Another IT question

[meika123]

I have Win XP both at home and at my office. My question is: Do these systems not have disc cleanup and disc defragmenter as part of the package? Just curious-my system seems to be slowing down, and I have not defrag'd since I up-dated my system, and quit using Win 98 as my OS.
Thanks,

Dave in NC

[crokett]

On my XP Pro system: right click my computer --> Manage -->Disk Defragmenter

I have never run XP Home so do not know if it is there or not

[newood2]

Get Diskeeper 9 from Executive Software for defrag, its better that the built-in one.
They have a 15 day trial that can be downloaded.

Howie

[LCHIEN]

on my XP Pro
Start>Control Panel>Adminstrative Tools>Storage> Disk defragmenter

BTW, did you convert the file system to NTFS when you upgraded from 98 to XP? Should get much improved performance.

[cgallery]

Don't defrag your hard drive.

Why?

The process beats their brains out. Defragging is very demanding of all the mechanical components. The intense seeks (many of them 1/3+ stroke) and constant read/writes causes many marginal drives to overheat and fail.

Sure, drives seek and read/write all day long. But rarely do they do it at the intensity that is demanded during defragging. I equate it to getting on the expressway with your car, punching the pedal to the medal, and driving that way for an hour. Pretty hard on the drive train. Same deal w/ your hard drive.

Add to all the above the fact that modern operating systems and filesystems benefit little from defragging. Performance improvements just don't warrant the risk.

Just my $.02. However, I do several data recoveries a week and have found a common thread is that the person had done a defrag just the day before they started having problems.

Need data recovered? I stock over 1,000 boards and nearly as many head stacks and can help with electrical and mechanical problems. I charge about 1/4 to 1/2 what Ontrack and DriveSavers charge.

[MilDoc]

I agree with cgallery. With todays fast drives and processors defragging doesn't save much time comparred to 25 years ago. PCMag confirmed this. I defrag rarely anymore.

[Stormbringer]

on my XP Pro
BTW, did you convert the file system to NTFS when you upgraded from 98 to XP? Should get much improved performance.

Agreed.

Also try the trial version of Tune Up utilities from download.com It gets stellar reviews and I've had very good results with the "1-click maintainence" feature. Don't forget to search for all your "*.tmp" files and whack them to the recycle bin. Run the registry cleaner in tune up as well. Although I haven't had a single problem in the two years I've used Tune up, set a restore point just in case. Check how intrusive your firewall or spyware programs are. Some can really bof things down (ie Norton)

You should notice significant improvements from doing the above, if not perhaps your machine isn't up to running XP (since you said you had Win 98 I'm assuming your machine is kind of old?)

Good luck,
Greg

[meika123]

Agreed.
You should notice significant improvements from doing the above, if not perhaps your machine isn't up to running XP (since you said you had Win 98 I'm assuming your machine is kind of old?)

Good luck,
Greg

Not really Greg,
I replaced the tower, hard drive, processor, Ram, etc. Had I known before hand that I was gonna need all this equip., would've bought a new system.
Thanks Greg and all,

Dave in NC

[25]

You would be surprised how much defragging will still do. I have O&O defrag and have it scheduled to run 3 times a week. It's a bit much granted but especially for loading of larger files the performance boost is noticeable, not to mention boot times are improved as well.

I do have to agree it is much harder on the harddrive when you do it. If you are like me and plan to upgrade regularly this shouldn't be an issue though.

[Bruce Cohen]

Hey Dave,

You can always buy a Mac.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist, BTW how the h**l are you.

Bruce

[vaking]

I both agree and disagree with Cgallery. I agree that disk defrag is demanding on a disk and it is not likely to save performance much. But I believe that most valuable thing you have in computer is your data and staying away from defrag because disk might not survive it is a wrong approach. Defrag being demanding makes it a perfect test. So I suggest - make a backup of valuable data and run the defrag. If the disk fails - disk needs to be replaced anyway and you just backed up data. Do it regularly and you should never need a data recovery service (or build a raid). Data recovery is expensive. If you think your data is valuable so that you would agree to pay for data recovery if it gets lost - prevent the loss.

[cgallery]

So I suggest - make a backup of valuable data and run the defrag. If the disk fails - disk needs to be replaced anyway and you just backed up data.

What if your backup is bad? What if you schedule defrags, as so many do, but fall behind in backups (very typical)? Defragging not only kills marginal drives, but puts unnecessary stress on any drive.

YMMV.

[JamesDad]

Yes, Windows XP has defrag

Open the start menu. Select Programs. Accessories. System Tools. Disk Cleanup and Disk Defrag are both there. You can run them when you want or schedule them to run later. If your computer is running slow, you should also run a couple of different spy search programs to look for spybots on your computer. Then run an antivirus software to search for viruses. Then check to see how much free space you have on your hard drive. If it is low, that could slow things down. Webroot is good spyware. Spybot is good and has a free download. I also use AdAware to remove whatever is left that those miss.
When your computer is up and running, open the task manager using control - alt-delete and see what is running and how much memory each thing is eating up. See if there are things running that should not be, or things that you never use anymore but still load on start up. If you need to remove something you dont' use, use the control panel add and remove programs function. I hope this helps you.
JamesDad's wife

[25]

What if your backup is bad? What if you schedule defrags, as so many do, but fall behind in backups (very typical)? Defragging not only kills marginal drives, but puts unnecessary stress on any drive.

YMMV.

Thats a simple one, do as I do and automate you backups. All you have todo is change a tape, CD, or DVD. For my backups I'm at least 2 fault tolerant. My computers performance is more important to me than worrying about the disk dieing early. More often than not, I upgrade before the disk dies anyways.

[cgallery]

Thats a simple one, do as I do and automate you backups. All you have todo is change a tape, CD, or DVD. For my backups I'm at least 2 fault tolerant. My computers performance is more important to me than worrying about the disk dieing early. More often than not, I upgrade before the disk dies anyways.

Well, it is not uncommon for a client sending me a drive to recover data from to also send their backup media. Said backup was supposed to be happening automatically, but wasn't. For example...

A client's consultant setup an automatic backup routine. All the customer had to do was put a tape in the tape drive at the end of the day. During the evening the backup would occur and the tape would be ejected. If something didn't work, the consultant would receive an E-Mail notification and would schedule a visit.

Things worked fine for about a year. Then, the tape drive developed a problem and was unable to perform a backup. The tape was ejected, and the consultant was E-Mailed. However, by this time, the client's ISP had changed and the original outgoing mail server the backup software was set for was no longer available. Long story slightly shorter: Consultant never got the E-Mail.

When I was done recovering the drive, I was able to look at the logs and discovered things had been running this way for four months!

If you love your data, take ownership of the responsibility of backing it up. Start the backup manually. Observe the results when it is done and familiarize yourself with what your screen looks like after a successful backup. Keep track of how long it takes. Attempt a restore of insignificant files from time to time to make certain files can be restored from the backups you're making.

I know this seems overboard. But I've seen it all.

And while I make a large portion of my income from data recovery, I have no hesitation whatsoever in advising people of these steps they can take to avoid ever having to pay me a dime. Because I know most never will.