did anybody try defraging boot files

[Gaurav]

has anybody tried defraging boot files using diskeeper,

my system takes long time to hibernate usually more than a minute, (earlier it took only 10 seconds or less) but now it's becoming slower and slower.
searched for articles using google and found out to enable write caching for the drive , but it is enabled on my hdd already.

what might be the reason for the slow down. am thinking of using diskeeper for defraging my pagefile.sys and hibernate.sys file.

will it be safe for me to do this.

some years back I used perfect disk for this purpose on my old machine. and totally blowed it's boot record could not boot into windows then.

suggest me something techies. i have done a lot of search on this. of no use..



help !!!!

 

[sakumar79]

You can make use of PageDefrag and TuneXP (both free software) to help you defrag boot files and registry...

Arun

 

[Gaurav]

will it be safe to defrag the boot files using pagedefrag

 

[krates]

i use iobit defregment and that software is ausumn my computer speed has increased a lot due to that software

 

[sakumar79]

@Gaurav, with PageDefrag, you can defrag the page file and the registry.... With TuneXP you can defrag the boot files and move them for faster performance...

Arun

 

[anandk]

^ i second this. both pagedefrag and driver heavens tunexp are great !

 

[Gaurav]

what might be the reason for such a drastic slow down., the performance while hibernating is getting severe day by day.,
though there are no such issues when i donot use hibernate feature.
why was it(hibernate) faster before, ?
my ques is still not answered, not satisfied.,,, somebody help me.

 

[Doomsday]

I have done boot-time defrags many times with Diskeeper Pro, and it does a good job. It will defrag the MFT, directories and page file during the boot-time defrag, but I dont think it will touch the hibernate file because according to their technical documentation, it's not safe to mess with $hiberfil.sys.

You could always just reset/delete your hibernate file and create a new one from scratch.
See this link on how to delete the hibernate file
*www.wikihow.com/Remove-Hiberfil.sys-From-Your-Computer

 

[Indyan]

I use perfect isk to do that. Diskeeper doesnt handle mft's very well.

 

[Doomsday]

I use perfect isk to do that. Diskeeper doesnt handle mft's very well.

What do you mean ? In fact, Diskeeper handles the MFT better than any other defragger out there. In the previous version (2007) it had the option for the user to manually enlarge the MFT if so desired, to guard against potential fragmentation of the MFT. In the current version (Diskeeper 2008 ) , the MFT is automatically resized as necessary without even bothering the user. AFAIK, no other program can do this.

I am a bit biased towards Diskeeper was because it has always worked very well for me whether it is a normal defrag or a boot-time defrag.

 

[Indyan]

Now, the question I ask is - Enlarging MFT size usefull and does it do any good? Windows already maintaines a buffer zone around the mft.

To prevent the MFT from becoming fragmented, the Windows NTFS driver will maintain a buffer zone around the MFT. It will not allocate from this zone until the remainder of the disk is full. As the free space diminishes, it relaxes this zone.

Source
Some of my issues with diskeeper :
i) Bloated stats : The performance improvement stats it shows after every defrag is bs
ii) Doesnt consolidate files.
iii) Doesnt display any stats relating to mft. PD actually tells you the fragmentation level of the mft. Also PD manages to defrag mft during normal defragmentation.

 

[Doomsday]

Now, the question I ask is - Enlarging MFT size usefull and does it do any good? Windows already maintaines a buffer zone around the mft.

IIRC about 12% of the drive space is preallocated for the MFT upon formatting. If the MFT fills up beyond this, then windows will, ofcourse, expand the MFT. But depending on the file environment around it, the MFT may or may not fragment. Diskeeper tries to prevent this by enlarging it pre-emptively. Whether and how much it helps, I can't say; it would probably depend on the specific situation at hand. They wouldn't have put in the feature for no reason.

My point was that it's incorrect to say that DK does not 'handle' the MFT properly, when in reality, it has more options for messing around with the MFT (if you desire) than most other software.

Source
Some of my issues with diskeeper :
i) Bloated stats : The performance improvement stats it shows after every defrag is bs

As does every defragger. DK is not alone. And I've tried all the big 3, trust me.

ii) Doesnt consolidate files.

Free space consolidation is useful up to an extent. Full consolidation of free space everytime you defrag is an utter waste of time and resources. What's the point in pushing up all the files into one gigantic block, only to have them fragment as soon as they are modified again.

iii) Doesnt display any stats relating to mft. PD actually tells you the fragmentation level of the mft. Also PD manages to defrag mft during normal defragmentation.

Actually i dont remember if it does or does not; I think it does when you look at the list of fragmented files. I'll check later since I am on a different PC right now.

As for PD defragging the MFT, none of the defraggers can defrag the MFT completely online. Part of it is done during boot-time only, as with all defraggers, to the best of my knowledge.

What defragger you pick (DK/PD/whatever) is ofcourse, a personal decision, and that's great because there are enough choices in the market to keep everyone satisfied.

 

[Gaurav]

well well well,
finally my hdd crashed (not a good news) :'(

don't know the reason..... but probably it's the slow performance of it.

got a new one and restored the image created using trueimage.
the system is working fine till now, but i doubt that the software DISKEEPER is compatible with TRUEIMAGE.....

read somewhere on the net that it's not compatible (you can have either of the software and if you installed both you better be prepared for the coaster)
finally faced the problem and learned the hard way. uninstalled diskeeper, will give IOBIT a try.
it's free (the exciting part, good things are still free ).... ,
will then post after the performance is gained ?

till then stay tuned.

also thanks a lot for the awesome feedback on my prob. will be replying soon to this soft of prob am facing.