Defrag

What does Disk defragmenter do? I have seen that some of you defrag you computer every 2 weeks. Does it delete any files? What about Disk Cleanup? What files does it delete?

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RE: Defrag, West_Coast_Railroader, Jul-06-02, 09:38 AM, (1) RE: Defrag, Stooopid_person, Jul-06-02, 09:42 AM, (2) RE: Defrag, IcyFire, Jul-06-02, 09:54 AM, (3) RE: Defrag, Stooopid_person, Jul-06-02, 09:57 AM, (4) RE: Defrag, Motley24Crue2, Jul-06-02, 10:03 AM, (7) RE: Defrag, Motley24Crue2, Jul-06-02, 09:59 AM, (5) RE: Defrag, BNSF4723, Jul-06-02, 10:03 AM, (6) RE: Defrag, Stooopid_person, Jul-06-02, 10:31 AM, (8) RE: Defrag, I_totally_love_trains, Jul-06-02, 10:37 AM, (9) RE: Defrag, MKT1972, Jul-07-02, 12:04 PM, (19) RE: Defrag, rpicardi1, Jul-07-02, 03:52 PM, (20) RE: Defrag, MKT1972, Jul-07-02, 04:42 PM, (21) RE: Defrag, railnut, Jul-06-02, 10:41 AM, (10) RE: Defrag, Stooopid_person, Jul-06-02, 10:47 AM, (11) RE: Defrag, IcyFire, Jul-06-02, 10:54 AM, (12) RE: Defrag, Stooopid_person, Jul-06-02, 11:01 AM, (13) RE: Defrag, ATSF, Jul-06-02, 11:17 AM, (14) RE: Defrag, Stooopid_person, Jul-06-02, 11:20 AM, (15) RE: Defrag, jtsdadinaz, Jul-06-02, 12:31 PM, (16) RE: Defrag, black5, Jul-07-02, 06:38 AM, (17) RE: Defrag, Transcon, Jul-07-02, 11:56 AM, (18)

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The purpose of defrag is to put all the fragmented files back together,over a period of time as you use you computer and all the different programs and download stuff files can get fragmented and be scattered all over the hard drive....defrag repairs it all and t helps speed up some programs a little as all the program files are back together.Before activating defrag turn off screen-saver function until defrag is finished because it does interfere with defrag.Disk clean up does......it has a specified menu to which stuff can be erased it doesn't just erase any program or file.
It will clean out your internet browser temporary folders.
Its nothing to be afraid of,just look at the menu and check off you want cleaned up.I hope this helps!

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>The purpose of defrag is to put all the fragmented files
>back together,over a period of time as you use you computer
>and all the different programs and download stuff files can
>get fragmented and be scattered all over the hard
>drive....defrag repairs it all and t helps speed up some
>programs a little as all the program files are back
>together.
>
What do you mean?

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think of your hard drive like a freight yard, you have mixed freight on track 1, tankers on track 2, and mixed freight on tracks 3,4, and 5, here's the problem, you have to get that mixed freight broke down to cars of the same type, intermodal on track 1, coal on track 2, and the reefers on track 3, so there easier to find, and faster to find, thats what defrag does, it puts the file peices back together to speed up performance, I dont know if this is a good anology or not, but i hope it helps

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Why does the file pieces can broken up and seperated?

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>Why does the file pieces can broken up and separated? Think of a Magnet... if you drop it the magnet will not be as Strong as it was before.... Well your Hard Drive is somewhat of the same way, Over time (Which Varies, on how often you download/Move files and so on) the drive becomes Fragmented (Files get Thrown around)...Well that's what Defrag is for to Correct that problemBob
Philadelphia, Pa

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>think of your hard drive like a freight yard, you have mixed
>freight on track 1, tankers on track 2, and mixed freight on
>tracks 3,4, and 5, here's the problem, you have to get that
>mixed freight broke down to cars of the same type,
>intermodal on track 1, coal on track 2, and the reefers on
>track 3, so there easier to find, and faster to find, that's
>what defrag does, it puts the file pieces back together to
>speed up performance, I dont know if this is a good anology
>or not, but i hope it helps That's a very good way of Putting it or for that Mater try and Drop a Magnet (Doesn't work very well when it is dropped)Bob
Philadelphia, Pa

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When you install different programs over and over in different places you separate similar programs and their counterparts. Disk Defrag. puts em back together with their similars and counterparts.*~þHÃt*Rat~**~classic american playa~*

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What do you mean by similar counterpart? All the .txt files together, all the jpeg files together. Or I place a txt file in a directory. Then you couldn't find it. So you defrag and put in the original place.

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Before you defrag go to start and go to Run and type in MSCONFIG. Choose General and then choose selective startup. Uncheck the box beside the text that says 'Load Startup Items' and then press Apply. This will turn off all startup items (items down by the clock in the taskbar) that can also interfere with Defrag. After defrag turn them back on by following the instructions above and put a check in that box that we unchecked earlier and then press Apply.
When you delete files off your PC the empty spaces are still there even though they don't appear to be. Defrag closes up these empty spaces so your programs can search and find files faster which makes the programs operate a little faster.It's also a good idea to run Windows ScanDisk before you defrag your computer.Adam

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Actually the best way to defrag is in safe mode. That ensures things like cable and DSL modems are not up and running because the last thing you want to shut down while you're up and running is a firewall. And besides Windows will make you reboot when you switch off Virtual Memory (the swap file) so you just as well go into safe mode. And I believe Windows defrag is set by default to scan for errors before it starts defragging.MKT1972

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I shut off the cable modem and unplugged the cable before running Defrag.With all of the virus, worms, web bugs, and other crap floating around out there, when I'm not on the net, the cable modem is off. When I'm not using my computer, it is shut off at the battery backup.Most systems can be turned on via a modem command if they are not physically shut down. (Power is unavailable if you pull the plug or shut off the power at the power strip.) No one has to do a B&E to access your computer when it is connected to an online service and is shut down in standby mode. The hacker, Big Brother, or other user can send a packet instructing your unprotected computer to turn on, install snoopware or other garbage into your system, and then instruct your computer to shut down. (This feature can be disabled in the BIOS on some motherboards.)Defrag works best if all the other apps are shut down first because if some other app accesses the hard drive, the process has to start over from the beginning.
Windows defrag will scan for errors and, if it finds any will stop. Therefore, run the Check Drive For Errors first.
Defrag runs three times faster on drives using DMA access.Note on Disk Cleanup,If you have any other files on your hard drive named "Temp", Disk Cleanup will delete their contents as well. Best if you clean the files out yourself manually first, empty the Trashcan, Deleted Files folder, houseclean your Inbox, Sent Mail, Deleted Items from your E-Mail, etc... before running defragSRV Ron

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Thats the whole point of going to safe mode the ethernet card or modem drivers arent even loaded then, so therefore the PC cant even see the modem to know its even there. Ethernet cards can be configured to not wake on LAN so only you can wake them up and even then if you are in normal mode and the PC goes to standby the firewall should still be protecting you because all drivers and programs are loaded.MKT1972

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Defrag will take all of your fragmented files and reconnect them in one are on your hard drive. When a drive is new, most of the data will stay sequential. After time, you will delete things, you swap file, unless made static, will expand and contract leaving holes of space on the hard drive. The swap file has a bad habit of migrating all over the hard drive, thus slowing down your computer as it searches all over your platters for the pieces. as time goes by, newly installed files and software will start to fill in the holes thus creating even more time the computerspends searching for all the fragments of a file before it can actually process the data.
Defragging the drive will re-arrange the data on the hard drive so that files are in one sequential line, greatly speeding up the time the hard drive takes to aquire a file or files and getting it to the CPU faster.
The worst offender, like I mentioned above, is the swap file and MS defrag does not defrag the swap file. The best remedy for this is Norton Disk Doctor. I prefer Norton Utilities over the default Windows facilities as they are more stable and do a better job. Even with the default hard drive utilities you will see a marked increase in speed and and less hard drive access time if the drive is defragged regularly. I do mine weekly, usually Friday night. You can also schedule Windows to run defrag and a given time, like in the wee hours if you leave your computer on, so it doesn't interfer with your simming time....
Defragging does not delete any files but you cannot recover a deleted file after defrag as the deleted files data and flags will be over written by a file that was defragged and is now on that
area of the drive.
Hope that helped.....

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How long does it take to defrag a 20GB(2GB empty)with a P3 667Mhz, 128MB RAM

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well since i have the smae computer specs, only i have a 30 gig drive, partitioned into 3 parts (linux, 98, and XP) it took me about 5 hours using the XP defrager on the largest partition, C: that was after i didnt defrag after a month, now i do it every sunday night, to keep the times down

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Then it will take me 10hours. I haven't defraged since I bought it 2 years ago.

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-06-02 AT 11:18 AM (EDT)

Have a 120GB Hard Drive running under XP. It takes 45 min to defrag it.

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How often do you defrag, what is your processor speed, RAM?

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The best way to scandisk and defrag a Win98, WinME, Win95 system is to:1. Remove the swap file by changing it in computer properties to none or disabled "windows will complain that it is not a good idea". Previous poster was correct in that the swap file is all over the place. By removing it and defragging, you put it at the end of your files.
Old technician's trick from Win31 days.2. now run scandisk and defrag. Do not minimize the defragger as it will stop functioning until brought back to the front.
What happens is, as you remove and add files, windows puts them in the next available place on the drive that is marked as empty, after a time you end up with files all over and defragging puts them back together in one spot, just like a long train, starting with folders first. Norton will go thru the swap file, but, I have never seen it pack it up and put it together, I always remove or disable the swap file and put it back afterwards, creating a new one at the end of the files and one that is all together in one place.

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-07-02 AT 06:39 AM (EDT)

The analogy of the freight yard is very good....
If for example you deleted a 320 MB route from the route folder to make space to load route A (220 MB) and route B (200 MB) the program would place route A and 100 MB of route B in the space created by the delete and the remainder would be placed in the next available space...which could be 3 routes further down your drive. If a patch comes out for route A that will be placed after the data from route B...many MB from the original route A.
Defragmenting puts all the As and Bs together in sequential order which means data is easier and faster to find....which is a very good thing.!!!!
With MSTS using 1000s of files I defrag every 7/10 days or before installing a new route for example. I use Norton systemworks which is excellent (in my opinion) for all the maintenance and "housekeeping" of my system (system checks,file deletion, transfer and backup, defragging etc...)
I think that there is a demo version of Power Defrag on the Net...I have used it a lot and it seems to speed up the defrag operation and works well.
Have fun.!!!!!!!
Georges from London.

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WHOA! This is wierd, I just defragmented my hard drive overnight (first time in like 3 months) and someone just happens to mention defragmenting the very next day. Strange...

I will never let go of the railroad that inspired me to get involved with trains!

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