Suggestions please for fixing the mess

[JeffS]

Hi, I guess I am an idiot for not doing more research.  Defraggler did not do what I expected so...any suggestions on fixing the mess that has resulted from using this program.

Background

Laptop with a 1TB HDD, was at 700GB so I off loaded 500GB and decided after all updates etc to run Defraggler.  It "analyzed" 200GB in use with

50GB of files 

25% "Fragmentation"

So I ran Defraggler - it ran for over 24 hours with a couple stoppages but that is a whole other story and not important (I hope) - other than a waste of HDD 'usage' but 'in for a penny, in for a pound' so I kept it going

Now, I have a HDD filled to 406.5GB with 70% Fragmentation

How do I repair/fix this mess of a HDD now? (No, there was no warning not to use the program on a non-SSD drive.  Yes, there was a warning it might temporarily use some extra space to do the job)

Thank you for any suggestions.

[JeffS]

I should not have written that before breakfast - major details wrong

After running Defraggler

571GB used space with 400GB of fragmented files

Even worse...

[nukecad]

Hi JeffS,
let's see if we can sort out what has happened here.

Firstly there is no problem using Defraggler with HDDs, people have been doing that for years.
You can also use it to Optimize SSDs, but TBH I leave that to Windows and the SSD itself.

This advice is for a HDD. (not for a SSD).

You said in your first post that Defraggler has not done what you expected, often that's a case of not understanding that there are two different types of 'Defragging'.

And yes, the stoppages during defragging may have helped make things more messy but we should be able to clear that up again.

From the time it took I'm guessing that you just clicked the 'Defrag' button after analyzing.

What happened?

As said there two processes that are both referred to as defragging - Defragmenting and Consolidation - and they do very different things.

• Defragmenting is about getting each file in one piece, so that it can be loaded slightly quicker.
• Consolidation is about getting all the files together in a block in the least number of clusters, so they leave more 'free clusters' on the drive.

Consolidation is what was wanted/needed in the days of smaller drives, and so it is what most people historically think of as 'defragmenting' even though it's really Consolidation.
With todays larger drives it's not needed as much, and because it can take ages on a large drive experienced users avoid doing it.

With a 1TB drive that's over 70% full a drive consolidation can take a long time, even after you had removed the 500GB of files the remaining files may still have been scattered all over that 70% of the drive so would take some time to consolidate.

To pack the files into the least number of clusters Consolidation can actually leave some files more fragmented than before, which seems to be what you are seeing here.
ie. The files have been moved into a smaller space on the drive (which I think is what you wanted) but to do that they have been fragmented more than they were before.

So what to do now to clean things up again?

By default Defragler does a mix of both Consolidation and Defragmentation - but you can tell it to do only one or the other.

With todays larger drives it's usually better just to do a 'File Defragmentation' and forget about the consolidation.

So the first thing to do now is to get your file fragmentation down by doing a 'Files only' defragment.

See this link for how to do a 'Files only' defragment without the consolidation, that will get the files into one piece each and the fragmentation percentage down, it will also be much quicker than trying to consolidate the whole drive.
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/59792-need-3rd-option-besides-quick-defrag-and-defrag/#comment-326076

Having done that do another Analyze and look at the Drive Map to see where the files are located. I think they may possibly be reasonably consolidated already.
For example this is a 500GB drive with 65GB used and 1% file fragmentation (the red bits).
It's reasonably consolidated, most of the clusters are together at the start, so I wouldn't bother consolidating it anymore.

If you do still want to consolidate the drive to try and get 'all the files at the start with no gaps' (the Holy Grail of drive consolidation, it's hardly ever achieved) then do a consolidation only - that will still take a long time with a 1TB drive.

To do a 'Consolidation only' use Action>Advanced>Defrag Freespace. Don't use the "Allow fragmentation" option, that will just fragment your files again to try and pack them in tighter.
Once you have got the files consolidated you should normally stick with just doing 'Files Only' from then on.

 

[JeffS]

Hi Thank you very much for all of that information.  I had read another of your posts (I believe the one you linked to) prior to posting my question - and yes, I did assume that Defraggler was "just" going to de-fragment...the button I have is just called "Optimize" so I blindly clicked on that assuming the program knew best.  I was wrong.  Too used to loving CCleaner.

My HDD at the start of the "Optimize" was 200GB - most of that the original load of things a couple of years ago.  I wish I had the screen shot but most of the little boxes below the 3rd level were white/clear aka "empty".  I am at a total loss of how Defraggler adds over 377GB of data to my drive.  Like I hope I mentioned originally Defraggler itself was identifying only 50GB needing work/"Fragmented Files".  I say all that to ensure you still think OK to "File only Defrag"

Towards that..I include a pic of a just one screen of the list of files now on my HDD - there are a lot more of them than just that screen.

Next step a File Defrag or delete all these DF*.bin files?

[hazelnut]

See here

https://superuser.com/questions/1507820/can-i-remove-massive-dfoptimize-bin-files-from-c

and here

https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/43801-dfoptmizebinfiles/

(You said your drive was HDD, it is listed in your screenshot as SSD)

[nukecad]

As Hazelnut points out all your screenshots show an SSD and not a HDD.

They work very differently, and need treating differently.

The fact that there are DFOptimize files also says that it is an SDD and not a HDD.
(Wish you had posted those screenshots before, but not to worry).

So forget all of my above post, that advice is for a HDD and not for a SDD. - See below for new advice more relevant to a SSD.
If you have started doing any of it on your SSD then simply click the 'Cancel' button and wait for it to tidy up what it's currently doing up and stop.
 

The DFOptimze files will have been left behind when the Optimize got interrupted:

Quote

it ran for over 24 hours with a couple stoppages but that is a whole other story and not important (I hope)

Yes that is important with an SSD - Because of the 'stoppages' defraggler was unable to clean up those temporary files it had made, so they got left behind taking up disc space.
You can simply delete those DFOptimise files yourself.

 

As I said above I personally would not use a 3rd party tool such as Defraggler on an SSD; let Windows and the SSD itself look after it.
(Windows will ocasionally 'TRIM' the SSD, and then the 'garbage collection' built into the SSD itself will organise it as needed).
Of course it's your choice of what you want to use.

This is my SSD in this laptop, as you can see Windows is set to Optimise it weekly. (Windows sets this automatically when an SSD is first installed, you can change it but there is no real need).
It's also showing that it has been '6 days since last retrim', on 20/02/2022 at 12:23 - so it's due to do another one later today at 12:23 (about 3 minutes from now).

So now we know that you have a SSD the advice changes:

 I would firstly delete those DFOptimize files to get your disc space back.
Then open Windows 'Defragment and Optimise Drives' and check that it's set to run weekly like mine is above.
If you want to you could then click on 'Optimize' there to make Windows run one straight away and TRIM the SSD.

[JeffS]

Thank you hazelnut for the info and links

I guess the DF*.bin files are trash

Maybe that is part of my problem - Defraggler thinks I have an SSD and I am pretty darn sure it is not lol but tell me if I am out to lunch - again

 

[nukecad]

Ah, the plot thickens and we have the wrongly identified drive issue. (Apparently there's a lot of it about).

Defraggler goes by what Windows tells it the drive is, and Windows is known to get it wrong.

It can happen both ways with Windows seeing HDDs as SSDs or seeing SSDs as HDDs.

I've not had it happen myself yet.

However one fix I have heard of is to use the command winsat formal in an elevated command window.
That makes Windows re-assess all your hardware. (Of course Windows might still get it wrong).

To open an elevated command window, click the Start icon and type Command, that will bring up the Command Prompt app, click Run as administrator.
Say Yes to the UAC.
When the elevated command window opens type in winsat formal press enter and let it do its thing.
It should only take a minute or two.

Restart your machine and see if the drive is now being recognised correctly.

Reports say that sometime it works, sometimes not.

[JeffS]

Thank you 

Before running the "winsat formal", I decided to see what Win 10 saw...it sees a HDD (see attached). So it is a Defraggler problem.  So far, looks like I lost 30GB of space (fixing 50GB of fragmented files) for some random Defraggler reasons and years off of the life of the HDD.  Defraggler thinks I have over 80GB of Fragmented files - presumably the original 50 + the new 30 but who knows.  Pictorially my drive looks bad (but you tell me) with a whole lot of "low occupancy fragmented files".  And yes, I am using the most recent version of Defraggler v 2.22.995

What would you do next?

[nukecad]

Quote

What would you do next?

I would run the winsat formal command anyway.

It is not unusual for Windows to have differing information in different places, so it would depend just what Defraggler is reading, and what file from.
I think that Defraggler reads it from the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

Defraggler doesn't try to determine the drive type itself, it would need a large database to store a record of every type of drive, so software such as Defraggler usually queries the Windows information and trusts what Windows says it is.
It's not just Defraggler that has this issue with HDD/SSD drive types, if you do a websearch you'll see it's a common issue, and even Windows built in 'Defragment and Optimise Drives' gets it wrong for some users.

So what happened to you was a combination of a couple things.
Defraggler though the drive was a SSD and so was Optimizing it instead of Defragging/Consolidating - Then that Optimisation got stopped a couple of times, for whatever reason, and so each time it was stopped left stray files behind taking up space.

You just need to clean those stray files up - and then start again using the correct defragmenting:

First - If you haven't already - then using File Explorer manually delete all of the 'DFOptimize' files that Defraggler couldn't clean up because it was stopped a couple of times.
(Then empty your Recycle bin so they are completely gone from the Windows file information).
That should give you (most of) the 'lost' space back.

Next - If you haven't already - Run the winsat formal command to update Windows records of what hardware you have in your machine.
If that updates things so that Defraggler then sees the correct drive type all well and good.
However if Defraggler is still seeing it as the wrong type then as you are sure that your drive is a HDD you can ignore what Defraggler thinks it is.

Next - To get the file fragmentation (red blocks) down do a  'Files only' Defragment as per the link I gave in my first post above.
Defraggler will warn you that it's not what you should be doing on a SSD, but as you are sure it isn't a SDD anyway then just ignore that warning, click Yes, and carry on.

 

If you want to you could then do a 'Defrag Freespace', see my first post above, to get clusters together with less white gaps ie. Consolidation. It will take time to defrag the freespace.
Again Defraggler will warn you about doing that on a SSD, but again as you are sure it's a HDD you can ignore that warning.

Once you've done all that, or as much as you want to, then please come back and report the results.
(I have noticed something else in you last screenshot, (the pagefile), it's not very important and I don't want to confuse you with it here. One step at a time hey)

[JeffS]

Thank you for the further info

I am very confused by where else Win 10 would store this info (tell me where to check if it matters) that could be different from the Win 10 drive optimization program pulls it.  Also - if Defraggler does not pull its data from the same place as the Win 10 drive optimization program - that would be very weird to me.

But I ran that "winsat formal" anyways - no idea what it did as no idea where to see the results but...I shut down Defraggler and started it again and voila - it still thinks it is a SSD.  Win 10 still thinks it is a HDD.

I will probably run the "file only defrag" so thank you for that info

If I run the "Defrag freespace" is that going to be another 30 odd hours of Defraggling again.  Will the File only defrag be a 30 hour defrag again as well?  And if the answer is "no" - what are you basing that answer on?  What is different this time?

Thanks again

[hazelnut]

More reading for you @JeffS

https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/51922-defraggler-222-detecting-my-hdds-as-ssds/

https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52010-hdd-detected-as-ssd/

You seem so sure you have an HDD (even showing a picture of the purchase page)

This is just weird.

[nukecad]

I see from your latest screenshots that the 'Used' has gone down from 570 GB to 225GB, presumably that was all the DF optimize files which have now been deleted?

The File only defrag should take about 20 to 30 minutes in my guess - that is a guess but from experience of doing it on drives with about the same level of file fragmentation.
Various things come into play, such as your CPU speed, how much RAM you have, whether it's connected internally by SATA or externally by a USB cable, and of course how fast your disc can physically read/write.
(You appear to have a 1.8 Ghz CPU that boosts to 4.43 GHZ, 8 GB of RAM, and it's an internal drive - so it should be reasonably quick).

Depending on those various factors it could be half that time, it could be twice that time. I can only take a guess from experience of similar defrags I've done in the past.

Freespace defrag, again going from my previous experiences, I would expect to take around the 3 to 4 hour mark from what was showing on your latest screenshot for a 1TB drive. (225 GB of files is quite a bit to shuffle about).
But again there are too many factors to give anything more than an estimate, which could be wildly out.

Remember that once you have done this initial sorting out then future regular (file only) defrags are going to be much quicker because they'll have less work to do.
Like anything else, once you have put in the initial hard work it's easier to keep on top of things in future.

You can always 'Stop' a defrag if you think it's taking too long - but do it properly and after clicking 'Stop' let Defraggler finish what it is currently working on and tidy up before closing it. (Otherwise you might get lots of temporary files left over, LOL).
(You can then re-Analyze later to see what has been done and what is still needed).

 

And just to add a bit more to the HDD being seen as a SSD (and vice-versa) situation.
Here is one from 2016 where Windows own built in Defragmenter was wrongly seeing a HDD as an SSD, so as you can see it's not a new problem and not just Defraggler.
(And the guy there fixed it by running winsat formal).
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-defrag-showing-hdd-as-ssd/e7e93769-98e3-4cbf-8320-63c1e5b413c0

One thing - did you Restart your computer (Restart not Shutdown/Boot) after runing winsat?
It's usually a good idea to do the occasional Restart to clear Windows of old information. (A Shutdown doesn't clear as much).

 

[Andavari]

1 hour ago, JeffS said:

I am very confused by where else Win 10 would store this info (tell me where to check if it matters) that could be different from the Win 10 drive optimization program pulls it.

In Windows 10 it will also list drive types in: Task Manager > Performance (tab), it's listed on the left side under the disk number, example:
Disk 0 (C:)
SSD

____________________

Windows 10 can easily get the drive type incorrect based upon the file system the drive was formatted as. Such as formatting a USB Flash Drive as NTFS can in some instances cause Windows 10 to detect it as hard disk drive, and it will even allow defragmentation in Optimize Drives on such a USB Flash Drive, whereas it normally wouldn't allow defragmentation if it was formatted as FAT32 (up to 32GB capacity), or exFAT (over 32GB capacity).

[JeffS]

7 hours ago, hazelnut said:

This is just weird.

I am confused - You think it is weird I provided information on what my drive is?  You, in a prior post, said my drive had to be a SSD due to the screen shot from Defraggler. 

I provided a combined screenshot of system info and an Amazon page.  You would have preferred looking up the HD model # yourself to be satisfied it is an HDD and not an SSD?

Huh, and here I thought I was being thorough and providing all the info I can for those trying to help me.  But thanks for the links to what seems to be consensus that Piriform is not updating the program.  Good timing because they want me to renew.

6 hours ago, Andavari said:

In Windows 10 it will also list drive types in: Task Manager > Performance (tab), it's listed on the left side under the disk number, example:

Thank you for that.  Shows up there as HDD as well.

[hazelnut]

@JeffS

You misunderstood me.

I said it was weird because you believe you have a HDD and provide a screenshot showing which one you have, yet Defraggler still insists you have an SSD.

That is why I gave those2 links to show others who had the same issue.