Thanks Sasha, I will give it a try.
Other good defragmenter worth using is WinContig which can also be found on SnapFiles.
It’s fast and has most of functionality similar to my Power Defragmenter. Just with nicer GUI and few more options. Some might like it more.
Another freebie defragmenter i really like is JKDefrag, but i prefer this GUI for JKDefrag since it also has PageDefrag built in there. Here’s the link: http://www.emro.nl/freeware/
I just found a link to a nice review of defrag tools on the JKDefrag forum. Here’s the link if anyone is interested. http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/04/great-defrag-shootout-part-1.html
Nice article Darth_Mikey.
I have run some tests after my weekly maintenance where I take images of my hard disk partitions and save them to another hard disk. This usually results in two files of about 1.7GB and 1.9GB, which are usually in 2-3 fragments each.
Interestingly the smaller file took 32 minutes and the larger one took only 30 minutes this is largely in line with PowerDefragmenter with contig with no huge difference for me.
The major difference is the graphical representation of the defrag (like windows defrag), but more importantly is the progress information and number of clusters processed against the total clusters for that file. So you know where you are and have a reasonably good idea how much longer it will take.
PageDefrag is a must have. Run at boot time and defrag off-line the registry and other system files.
Quality from Sysinternals.
70k Standalone
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PageDefrag.mspx
Simple…
First run Windows Disk Cleaner to clean all the unneeded stuff (temporary files).
Then download this tool, scan with it and fix everything it finds:
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winregrepair.htmlNext step is this tool (not much to write about it just follow the steps):
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/alregdefrag.htmlIn the end use this tool on all your partitions/disks (it may take a while first time):
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/alregdefrag.htmlMake sure you do in the same order for best possible results.
All tools are very straight forward so i don’t think you’ll have much problems with them. They are very effective though and completelly free to use. Hope it helps.
Hi RejZoR
I`ve ran all those programmes you suggested, thinks have improved slightly! Is there anything else i can do in order to boost performance?
Hi!
Is there any thing else i can do in order to boost my computers performanace!
I don’t believe you mentioned what our CPU or RAM is ?
One major improvement is usually by increasing RAM.
You should also ensure that you only run absolutely essential applications at boot, many programs on installation set themselves to start on boot when it isn’t required, media players are common for this and don’t need to run until you click on a media file.
Over 4 years you have probably installed lots of applications, have check and clean out your system of unused applications.
I honestly can’t see how the XP defragmenter does a better job as I check with the windows defrag, analyse to check if it needs defragmenting I run Power Defragmenter, if I check after it is complete (Very Quick) it shows zero fragmentation. So I can’t see how you can get better than zero fragmentation.
The time taken to defragment a disk with XP’s defragmenter I could almost etch the contents of the disk in stone, a slight exaggeration I know, but like if too short for the XP defrag.
After running Power Defragmenter I do an analysis with XP’s defragmenter & it shows files scattered all over. I then run XP’s defragmenter to compact them. The whole idea of a defragmenter is so Windows doesn’t have to waste time finding & putting files together. I may be incorrect in my judgment, maybe you can show where I’m wrong.
What you are seeing isn’t fragmented files, otherwise you would see a list of all fragmented files in the log of XP’s Defrag.
There is fragmentation and there is also optimisation where you also organise the files after they are defragmented so the files are at the start of the drive, there are different options for optimisation as well. You can have most frequently used files at the start of the drive and several other options to place files at the start of a disk to reduce disk read head travel.
Files that are fragmented are a greater impact in terms of reduced speed as the disk read head has to flit around the disk many times to read the data. Whilst defragmented and optimised files also only require one movement of the disk read head modern drives won’t see much difference between retrieving data from a single location.
So personally I don’t thing a user would see much difference as we are talking micro seconds difference to read a file at the start of the disk to one at the end of the disk.
Contig.exe is a defragmentor only not a file optimiser, you could use JKDefrag which I also believe is quicker than XPs and if you use the JKDefragGUI it makes these file optimisation options very configurable in a GUI interface.
Thank you David
Your welcome.