Vista mft defrag

Windows Vista Defrag? December 03, One of the so-called "nice" new features of Windows Vista is the "rebuilt" defrag engine. Problem is, I don't like it. Also, when I get to see what's happening, it helps me to identify files I know I don't need and I can delete them, and do a follow-up defrag. Diskeeper isn't ready for Vista either. Frankly, I don't know what these people have been doing all this time. They knew Windows Vista was coming out, the defrag API has been readily available to them to get their products ready.

What, were they waiting for Godot? At any rate, Raxco, which makes PerfectDisk, has a free day trial of their Vista-compatible beta, and it works great.

Also, Auslogic has a free defrag that is Vista compatible, but it doesn't offer control of defrag method or offer boot-time defragmentation. Suggestion: Delete your Paging file before defragging requires a reboot, and don't forget to press the "SET" button.

The point I am trying to get across is that Power Defrag can defrag in a fraction of the time it takes Windows Defrag to defragment. Click here to download Power Defragmenter and Contig. They are both bundled together here. What you need to know about contig is that it is a bit different than the other defragment programs out there — it is a single-file defragmenter.

If contig determines that the file can be optimized, it is then moved into the free spaces of the disk. No installation is required. The next step is to run Power Defragmenter. Click next , and you will arrive at the screen below:. Defragment File s : Allows you to defragment up to 4 files Defragment Folder s : Allows you to defragment up to 4 folders Defragment Disk: Allows you to defragment a disk PowerMode TM Disk Defragmentation: Defragments at a power equivalent to two consecutive defragmentations.

Time does not necessarily double. This is pretty much the fastest defragment you can ever get with great effectiveness. Update: This is the only down-side to contig. It does not really tell you how well the fragmentation process went but as you could see from the visuals above, it is quite effective. If you wait minutes before closing the window after the process is finished, the following statistics will be displayed: — Hard Drive Space — Free Space — Largest free space extent — Percent File Fragmentation.

While that may be true, many are noticing an increase in performance once they defrag their system, including myself. To defragment or not to defragment is entirely up to you. Sorry for all those confused. See the link to "HD Tune" in the "See Also" chapter for a nice little free program to measure your disk. The default JkDefrag optimization strategy therefore moves all files to the beginning of the volume.

It is intended for daily use and will simply fill gaps with files from above, very quick and with very little data movement. JkDefrag classifies files into 3 zones: directories zone 1 , regular files zone 2 , and SpaceHogs zone 3. Directories are perhaps the most accessed data on disk, so zone 1 is placed at the beginning of the harddisk.

After the directories comes a free area see below , then zone 2 with regular files, another free area, and then zone 3 with SpaceHogs less important files that take up a lot of space. The beginning and end of the zones is determined automatically, see the "-f" option.

A running computer will create and delete temporary files like there is no tomorrow. If the harddisk were completely optimized then the only place for new temporary files would be behind all the other data. Which is rather slow. Sorting the files on your disk can give you even more speed. There are several sorting strategies to choose from see the "-a" options. These are all very slow and intended for occasional use only.

Windows reserves a percentage of the disk for the MFT Master File Table , but can place normal files there if the rest of the disk is full. The files will remain there, even when there is enough space again. JkDefrag looks for files in the MFT reserved space and moves them to normal diskspace, making the reserved space available again for the MFT.

When JkDefrag is running you will see lot's of messages zipping by showing you exactly what is happening. The messages are also stored in the logfile "JkDefrag. The logfile may also contain warning messages, for example when a file could not be moved. This is normal, no need to worry. Windows has many system files that cannot be moved while Windows is running. JkDefrag is completely automatic. The commandline options are not needed for normal use. JkDefrag is ready to run, just click the "JkDefrag" program.

Default behavior is to automatically process all the mounted, writable, fixed volumes on your computer. You can change this behavior with the following commandline options: For example:. The action to perform. The items will not be defragmented and will not be moved. If the mask contains a space then it must be enclosed in double-quotes. Files that match a mask will be moved to the SpaceHogs area. The program has a built-in list for all files bigger than 50 megabytes, files not accessed in the last month, archives, files in the recycle bin, service pack files, and some others.

Disable this list by specifying the special mask "DisableDefaults". Slow down to N percent Default is Set the size of the free spaces to N percent The free spaces are room on disk for temporary files.

There are 2 free spaces, between the 3 zones directories, regular files, SpaceHogs. Select a debug level, controlling the messages that will be written to the logfile. Specify a filename for the logfile. Default is "JkDefrag. Specify empty string "" two double-quotes to disable the logfile. The items to be defragmented and optimized, such as a file, directory, disk, mount point, or volume, including removable media such as floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and other volumes that behave like a harddisk.

If the item contains a space then it must be enclosed in double-quotes. Some examples: JkDefrag C: D:. I have set up a forum for JkDefrag, a place where you can ask questions, give feedback about features you would like, share your experiences, share code that uses the defragger library, and other things about JkDefrag. Jump to JkDefrag forum What is "disk fragmentation"? Imagine a book split into several parts, some pages are over here, other pages in another room on another floor altogether.

You will have to walk a lot when you need to read the book. It may sound silly, but this is exactly what happens to files on your harddisk. Defragmentation will put all the parts fragments back together, making your computer a lot faster.

What is "disk optimization"? Imagine a big library with lot's of books, spread out all over the building and not sorted whatsoever. There is an index telling you exactly where every book is, but you will have to walk a lot when you need several books.

This is exactly what happens on your harddisk, the files that belong to an application can be all over the place, anywhere on the harddisk. Optimization will bring all the files together in one place, leaving the rest of the harddisk empty, and will sort the files, for example alphabetically. How safe is it? Most defragmenters are based on this API, including commercial defragmenters.

It does not touch the disk by itself, and is therefore extremely solid. If your disks use NTFS then you're even safe when the computer crashes in the middle of defragmenting.