[af7l]

I have run the Vista defrag utility twice, and re-booted my PC. Then I've rerun the defrag analysis and it continues to tell me that I should run the defrag utility to improve performance. Does anyone know if this is typical, or if perhaps, the utility does its job in stages - i.e., having to rerun it several times? Thanks for any info you can offer.

[Mumbodog]

No, it usually does it in one pass, you can use the admin command prompt to querry the condition of the file system.

Open the command prompt as admin and type in

defrag /?

hit enter


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[af7l]

Thanks, Mumbodog, for the assistance. I did what you suggested and it showed that my fragmentation is nil. That's good to know. Funny that Vista didn't tell me that things were good...

Thanks again.

[Mumbodog]

I like the old XP defrag myself, i was not happy when they dumbed it down in Vista and Windows 7.

You are Welcome.

Welcome to TSG forums.


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[pseudalus]

I've tried two different 3rd-party programs to defrag my HDs since I've read many times that the Windows defrag program doesn't work well. One is "Ultimate Defrag" by DiskTrix and "Defraggler" by Piriform but both have done the same confusing thing. The analaysis of fragmentation will yield some percentage like 17% but once I run the program it reanalyzes and says there is a larger percentage fragmented like 23%. The Windows command line check you suggested says 0% fragmentation and the graphic the defrag programs uses to demonstrate how well they worked seems to have consolidated everything very well but still says a higher percent fragmented. Could this be because I've only used up 25% of a 360Gb HD? I got NO help from either software maker.

[Mumbodog]

Could this be because I've only used up 25% of a 360Gb HD?

No, the more freespace the better the defragger can work. When you get below 15% freespace, defraggers have a hard time doing their jib efficiently.

I would trust the command line analysis over 3rd party apps.


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[pseudalus]

thanx. I thought I oughta trust the Windows built-in especially since the programs' graphics showed everything tight together.