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Hawkofglory

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 25, 2008
22
0
Alright so RIGHT NOW I need to defrag my drive so I can put my Windows xp partition on but I need to boot from something external and CDmaker dosent work
I'm running a MacBook 2.1ghz with 1 gig ram I got it with a free iPod touch
 

xUKHCx

Administrator emeritus
Jan 15, 2006
12,583
9
The Kop
On the Mac side? It can't be done. It doesn't need to be done. Don't try to do it; you'll screw stuff up.

It can be done, and it is needed depending on your usage.

That said the quickest and safest way I have essentially defraged a drive is to clone, wipe, clone back.
 

bearbear

macrumors regular
Jun 28, 2008
161
1
For some users (like me) a defrag definitely needed to be done in order to partition for boot camp. I used Drive Genius 2.1 to do this and it works very well. Good luck.
 

Stridder44

macrumors 68040
Mar 24, 2003
3,973
198
California
Alright so RIGHT NOW I need to defrag my drive so I can put my Windows xp partition on but I need to boot from something external and CDmaker dosent work
I'm running a MacBook 2.1ghz with 1 gig ram I got it with a free iPod touch

I'm assuming you're talking about trying to partition the drive (with Boot Camp) so you can install Windows, and get the message "Files cannot be moved" or something along those lines? What's the free iPod Touch have to do with it?
 

SHADO

macrumors 6502a
Aug 14, 2008
968
0
Beach
You could also use DiskWarrior, which dr-frags the directory, which is usually the only thing that you need to de-frag on the Mac side. I have also used Drive Genius 2 with great success when needed, but try DiskWarrior first.
 

dkeninitz

macrumors regular
Feb 16, 2003
182
0
Germantown, MD
It can be done, and in certain circumstances SHOULD be done. The notion that Mac drives don't get fragmented is nonsense. OS X does some defragmenting on the fly, but only on files larger than 20mb (if I recall correctly). I use TechTool Pro for this. I find it especially advantageous on our household's various Mac laptops: these tend to have smaller hard drives, and over time as programs are added and deleted, as well has files being added and deleted from general use, there's a performance drop. Apple would like to have everyone believe otherwise, but they're being disingenous.

On the bright side, it's required far less frequently than on a Windows machine. I probably defrag our Macs once a year, maybe a little more frequently when I know there's been a lot of adding and deleting. Windows is once a month.

I've defragmented Mac laptops for a couple of friends (machines that admittedly had too little remaining hard drive space, and which had been in use for a year or two), and the performance improvement was immediately obvious post-defrag.
 
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