Hi,

I'm running an XP laptop and have an extenal hard drive that is connected to my network so that my wife and i can backup our files. I wanted to use defraggler on that drive but the program won't see it. I tried installing the program on that external harddrive but it still won't see it. In both cases it only sees the harddrive that I have in my laptop. Any suggestion on how I can use defraggler on this network drive?
To make a clarification, the problem with that drive is that it has some bad sectors, so if there is another solution that you can suggest I'll take that as well.
Thanks,

What about Defraggler portable? Perhaps there's a way to make that version do the job: http://www.piriform.com/defraggler/builds

There's a portable CCleaner also: http://www.ccleaner.com/download/builds

That sounds a bit vague to me. Is the external hard drive connected to one of your PCs via a USB interface, and shared on that PC , so that the other PC can see it?
Or are you talking about a NAS device?

No, unfortunately it didn't work.

Sorry for the confusion. The external hard drive is connected to my network via a router, no USB. I'm not sure what a NAS is.

Is there a hardware firewall inside that router? I ask because you wrote that Defraggler can't see the external hard drive. Is there an other way of connecting it for as long as the defrag is running? It's a long shot and I'm just guessing.

Is there any freespace on that external hard drive? A defragging process needs room for maneuvering...

If there is an internal firewall then i don't know about it. I would imagine not, because i am able to see it from Explorer. And yes, there is plenty of room left on that hard drive (9+ G).

One thing that i tried and didn't work (and maybe this is a clue to the whole thing) is right clicking on that hard drive and then chosing to defrag it from the menue the pops up. The problem is that there is no such option for this drive, whereas it does exist for the drives that are in my laptop. I don't know why. Also, i tried running a defrag from the cmd prompt but again it wouldn't do it.

"The external hard drive is connected to my network via a router, no USB. I'm not sure what a NAS is."

A NAS is "Network Attached Storage" which it is. I'm not sure if you would be able to defrag it by using software on your pc? Most NAS devices have some type of maintenance UI where you could probably defrag it.

Good call! I was able to find a utility that is part of the software that runs thle hard disk that allowed me to scan the disk and it said that it some kind of repair as well. It gives absolutly no details about what it found and what it repaired and I have no way of evaluating how good or not this is. But that's all i have for now. Thanks!