Defraggler Ate my Backup Drive!

[bo122081]

I was having problems with Defraggler running extremely slowly or just not accomplishing anything at all. I just d/led the very newest version and it doesn't seem to have affect this bug at all.

 

I was defragging a highly fragmented (~70%) 500Gb external drive that I use for video storage and backups. I had several very large files (a few 2-4gb and 2-3 20+gb) on this drive. Drefraggler seemed to be working, but if you watch it, it moved a fragment to one block, then back, then to another, than back and repeats. It seemed to pick 2-3 blocks and just rotated the same couple fragments around in them, and never got anything done.

 

It was very frustrating.

 

update: ran the "Check Drive for Errors" tool within Defraggler. It immediately detected many corrupt attribute records and orphan file records. Could this have something to do with the previously reported problems with Defraggler messing with the MFT??

 

update: At least twice as annoyed and extremely angry in addition, now.

 

After running the Verify Disk utility, Defraggler has deleted several .rar archive files from my drive as well as an incremental backup file.

 

Several of these were rather important and are now completely unrecoverable.

 

They still appear on the drive, but show as 0 bytes. Any attempt to access them says they are "unknown format or damaged".

 

update: Tried downloading Recuva to restore the files, but it says it cannot restore a file of size 0 bytes. All my .rar archives are pretty much destroyed, along with content and backups that do not exist elsewhere - as this was a backup drive.

 

I have used Defraggler for a long time and never had any problems with it...but this sort of failure is completely unacceptable! What is going on with this software???

[Aethec]

Defraggler's verify disk utility is a wrapper around chkdsk and its /F parameter.

I don't know how to recover the deleted files (and if they were deleted by chkdsk...they probably were unreadable anyway), but...your drive seems to be in a bad state. If it simply is a backup drive, format it and backup everything again - and if that happens again, buy a new drive.

A quick Google search for "chkdsk deleted files" returns lots of failed attempts at recovering files. As I already said, if chkdsk deleted them, there had to be a good reason to do so - here's one : http://www.techspot.com/vb/post414691-12.html

[bo122081]

Yes, I know what the verify utility is and what the deletion of those files 'meant'.

 

But the point is, the drive had no errors or problems other than being a bit fragmented and slow before I started trying to run Defraggler on it. After trying to run Defraggler on it, it was getting corrupted files, unreadable files, generally not working and the verify utility basically just confirmed for me that something had gone horribly wrong.

 

The CORE, the CORE of the issue here is the running Defraggler corrupted/ruined/whatever a large amount of the files on that drive and that's simply not acceptable. I have reverted to using Windows defragger and have considered going back to Perfect Disk. I just can't in good conscience use Defraggler with the impending doom of drive destruction hanging over my head. Especially with no response to this issue from anyone who represented the software's makers.

[jojotjuh]

Yes, I know what the verify utility is and what the deletion of those files 'meant'.

 

But the point is, the drive had no errors or problems other than being a bit fragmented and slow before I started trying to run Defraggler on it. After trying to run Defraggler on it, it was getting corrupted files, unreadable files, generally not working and the verify utility basically just confirmed for me that something had gone horribly wrong.

 

The CORE, the CORE of the issue here is the running Defraggler corrupted/ruined/whatever a large amount of the files on that drive and that's simply not acceptable. I have reverted to using Windows defragger and have considered going back to Perfect Disk. I just can't in good conscience use Defraggler with the impending doom of drive destruction hanging over my head. Especially with no response to this issue from anyone who represented the software's makers.

I see where your fear is coming from, but rationalize with me if you will. If there had been a error in Defraggler's code, you wouldn't be the only one with this problem. However, maybe it was an unlucky combination of your type of HDD, maybe a brand or make, and Defraggler's defragmentation routine. Of course I don't know much about how Defraggler is coded, nor anything about how a hardware difference would cause this kind of behaviour. Just guessing here.

I hope your data will be restored somehow, it's never fun to lose important data.

[bo122081]

Well, I heard mention in a couple other threads of a certain iteration of Defraggler that was corrupting MFTs. Also, that a couple iterations of Defraggler were showing that behavior where for some people, it would just not defrag, or do so VERY VERY slowly. I seem to have fallen victim to both problems simultaneously. At least that's my best guess. I doubt I'll ever know 100% exactly what went wrong, but just dismissing the problem and going, "well, hopefully this won't happen to most people" seems like a bad idea, given how much damage an incident like this CAN cause.

[jojotjuh]

Well, I heard mention in a couple other threads of a certain iteration of Defraggler that was corrupting MFTs. Also, that a couple iterations of Defraggler were showing that behavior where for some people, it would just not defrag, or do so VERY VERY slowly. I seem to have fallen victim to both problems simultaneously. At least that's my best guess. I doubt I'll ever know 100% exactly what went wrong, but just dismissing the problem and going, "well, hopefully this won't happen to most people" seems like a bad idea, given how much damage an incident like this CAN cause.

I see Now that you mention it does seem to give more trouble than just this topic. Sorry for not looking sufficiently. I'm out of ideas actually, as I am not very knowledgeable about filesystems. I hope the creators find what's going on and are able to fix defraggler

[redhawk]

It's unfortunate you have corrupted files but your evidence concerning Defraggler is nothing more than circumstantial.

You never "chkdsk" before running Defraggler so it's unclear whether the files were already damaged or not.

Defraggler like other defragging tools use the Windows API to work if problems occur then it can't be software related.

 

Richard S.

[bo122081]

Well, it seems to me if I had 0 problems except the drive running slowly before using Defraggler, than suddenly I'm getting tons of error and the drive is unusable after running Defraggler, the the logical conclusion is that Defraggler did something bad. Add that together with the reports of a certain version # screwing up MFTs and whatnot, and it's pretty much a smoking gun, imo.

[mr don]

Well, I heard mention in a couple other threads of a certain iteration of Defraggler that was corrupting MFTs. Also, that a couple iterations of Defraggler were showing that behavior where for some people, it would just not defrag, or do so VERY VERY slowly. I seem to have fallen victim to both problems simultaneously. At least that's my best guess. I doubt I'll ever know 100% exactly what went wrong, but just dismissing the problem and going, "well, hopefully this won't happen to most people" seems like a bad idea, given how much damage an incident like this CAN cause.

 

Bo, try to restore back to a date when everything was there using windows System Restore tool.

 

The second option, is try Handy Recovery. It works when many other recovery programs fail, & can even strip passwords from password protected user accounts (forgot your password?) & recover those.

 

Hope this helps!

[mike42]

Add that together with the reports of a certain version # screwing up MFTs and whatnot, and it's pretty much a smoking gun, imo.

Don't mix things up here. The problem with the MFT is that Defraggler writes into the MFT reserved zone, hence causing fragmentation of the $MFT file in the future. However, it does NOT screw up the MFT, meaning it does NOT currupt it.

[bo122081]

Well, the complaints I saw weren't very specific, so I'm not 100% sure what was the complaint with the MFT.

 

All I do know for sure is that the drive WAS working, albeit a bit slowly. I ran defraggler - it did NOT work as expect, and directly following that - the drive was corrupted and much of the data on it was lost.

 

Perhaps this WAS coincidental, but I'm not a big fan of coincidences.

[Paul Ross]

Check my post: http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=21022&view=findpost&p=170474

 

and this thread: http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=28438

 

I think that should be enough anecdotal evidence to say that something is not right.

 

And it's not just the MFT that appears to be corrupted... Defraggler literally erased from my hard disk a whole bunch of files that were up to 3 months old! I saw the green reading action, then the yellow writing action... except at the end of the yellow writing action there were no blue blocks... before and after... ie moved into another dimension!

 

I wasted the whole of yesterday recovering my remaining data and rebuilding my computer. I would recommend removing the current version from the download page and displaying a warning until you've had a chance to investigate fully... this is something you should do in all good conscience until you are 100% sure there are no bugs in your software!!

[Andavari]

I don't know what kind of drives everyone is using that causes the corruption other than the SDD, however a Google search reveals something the JkDefrag/MyDefrag developer had once mentioned:

http://www.google.com/search?q=corruption+from+defragmenting+with+sata+drive