanoff