Jump to content

TechHarmony

Experienced Members
  • Posts

    51
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by TechHarmony

  1. Thanks for the new "Move Highlighted to End of Drive" option on files. A question about how that works. I can see that the blue indicator shows the file(s) have indeed been moved to the end of the drive area. Good. Now, what if I later run a full drive "Defrag". Will Defraggler remember that I asked for those files to be moved to the end? And thus leave them there at the end zone? Or will it just look at them as regular files and try to shuffle them back up to the front/earliest open space? If this latter, then Each time I do a Move Highlighted to End of Drive, I would need to follow up with an Exclude file (or directory) so that it does not get pushed back to the front. Can someone let me know which way this is? Thank you.
  2. Thanks for the reply. Already have those items excluded. That is, Options/ Advanced are: Enable Shell - ON Show folder index entries - ON Cache analysis data - ON Use custom fragmentation settings: Exclude Restore point - YES Exclude Hibernation - YES (which makes no difference as I do not allow machine to use Hibernation) Stop VSS when defragmenting NTFS - ON. I do have a bunch of other excluded files/directories of things I don't want moved, or of large files that there is no need to shuffle around. I suppose I could try to purge all settings, uninstall and reinstall. But how can I restore all the settings that have taken me a loooonnng time to type in (as the excluded files and directories). As posted elsewhere in forum, my CPU usage for doing the whole drive "Defrag" ranges from 25 to 58% CPU. So Defraggler is doing a lot of 'thinking about' what and how to move each file, it seems.
  3. Yes, a merge sounds like a good idea. Keep the same reported issue in one thread. Sorry if I posted this to the wong thread -- I just did not want to start a new (third) thread. And I am never exactly sure whether an issue should be in one of the two subforums, or the parent forum. I confess, I am confused by the structure of three forum areas for Defraggler: -- Defraggler Discussion (parent forum): . . . . . . . . . . .| -- Defraggler Bug Reporting (sub forum) . . . . . . . . . . .| -- Defraggler Suggestions (sub forum) with all three having content. Yes, clear that bugs should be in the Bug Reporting sub forum. But I see suggestions in both Suggestions and Discussion (parent). Perhaps the Discussion top level is supposed to be for non-bugs and no-suggestions...?
  4. Thanks for the Disable Floppy via Hardware Device Manager suggestion. This works for me as my floppy drive is actually mostly broken and rarely works (and so I rarely even try to put a floppy in there). I just did the Disable Device and now Defraggler does not cause the floppy chunk/grind noise. Of course, this is a solution for relatively few, as most folks with a working Floppy drive will not want this as a permananent workaround.
  5. Might be same issue of Defraggler running very slow: My normal daily use of Defraggler, as a tool to defragment just the fragmented files -- seems to be working well and as expected. But the whole drive defragment (button: "DEFRAG") has been going incredibly slowly for the last 2 or so releases. Currently using latest Defraggler v2.11.560 I've been meaning to post here about it, but see now that I may not be alone. On the one hand, it usually says it will take more than 24 hours to defragment the C drive. On the other hand, I can watch at the main info first tab, and see that it moves approximately one file per 2 or 3 seconds. And uses about 50% CPU while running. These files are just small multi-KB files, not Megabytes. I almost feel I could manually defragment the drive faster myself. (Of course that is a silly exaggeration, but that is the way it feels when it takes three seconds to move a 5 KB file from one place to another.) Configuration info follows. And note that I run Diskcheck regularly on the drive, both from Windows Explorer Drive Properties (at "Next Boot") and also occasionally from boot up Recovery Console Chkdsk /p. I Diskcheck about twice a week. And I run a CD boot tool about every two months or so to check drive diagnostic quick test, Result = OK, and surface check, Result = OK (I check this frequently because this is an older computer...). Windows XP Pro SP3, 2 GB RAM, P4 3.2GHz, Sony Vaio PCVRS530G minitower Processes at boot up time: 44, with about 425 MB of 2 GB availble RAM in use after boot. I rarely see more than 1 GB RAM used (unless I let Firefox stay open with dozens of tabs...) Avira Free AV, with an exception (to not monitor) applied to Defraggler. Fans and temps are clean and OK. CPU at 41C (currently) and HD at 41C (currently), when just running Browser, and Defraggler is open but idle. When I start the Defraggler full drive "Defrag" process, CPU goes up to 45-58% utilization, and CPU Temp goes up to 47 to 55C. HD drive temp goes up to 43-44C range. Temps and CPU as measured by Task Manager, System Explorer and SpeedFan. HD status (below) as measured by HDD Health, CrystalDiskInfo and HD Sentinel. Defraggler v 2.11.560 currently. Prior ver 2.10, etc. Main drive: 160 GB HD, SMART values 'Good/Healthy" Seagate ST3160021A, divided into two volumes: Vol C: 128 GB, 95-100 GB used (avg), 33-25 GB free (avg). I try to never let it get below 18% (or 25 GB) free. currently today it is 97.0 GB used, 30.9 GB free as per Windows Explorer. this has the OS and User files and programs. No disk compression, though indexing is turned on. and, Vol D: 21 GB, 15-18 GB used (avg), 3-6 GB free (avg). I try to never let it get below 3 GB free. this is my Downloads folder, where I tend to see most of my file downloading and compressing/decompressing activity. I defrag this one less often, though it acts the same: if I run Defraggler fragmented files only it defrag relatively well/quickly. But whole drive defrag runs incredibly slow. And for reference, Auslogics Disk Defrag process the whole drive optimize of the same C drive in about 10-20 minutes, compared to the 24 hours it seems that Defraggler would like to take. I have allowed Defraggler to process a while, found that after I was away for several hours, it still had 20 hours to go. So it really is SLOW in the whole drive "Defrag" mode. Hope this helps.
  6. I agree that new Defraggler ver 2.11 is now causing my floppy drive (which is mostly broken... ) to make chunking or grinding read sounds every time that: - Defraggler starts up, - Defraggler disk focus is changed to a different HD (by my clicking on different HD), - whenever I use Right-click to Check a folder from Explorer, - whenever I use Right-Click to Defragment a file or folder from Explorer. I NEVER click on the Floppy drive A itself (from Windows) - and actually, it does not even show in the Defraggler drive list. I also have unchecked (removed) the reference to "Show Removeable drives" as suggested. But making that change to not show them makes no difference -- Defraggler 2.11 still causes the floppy drive to grind. And though I do not generally defragment my many removeable flash drives, I do find it useful and interesting to be able to see how space is being used on them. So I do not think I will like to have "Removeable Drives" permanently off. My only 'solution' may be to open the computer and remove the data and power cables to the floppy drive... which may be OK for me since the drive rarely functions properly, but not so good for people who have working floppy drive(s). [Windows XP Pro SP3, 2 GB RAM, P4 3.2GHz, Sony Vaio PCVRS530G minitower]
  7. Thanks Piriform, for the v 2.11 "Added right-click Move File to end of Drive feature." I think it would still be great to be able to mark a FOLDER as well -- such as the System Volume Information folder.
  8. (See below, was result of incompatible option while full defrag was running) I am unable to select or setup the Custom fragmentation setting (in Options / Advanced / Use custom fragmentation settings: Define). That whole line is 'grayed out' and cannot be selected. I do have various other selections enabled, and which I am able to turn off or on. (such as, same page: Enable Shell Extension - is on, and works, Show folder index entries in file list - is on and works Show cleanup drive - I usually have off, but is selectable Cache analysis data of multiple drives - is on Stop VSS when defragmenting NTFS - is on. [Defraggler 2.10.424, Windows XP Pro SP3, good ol' fashioned spinning HD, 160GB] --------------------------------------------------- Never mind!! I discovered I cannot change that one option while a 'full' defrag is running. But the other options can be changed while running. Guess I was impatient about changing that item, as the defrag itself was running soooooooooooo slowly, moving about one file per second (according to the lower left file status line) with hours to go, that I wanted to test the option without having to restart the whole defrag. OKee Dokey....................
  9. I also would like to see this feature added. For Example, I would use it to move my ERDNT registry backup files to the end of the drive - since under normal circumstances, I rarely refer to those files, being as they are emergency use only data. I would also like to put my Restore point System Volume Information files at the back for same reason, that they are written only once per day and read from only in case of emergency. Thanks!
  10. I would love to see this feature implemented. (I might have even made a post about it sometime... can't remember now) (This feature does exist, fyi, in Auslogics Free Defrag, just sayin')
  11. Here is an update, from my various follow-on troubleshooting steps. Over the past few days, I have booted my computer from several of my CD emergency boot disks, and run various tests on the machine: Several passes of several Disk check and scan/recover surface media. I get a clean bill from these (sometimes the first pass says unspecified errors found, nothing serious, and then second pass indicates all is fixed and good). Ran Memtest86+ (2.11) and it showed the 2 GB RAM is OK (all white text, no RED errors. Whew. ). I ran two other defragment apps, Auslogics Disk Defrag, and MyDefrag - both version 4.2.6 (from CD boot) and later/last 4.3.1 (from Windows) of MyDefrag. They all were able to finish a full disk defrag and complete successfully. The one interesting -and significant- thing to note, the MyDefrag log file indicated there were several unmoveable files, a few system files (expected), and three user data files - which I did not expect. I tried looking at those files, and was able to view, copy and moved them OK to a different drive. Two were jpg image files, less than 128KB each, nothing special about them. No indications as to why they were found unmoveable by MyDefrag. And one system restore file: "A0019147.dll" (27KB), which I was also able to copy no problem to a different drive. Only thing about that A0019147 was the 'compressed' attribute, but most restore files also have that. So again, nothing special as to why MyDefrag said it was unmoveable, out of hundreds (or thousands even) of other restore files which are able to be moved/optimized. After moving the two (alleged) 'unmoveable' jpg files, and leaving the A0019147 as it was, and several reboots, I did a full uninstall of Defraggler. Waited a day, then a clean re-install Defraggler 2.9.0 fresh. Now Defraggler runs the full disk Defrag successfully. Hurray. Ran it in mostly default mode (that is, I entered no exclusions, no special move rules). So my final thoughts on the three crashes of 2.9.0 earlier this week and last: (a.) being repeatable, it was probably tied to either some weird file occupancy/attributes data actually on the disk (ref. the quote 'unmoveable' regular files which MyDefrag log file indicated it found) which caused Defraggler to crash -- this is what I consider most likely. If this was indeed the cause, It would probably be better for Defraggler to issue an error, rather than crash ... Or, (b.) possible corruption of the Defraggler installed app, or its options, itself. In either case, my cleaning the drive, moving files and re-installing Defraggler seem to have gotten me past the crashes, as it now performs a full disk defrag on my C drive and goes to completion. This adventure did highlight a few things about the Defrag programs which I was not aware of before, and prompts me to write up a couple of small suggestions, which I will post separately. So for now, I consider the issue to be resolved. :)
  12. Some good ideas, SuperFast. Since this crash only occurs in one particular module of Defraggler (the right-click, full disk defrag of my C volume), I had not even thought to think of memory (small computer tech joke...) Though, Since I do tech work, I was the one to install the RAM, and at the time of installation am rather (over) meticulous about snapping in the RAM cleanly - static protected, never touching the gold contacts, ensuring the little tabs snap back up and fully into their respective semi-circle DIMM edge cutouts, and all that sort. Although not recently, I have run Memtest86+ on this system, in its 2GB config. But won't hurt to run it again, next time I boot, via one of my boot-disk CDs. So I'll plan on that soon. Thx. it is mysterious
  13. P.S., forgot to include the May 13 Defraggler crash snapshots ... here they are. Defraggler 290 crashed again may 13 e02b_appcompat.txt ---the so-called report to Microsoft data file 2012-05-13_180651 Defraggler 290 crash on full defrag C-.png ---which shows a different file on the status focus info line, lower left. So seems not to be in exactly the same place as previous crashes, I think. 2012-05-13_1819 Defraggler verifying C-.png ---Running the Defraggler Verify. 2012-05-13_1823 Defraggler states error found, run Chkdsk F-.png ---where Defraggler states it cannot finish verify, and requests a normal Windows chkdsk. 2012-05-13_1823 Defraggler schedules Chkdsk f of C drive-.png ---the chkdsk f is now scheduled. 2012-05-13_1759 Ready to start Defraggler full on C, Health Good-.png ---and lastly, though should have been first, the snap before I started the full C drive defrag, showing Defraggler Health Good status info. Thanks. ___________________ P.S. Looking at the Event log file (attached in prev email as 'Defraggler 290 crash May 13 notes.txt'), I see that all three of the listed Defraggler crashes identify "fault address 0x0011b95a." Same address for all three recent crashes in the event log. Just FYI. And I guess I should have made the title to "three crashes" not just the two I had in mind when I posted yesterday. (But am not going to change the title, since title names are sometimes used to re-find things... ) . Defraggler 290 crashed again may 13 e02b_appcompat.txt
  14. Thanks all. I like the signature quote: "try to stay calm" Kind of like the Hithhikers GTTG "Don't Panic" (which I have as one of my several desktop wallpapers) I ran a bootup, Recovery Console Dskchk again. This time specifying the /r command, to try to recover any bad sectors. Did it twice, as is my practice when the first statement comes back "... found errors " and second time it came back with the (expected) "...has finished checking the drive." Since the /r command was specified it took a loooooooooong time. Ran Defraggler today: (a) first, in the usual method of analyze and defrag just the fragmented files. (Note that I have a bunch of temp files, SysVolInf, etc, on the exclude list). It ran fine, as usual. on both C partition and D partition. (b ) ran a full disk defrag -via right click- on my D partition (second of two partitions on my C,D Seagate 160GB). It took about 20 minutes and ran to completion OK. (c ) Thus encouraged, I ran a full disk defrag on volume C. Boom. It crashed after about 4 or 5 minutes. "fault address 0x0011b95a." (d) I then ran the Defraggler Verify disk on C. Note that it reports SMART health as Good. The Defraggler verify failed, and asked me to schedule a Chkdsk /f, which I have and will be doing on reboot. This time, I am attaching a text file of the relevant Event Log entries. That is, just the Defraggler errors, and the several Winlogon Checkdisk routines I have run - at least, what it decided to record from them. (It is too bad that Microsoft provides no way to capture all of the info from the many Checkdisk runs I have done. As the messages in the event log do not exactly match what I have seen onscreen from the several Recovery Console (dos style) status messages I have been running. Oh Microsoft, why do you do these to us...) Even though the Recovery Console Chkdsk /r came back "clean" on its second pass, and always comes back clean on its second pass of /p, I am starting to wonder if there is something wonky in my C drive, the sectors about, oh, 10 % into my drive. Note that in all other respects, my computer seems fine. Computer boots fine (I shut it off overnight). Programs run. Browsers (FF, IE) browse web. Files download. Windows updates, Words process, e-mails, etc. Only Defraggler seems to be encountering this glitch. I guess I could try a pass with MyDefrag or JKDefrag, or Auslogics Defrag (which I used to use before switching to Defraggler). I will keep an eye here for future thoughts. (I also am not ready to tweak the booting process... as I am not sure what 'act' 'exi' and 'bcdboot' will do. I looked up the DiskPart command options and did not find those. Maybe they are new to Win7. I have only ol' XP. ) Defraggler 290 crash May 13 notes.txt
  15. Hi, Defraggler 2.9.0 has crashed on me twice while doing a full disk defrag of my C: volume. _________ Defraggler (v2.9.0.391) doing a full disk Defrag. Has crashed two times, in more or less the same general area of apparent disk activity (though, different file was in the info state space (bottom left). I have performed a boot time Checkdisk (two times, once via Recovery Console with /p force check, other via more usual MyComputer-C-Tools-Errorchecking-Checknow-at next boot) in between the first crash of two days ago, and this one. No other programs running at time of the Defraggler crash. I also ran a Seagate SeaTools (dos mode bootup) on the drive (ST3160021A) and it reported drive is all OK. Also, several tools report SMART health on the drive is OK/Good (including Speccy). Windows XP Pro SP3 (uptodate). Pentium 4 ,3.2 GHz, 2 GB RAM. ERROR MESSAGE (from crash pop up screens): Defraggler has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Please tell Microsoft about this problem. Error Signature: AppName: defraggler.exe AppVer: 2.9.0.391 ModName: defraggler.exe ModVer: 2.9.0.391 Offset: 0011b95a Attaching: Tech details screen inf report to MS txt Error Details: \Temp\9f89_appcompat.txt Two screen snaps FYI, I run Defraggler pretty much daily, in the normal (for me) mode of Analyze C drive, defrag just the highly fragmented files. This proceeds normally, with no problems (has been fine doing this for a long time.) Thank you. Defraggler crash, Tech details screen inf report to MS.txt Defraggler Crash Error Report 9f89_appcompat.txt
  16. 4 PM 3/31/2012 Defraggler 2.9 crashed while performing a 'Defrag Drive' of my Volume D (a logical data volume on my boot drive). It is a 21 GB volume with 16.5GB used, 4.5 GB free, located on my 160 GB main boot HD (thus, C and D). I allowed it to run a few minutes, then noticed it was using 106MB RAM, so thought I would minimize it and let it run, thinking that minimizing would remove the need to update visible information. About 5 or so seconds after minimizing it, received this crash error message, then the Defrag.exe did crash and disappear from the Windows Task Manager list. Notes: 1.) I usually run Defraggler by doing the Analyze first, then just defrag most of the found items. Which seems to work well and fine. I rarely run the entire 'Defrag Drive' choice on a drive, maybe this is even the first time... 2.) I regularly run Chkdsk and or Chkdsk /p on my drives, every few weeks. 3.) Env: Windows XP Pro SP3. P4 3.2GHz. 2 GB RAM. Defraggler 2.9.0.391. 4.) Am attaching the 'appcompat.txt' crash report it wanted to send to Microsoft, which I grabbed from the Temp directory before it finished the error reporting. (it should actually go to you though... what is Microsoft going to do with this for XP? they'll just 'can it' I would guess! ) 5.) Defraggler seems to run OK after this event, when I just start it and do an analyze then defrag items, or an Explorer right-click. Am not eager to try another 'Defrag Drive' though... Hope this helps. Love the Defraggler product. Thx. Defraggler-crash-7616_appcompat.txt
  17. Sounds like a good option, to me anyway. I do have a number of usually large files that I would like to conveniently move to end of disk (and not have them re-placed back into prime zone area). Files that I need to have on the HD, but do not access that often and do not mind even if they are in a few fragments. Though, I do not have a "Move To End Of Disk" tab on my Defraggler (v2.09.391) on Windows XP SP3. Perhaps that is a Win 7 feature, or a wishful thought of the original poster. But I think that it would need to be implemented with a special "Includes" list for such a Move-to-End feature, so that it would know to keep those at the end, otherwise running Defraggler later on might just try to move those back-end files up.
  18. Hi, Good addition of "Last Shutdown" time to the Uptime information section. And I also like the Uptime Statistics section -- Useful. Though, on my Win XP machine those stats begin with a 12/31/2011 date, so I am guessing that is when your/their internal code started keeping track of such data, as my computer has been around waaaay longer than that. -- I last reformatted and reloaded Windows on this machine on 4/2009. Thx for the program -- All in all, a good system spec info tool. I have added it to my folder of system info utils on my troubleshooting flash drive.
  19. Ditto on sounds like a good idea. And is related to the separate suggestion I made a little while back, about being able to move the Restore points (and similar) files to the back end/slow end of the drive. And, FYI for DennisD, I have allowed several different defragment applications over the years to defragment the drive, and have seen them shuffle around the SystemVolumeInformation contents with no apparent ill effects. Of course, it does seem silly to be shuffling the restore points around, since they are just snapshots taken once a day, and then never accessed except in case of emergency. So not needing constant defragmenting.
  20. This sounds like a good request. Would especially benefit those of us running on slightly older computers that have slightly slower drives. (I am trying not to make myself feel too bad about my computer, by calling it only "slightly" older/slower... ) Some of the other defrag programs I have used over the years have had a similar feature, moving either system or program or "most-used" files to the prime access hot zone on the drive. Which, if I am understanding my tech reading, is not actually the very first sectors but more like about 20% into the drive. (though, there may be different opinions on where, but I would think it lies somewhere in that range of first-to-20% area.) I know that some defraggers have attempted to use the Layout.ini file which allegedly lists the most used/last used files. But my own periodic review of the Layout.ini file itself shows that it often has files I rarely access, and don't need superfast, but they just happen to have been accessed recently. Anyway, reason I mention this is that Layout.ini seems not to be the best way to accomplish this. [Vaio RS530G, Win XP Pro SP3, 160 G HD, 2 GB RAM, Defraggler 2.7.0.346]
  21. Another thought I have, because I use the Defraggler Windows Explorer context right-click option daily. Please add a mini report line of results to the context menu right click Defragment operation. I know this should be possible, because the context menu right click Check Fragmentation operation currently comes back with a mini-report of something like: Processing finished. There are 0 fragmented files (0 fragments) or Processing finished. There are 1 fragmented files (18 fragments) So what I would love to see, is after it has finished defragmenting via the context menu right click, is a mini report of the actual results of the defragmentation operation. Currently, Defraggler (2.7.0) always states "Defrag Complete" when it finishes Explorer context menu defragment operation. Regardless of whether anything was defragmented or not. So it is misleading in the sense that, if nothing was fragmented there in the first place, then no action was actually taken. Better would be a mini report stating something like "nn files defragmented" with nn value being number of files actually defragmented (since it does know). And perhaps "no files needed defragmenting" or "0 files degragmented - none needed" when none of the files attempted needed any defragmenting. [Windows XP Pro SP3. Defraggler 2.7.0]
  22. Interesting thought. But I think, in order for this to work, having a second copy with nothing excluded, it would need to be set up with a separate folder, and installed there with the settings saved into the app folder. Options/Advanced/Save all settings to ini file. Because otherwise, I am thinking that the last saved settings would just overwrite the previous settings in the system registry. So that Save all settings to ini file would be needed, then of course, needs its own folder, so it doesn't overwrite the other ini. I'll experiment with this. thx. ____ Yes, will need its own folder, because regardless of how I rename the second copy of defraggler, it writes settings to Defraggler.ini in the folder the app is in. OOPS. One of the downsides: Having a separate folder with the Save to ini file, disables all settings of my original copy of Defraggler. Losing the original Excludes, which were moved into an ini file. Perhaps they got lost in my initial testing. Oh well, not disastrous.. And this dual arrangement seems to remove the context menu entry completely from Windows Explorer (the option is grayed out on the second copy with its own ini, and empty on the original copy) and with neither running, there is no more Windows Explorer context entry for Defraggler. So maybe not as good as I had hoped. still, was a clever thought.
  23. Just checking back in on my topics. I would be fine with the suggestion of 'Super Fast' to have the two buttons on the Context Check Fragmentation operation be: "Defragment" and "Close". That would accomplish what I originally suggest. ______
  24. Hi, Just downloaded the 3.12 (portable release, so I can test) CCleaner and ran the /export cmdline to look at what the NEW Path Environment cleaning does. But, I confess, I do not understand what that indicates it will do. Can someone perhaps expand one what this really does? [Global] Revision=2040 ... ... [Environment Path] ID=1041 LangSecRef=3004 LangRef=3153 SpecialKey1=N_EX_ENVIRONMENT_PATH Thx.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.