File fragmentation

[rdonovan1]

I was just wondering if anyone might happen to know as to why when I try to defragment my 500 GB Western Digital external hard drive under Windows 2000 Professional the report tells me that the fragmentation is increasing instead of decreasing.

I have tried to do it through my Vista Notebook, but without much success and that is why I am trying to do it through Windows 2000 Professional.

I had an XP based machine before, but that kind of blew up on me.

Nobody really knows what happened to it, but from what we can determine the power supply was bad initially and that caused the fan for the processor to overheat and die and in the process it decided that it was going to take the motherboard with it.

Because of my computer problems I am down to only my Western Digital external drive. I did have a 750 GB Sata drive that I was using initially internally in the XP desktop, but when the XP desktop died on me I took it out and put it in Thermaltake external power unit.

It was working fine until recently, but now from what I can tell the Thermaltake unit died on me as I cannot get it to power even the 350 GB primary drive that I was using in the XP machine and that is what tends to make me think that the ThermalTake unit is the one that died on me.

I don't know why, but lately me and computers just are not getting along too well and that is really kind of irritating.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

If you're using the built in Windows defrag, you might want to try the following:

1. First run chkdsk on the drive and check the auto repair and try to reclaim bad sectors options (requires reboot).

2. Then use Smart Defrag or DisKeeper.

 

[rdonovan1]

If you're using the built in Windows defrag, you might want to try the following:

1. First run chkdsk on the drive and check the auto repair and try to reclaim bad sectors options (requires reboot).

2. Then use Smart Defrag or DisKeeper.

I tried chkdsk before on the drive and that was taking forever and a day because this is a very old P3 computer and because I was trying to download some stuff off the internet that believed that I needed.

I have never heard of Smart Defrag before, but I do believe that i may have heard of Diskeeper in the past.

When it comes to me and computers we are definitely not getting along very well because I am so out of date with computers that it is not even funny.

I am trying to get myself caught up with it all, but that tends to take both time and money.

I used to do internet technical support in the past, but because of the computer industry. I ended up spending more time playing with and studying computers than I did trying to make friends and to pay attention to people like my ex-wife.

It is for that reason that I am trying to pay attention more to interpersonal relationships and women than to computers. The way that I see it computers can do the job if they are programmed right and if they are functioning properly.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Patience. Chkdsk on a large drive does take a long time. I ran it on one of my hard drives here (500 Gb) this morning after a power failure and it took a couple of hours or so even with a fast processor.

But there's little point in defragging a drive with errors and in the long run leaving the errors to accumulate will lead to even greater problems.

 

[rdonovan1]

Is there a way to get it to do it using my notebook computer? It is running Vista Home premium and it is substantially faster than that stupid P3.

At least my notebook computer has more RAM and processing power than does the desktop or at least that is how it is now.

When I do get the money I would like to completely rebuild the XP based machine and to set it up so that both it and my notebook can communicate with each relatively easily.

I don't know if you knew this at all, but Vista and XP do not do a very good job of communicating with one another at all. I'm not real sure but from what I can tell it seems to have something to do with a change that Microsoft made to the operating system when they came out with Vista.

Both computers are hooked up to Linksys wireless router. The desktop is wired to the router, but the notebook is not.

I bought the notebook to help me figure out my business ideas when I was out on the road and it is probably one of the best ideas that I have ever had at least when it comes to technology and business.