Insane Defragmenting Time

[Cuckoo]

Okay, so I decided I'd defragment my laptop hard drive and run all the standard clean-up programs to speed it up a little bit. I've had it a little less than a year but have never defragmented it. So, I download System Mechanic 4 which allows a 30 day free trial. I won't pay for it, but it's a neat little program that does quite a bit. Anyway, after cleaning everything, I decide to do an "Optimized Defragmenting" which is obviously more thorough than the regular Windows provided defragmenting or the other quick option that SM4 offers. So... the kicker?

It's been plugging away for 41 hours!!! Is this normal? I know my hard drive really needed it, but... seriously. Has anyone else had a defrag take this long?

[Yossarian]

I've had a defrag take about 4 full days before. It was a file server from work that had a 120 gig disk.

It had been used for a few years without defrag. and was FULL with files. many of which were edited / deleted / replaced multiple times.

Thing was a MESS.

[Cuckoo]

That makes sense, but this is just a 40 gig drive that still has 30 gig or so free, and I haven't even had the thing a year. But there aren't any error messages or anything, and it's not frozen. It's plugging away. Just seemed really weird to me, and I didn't know if it was typical or if it was typical with SM4.

[CraigSca]

Wow - that's insane. That's why I'm glad I still use my trusty 40MB hard drive from 1988.

[Yossarian]

SM4?

I've had some machines appear to get NOWHERE when defragging. But windows was occassionally writing files in the background and when that happened disk defragmenter had to stop and restart.

[Noble_Platypus]

Does it keep resetting? or is it just chugging away?

[Cuckoo]

Originally Posted by Noble_Platypus

Does it keep resetting? or is it just chugging away?

It keeps chugging away, hasn't reset at all to my knowledge, and it even looks like it's making progress by the graphic. I haven't done anything on the computer while it's been going so any file movement would be minimal to zero.

[Anthony]

i'm defragmenting now but have never done it before because i didn't know these things take like years to do and would always get impatient- can i run my computer on standby when i'm not using it?

[Draft Dodger]

Originally Posted by Cuckoo

Anyway, after cleaning everything, I decide to do an "Optimized Defragmenting" which is obviously more thorough than the regular Windows provided defragmenting or the other quick option that SM4 offers. So... the kicker?

It's been plugging away for 41 hours!!! Is this normal? I know my hard drive really needed it, but... seriously. Has anyone else had a defrag take this long?

you sure about the "obviously" part? Windows defragmenter isn't that bad...I wouldn't just assume another program is better.

personally, I defrag pretty regularly, mostly because it seems to take less time that way. I use Diskeeper, which I got for free, otherwise I would just use the Windows defrag. that all being said, the defragmentation myth has taken some hits lately - I've seen some stuff coming out lately that show there's no real performance boost gained from defragmenting.

41 hours doesn't sound right. something must be accessing that drive/partition, and that's going to slow it down a lot. will the program run in safe mode? that might help (less programs that access the drive are going to be loaded). if not, make sure everything non-essential is not running (virus software, for example).

[Yossarian]

run on standby?

not sure what you mean here really...

When you defrag the machine, its fully powered and running. When it finishes defragging it will just stay on, doing nothing.

Defragging doesn't require much (if any) user input when going... You can just set it up to go overnight or something.

It doesn't usually need these insane times. if you do it regularly (which i know you dont), like once a month or something its probably no more than 1 or 2 hours..

[Cuckoo]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

you sure about the "obviously" part? Windows defragmenter isn't that bad...I wouldn't just assume another program is better.

personally, I defrag pretty regularly, mostly because it seems to take less time that way. I use Diskeeper, which I got for free, otherwise I would just use the Windows defrag. that all being said, the defragmentation myth has taken some hits lately - I've seen some stuff coming out lately that show there's no real performance boost gained from defragmenting.

41 hours doesn't sound right. something must be accessing that drive/partition, and that's going to slow it down a lot. will the program run in safe mode? that might help (less programs that access the drive are going to be loaded). if not, make sure everything non-essential is not running (virus software, for example).

According to articles I've read in PC World and the like, Windows defragmenter does just a basic, quick job, but programs like System Mechanic do the most thorough job. I haven't read anything that said there wasn't a real performance boost, and I typically notice gain even using the Windows defragmenter if I haven't run one in a while.

I don't know what could be making this one take so long, but I'm going to give it a while longer, I think, since it appears to be making progress, and I don't really need the laptop right now. I'm not sure what would be accessing the drive; it has fewer programs running on it than my PC. Of course, I've never used the "Optimized Defragmenter" that SM4 offers before, only the quick version. That usually takes anywhere from 2-5 hours on my PC.

I wondered if anyone else has used this program and had it take this long. If it keeps running into tomorrow morning or looks like it isn't making progress, I'll probably take your suggestion DD and run it in safe mode or something.

[Pumpy Tudors]

I hear that PowerDefrag is good, because it shuts down (or at least temporarily disables) any attempt to write to the disk outside of the defragmenting process. If it's been going for 41 hours, I would really think that something is writing to the drive and making the program start over.

[SunDevil]

Just a thought. Disconnect your computer from the internet and/or network (if applicable). Then try to turn off any background programs you do not need. Then try the defrag again. I had this happen to me a couple of times, and when I disconnected my computer from the network, it went by a lot faster.

[Cuckoo]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

Just a thought. Disconnect your computer from the internet and/or network (if applicable). Then try to turn off any background programs you do not need. Then try the defrag again. I had this happen to me a couple of times, and when I disconnected my computer from the network, it went by a lot faster.

Not hooked up to either one actually. But I decided to shut down my antivirus and firewall, and I'll see if that speeds things up.

I'm up to 45 hours now...

[hhiipp]

Cuckoo what OS are you running?

[Cuckoo]

Originally Posted by hhiipp

Cuckoo what OS are you running?

XP

[Comey]

You shouldn't have anything running in the background...probably run it in safe mode (as DD said) or even run msconfig and disable all but the essentials, then run it.

Something has to be writing to the disk, which is causing it to start over again and again.

[Cuckoo]

Yeah, even though it looks like it's plugging away, I think it has to be stuck on something. I'm going to try it again at a later time in safe mode.

[Comey]

Not stuck, per se. But it is writing to the disk will cause it to continually start over.

-John

[chinaski]

if you have very low disk space on the drive that its defraggin, it will take a very long time to work.

[Comey]

He said he has around 3/4 of the disk free.