Defragging Freespace seems to not work

[Fugglemooster]

Hello,

 

(Updated - I may have found the answer, skip to bottom of this post)

 

I have 3 hard drives on my Windows 7 Ultimate computer.

 

The drive in question has 4 partitions and is used for storing disk images and other backups including sometimes files larger than 4 GB

As far as I know, there are no protected or system files on this drive other than the file allocation table and indexes.

 

In every defragger I have tried, the GUI display shows fragments and free space scattered all over the drive.   Hundreds and hundred of bits and pieces of free space and files.  Visually, it's a mess.

 

However, not one of the defraggers I have tried, including Defraggler seems to be able to clean up this disk and eliminate all those gaps and files strewn about the drive.

I do realize that it may not enhance performance to fouther attempt to defrag the drive, but I simply "want" contiguous files and contiguous freespace.

 

I have tried drfragging Freespace (without the allow fragments option) several times and it doesn't appear to do anything to the freespace.

 

What could I be doing wrong or am I expecting too much?

 

Is the very best way to acheive a truly "contiguous" drive involve copying ALL the files off the drive then copying them back to the drive?

 

Thanks

 

 

Update

It may have been settings under Options that I need to change.  I have made those changes and am trying again.

Will report back after it's done.

[Fugglemooster]

Changing those options did not make any difference

[DennisD]

Hi Fugglemooster, and welcome to the forum.

 

Is the very best way to acheive a truly "contiguous" drive involve copying ALL the files off the drive then copying them back to the drive?

 

 

I actually do that at least once a year with my Sony Walkman in the hope that Windows will copy all my music back to the drive in the manner you suggest. I'm guessing it should and I live with the belief that it does, but because the Walkman has no "Mass Storage" option it isn't seen as a drive, and I can never get a picture of what it actually looks like after this process so I'll never know.

 

After that slight meander into my foibles I have to say that I've never done that with a (recognized) drive of any kind so I'm not aware as to whether Windows would play ball or would deviate from what one would think it should do. Others on here may know but I have a feeling that Windows, even after a complete format of a hard drive, may have sections of that drive already allocated to be used first and then others to follow in it's already stored list of available free space.

 

Formatting the drive may just place the new available free space next in line.

 

The best you can do, especially with a drive full of large files is to simply defrag the files and leave the free space to Windows. You can probably have contiguous files with free space between them, but I doubt it possible to ever attain both contiguous files and free space. You probably wouldn't see any difference in performance if you could achieve that perfect result.

 

Others may give you slightly different answers but that's my take on what you are trying to achieve.

 

Hope it helps.

[Fugglemooster]

Thank you Dennis.   You may be right.   Maybe I'm wanting something that is neither possible, feasible nor necessary  :-)

 

I guess when it comes to hard drives, I'm obsessive with organization.   All those files and gaps just bugs me.  lol

[julevine]

freespace defrag is now fixed  it been  years

 

i tried it  yesterday and  it worked perfectly  with  new  version v 2.17.898

[eL_PuSHeR]

No. It's not. It has been improved though. It is still generating some fragmentation on some partitions for me. But yes, it's WAY BETTER than before.