Defraggler Abuses and block capabilities of other Applications.

[Alan_B]

Version 2.17.898(64-bit) under Windows 7 Ultimate + SP1 prevents other applications from locking any drives or partitions,

even when D.F. is supposed to be sitting idle and waiting for me to tell it what to do.

 

I was trying to clone one drive to another,

and the clone tool tried to lock the source drive and was unable.

I remember that Acronis Partition Backup (which I no longer use) also needed to lock any partition it was backing up.

 

I am sure that other Defraggler users may use other products for both the above purposes and also many other purposes,

and they too may initially think that Windows is broken,

until they finally discover that it is Defraggler which is giving them a bad day.

 

Defraggler is supposed to have the ability to defrag Windows C:\ whilst running under Windows.

It does not need to lock C:\ for its own exclusive purposes.

Why should Defraggler issue a system wide prohibition against the locking of all drives which it has NOT been asked to deal with ?

 

Now I have suffered the pain I know the easy solution.

Why does Piriform put its users through a painful learning experience

 

Please fix it

 

Regards

Alan

 

[hazelnut]

Did you select to replace Windows Disk Defragmenter ?

 

Were you actually going to clone a drive while having Defraggler open? (not sure of what you were doing at the time Alan) Or are you saying that just the very fact of having Defraggler installed lock the drive it is installed on?

[Alan_B]

I only use the Portable version of Defraggler, and mostly to Analyze and observe the placement of Files.

Defraggler is permanently located on an HDD partition.

I am trying to Clone a 400 MB VHD to a 500 MB VHD,

and Defraggler has done something that prohibits locking of the source VHD,

and only after closing the Defraggler Application is the prohibition removed.

 

For reckless experimentation it is far quicker and cheaper to add a VHD than install an HDD.

I assume that Defraggler is just as possessive of HDD's and SSD's as it is of VHD's

 

Throughout the above Defraggler is always idle and doing nothing, apart from when I am using it to analyze a VHD partition,

and at no time does Defraggler conflict with any of the above actions.

The problem only occurs when I try to clone one VHD to another

 

Even when Defraggler does NOT have focus it is watching the system

and immediately I attach a VHD then Defraggler adds it to the list of drives it has seen and which it prohibits from being locked.

 

If I then give Defraggler focus and select a drive for action but then refrain from invoking any action,

and then put focus onto the clone tool to clone a VHD,

it is still prohibited from locking the source VHD until the Defraggler application is closed.

 

I have not replaced Windows Disk Defragmenter.

I have never used W.D.D. on this system,

and I disabled the Disk Defragmenter Service when Windows was first installed.

System drive C:\ is an OCZ SSD which I never defrag on principle,

and I cannot remember defragging any HDD partitions since I had this Desktop P.C.

 

Regards

Alan

 

[Alan_B]

Supplementary

 

This is the freeware Clone tool I use :-

Lazesoft Recovery Suite 3.5 Home Edition, which is the top item, 25.5 MB on

http://www.lazesoft.com/download.html

 

The bottom left corner is "Disk Image & Clone" which gives various tools and wizards,

and on the left is the "Drive Clone" section with options "Clone Disk" and "Clone Partition".

Defraggler was preventing "Clone Disk" from locking the source VHD.

N.B. My tests have focused on VHD's created by Lazesoft because this is faster and simpler than creating with Windows Disk Management,

but the only difference I have seen between Lazesoft and W.D.M. created VHD's is in the placement of the MFT zone etc..

 

Lazesoft uses CNET as the freeware host,

and you MUST use the very prominent button labelled "Download NOW"

and then ignore the new screens with new DOWNLOAD buttons which will give you "extra gifts"

So long as you wait you should get the 25.5 MB lsrshsetup.exe which is the real thing.

 

An alternative site is :-

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Lazesoft-Recovery-Suite-Home.shtml

That also needs caution and due diligence - the most obvious DOWNLOAD button actually gives you CD burner software.

 

Regards

Alan