In Windows Disk Defragmenter it selects the Recovery Partition & System Reserved by default. Now, i cannot see when you would ever have the need to defrag either of these and have in fact heard that defragmenting these areas could cause more harm than anything. So, with that in mind why does Windows even give you the option to defrag them and why are they selected automatically?
Before anyone says it may be a system fault it is not as i recently bought a brand new laptop and those areas are also selected.
Screen shots attached. Defrag1.jpg shows the initial disk defrag screen once opened and Defrag2.jpg shows the disks selected by default. This is from the new laptop.
Well i am not so sure that this is really the Win 7 system reserved partition, it would literally be named “System Reserved” if it were, unless you renamed it that is. Must be something your laptop manufacturer creates for, i am just guessing, restore purposes or who knows what. What is the size of that partition(SYSTEM) ? The system reserved partition that Windows creates is 100 MB, unless you have changed that.
And yes it would probably be pointless to defrag the system reserved partition since it’s so small and doesn’t really get changed but i never heard it would cause any harm to do so. Where have you read that ?
It is definitely the System Reserved partition that’s just how Samsung choose to put it. I have a Sony Vaio and on that it does say System Reserved and that was also checked by default. As for where i have heard it could cause issues was on sevenforums.com (Well, some said it was harmless, whilst others say it could cause issues)
My opinion on this is if they are selected by default then i seriously doubt dragging them would cause any issues but at the same time because these partitions are never really used defragging them seems a little pointless.
@justinlee: If the partition contains zero fragments it won’t be defragged by WD anyway. It’s not like WD keeps re-arranging the files on there each time it runs, it simply leaves the files alone if they are already defragged. Nothing to worry about, the files on that partition probably were never fragmented to begin with so i suspect WD never even touched them. So what if it’s selected in the defrag schedule, when the schedule will run, WD will analyze the partition and see it has no fragmented files on there and will simply skip to the next partition in the list.
And i really don’t see why it would cause trouble if you defragged it ? That’s nonsense imho, ask that poster to explain exactly what harm would come out of defragging it. A proper technical explanation with some examples and not some random guesswork.
Defragging is like putting a house in order.
I’ve never heard anyone state that an orderly house isn’t as good as a house in disarray.
Defragging simply makes access faster.
This is exactly what i was thinking and you have managed to explain this better than people on Microsoft & Seven forums (See that is why i love this forum ) It am sure they are checked by default but as they never get fragmented Windows will never Defragment them. Simple! Kinda sounds like i knew the answer to the question i asked in the first place i know, but i was receiving so many different opinions i just really wanted this clarified.
I messed up my recovery partition on HP. It failed to restore when I need it.
But I’m not sure which s*** I have done ;D
I really can’t believe on defragmentation to do that.
I couldn’t agree more, who in their right mind wants to go back to the factory installation image. The older your system is 3-6 or even longer the less use doing a factory restore is, you may well have done numerous security updates or even SP updates, not to mention application installations, updates and tweaks to settings.
Making regular Image backups (weekly) with hard disk/partition imaging software is really the way to go and keep at least the last 6 backups. Should you ever have to recover from a problem, be that system problem or virus etc. you just recover to the last image backup.
My Laptop came with Windows Vista some years back. I’ve since upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate.
I certainly have no intentions to ever going back to Windows Vista. ;D
I perform a weekly backup of my system, including image onto an external HDD. I am correct in saying that i can also create a new set of Recovery Disks that if ever needed would restore my system to the exact state it is in now, with all the programs, settings, drivers etc? On previous occasions when i re-installed Windows i created a new set of recovery disks immediately after re-installation so obviously once used they would restore my system to its original ‘Out if the box’ state.
I suppose on the other hand i could question why that would be needed as the back up of my system the way it is now is on an external HDD and constantly being updated so even if i had to re-install Windows using the original restore disks i could then restore to the latest image afterwards. But. I would still like to know if the latest image can be saved to a DVD Boot Disk just in case the external HDD ever failed?
That rather depends on what the backup software is.
I can’t recall if the win7 backup feature allows you to create a recovery disk as such. I have never investigated that as a don’t have a cd/dvd on my win7 netbook.
) It am sure they are checked by default but as they never get fragmented Windows will never Defragment them. Simple! Kinda sounds like i knew the answer to the question i asked in the first place i know, but i was receiving so many different opinions i just really wanted this clarified.