Defragmentation problem.

[Gurutech]

Hello.

I've partitioned about 30 gig of harddisk space so that I can dual boot.
It's working perfect and fine except one thing, defragmentation.

The windows partition is formatted in FAT32..
And when I try to defragment, it takes forever to finish it. Compare to my several yr old pentium 3 pc, which finishes defragmentation less than an hour ( not to mention that the fragment was worse on PC), the defragmentation takes way too long.

I'm guessing that the cuase to this is FAT32 file system. But I may be wrong.
How's everyone on defragment?
Am i only one experiencing this problem? perhaps hardware issue?
help me!

 

[timswim78]

Try booting into safe mode and defragging in safe mode. Defragmenting usually takes much less time in safe mode because fewer processes are running.

 

[Gurutech]

Thanks for help.
Unfortunately, booting in safe mode didn't help ..
I reinstalled the Windows in NTFS file system, and now defragment works perfectly!.


I don't know why though. doesn't make any sense...
but then in windows world, nothing makes sense..

 

[grapes911]

I don't know why though. doesn't make any sense...
but then in windows world, nothing makes sense..

Actually, it makes perfect sense. NTFS is a more advanced file system than the older FAT32. NTFS is journalized and FAT32 is not. Windows takes advantage of the journalized file system and actually attempts to defragment drives when the system is idle (much like OS X, but not nearly as good). While you still have to manually defrag once and a while, there is much less to be done with a NTFS formated drive.

 

[Gurutech]

Actually, it makes perfect sense. NTFS is a more advanced file system than the older FAT32. NTFS is journalized and FAT32 is not. Windows takes advantage of the journalized file system and actually attempts to defragment drives when the system is idle (much like OS X, but not nearly as good). While you still have to manually defrag once and a while, there is much less to be done with a NTFS formated drive.

Oh.. I never knew that the windows would constatly attempt to defrag.

Thanks for the info!

 

[balamw]

Not only does Windows try to keep files defragged on the fly, but NTFS is definitely much less prone to fragmentation than FAT32, and the defragging routines are actually in the OS. You can use contig to access these routines to defrag particular files or folders. I've found it useful when working with larger files like video.

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