Alan_B

I am confident that the Piriform Developers would never unleash on the naive public a product that they would not run on their own computers. BUT I would never place blind faith in SSD Optimizing by any product other than that specifically endorsed by my SSD manufacturer, and only if I saw the need to optimize my SSD would I research that. Similarly I always use CCleaner Analyze and examine the intended consequences before I ran the Cleaner. I especially do not trust Windows Updates and never ever again let them happen without first making an image backup of my SSD.

I am sorry but yours was the second hijack and things appeared out of control, and even worse, so far as I recall, this last one appeared overly long. Thanks for the much shorter topic in the Discussion forum. Regards Alan

Just ignore the topic hijackers - they ignore what is already posted so why bother with them here

Welcome to the forum You are probably doing something VERY VERY WRONG. Portable Apps allows Google Chrome to use its NORMAL installed location in C:\, not in E:\, and then copies data, but not the data structures (i.e. folders and sub-folders), to E:\ and then deletes the data structures from C:\. CCleaner uses "CustomLocation1" to remove the data from the expected data structure, BUT Portable Apps is unlikely to use the correct and expected data structure to hold the copied data, so "CustomLocation1" CANNOT pointing at what you want to delete. Regards Alan

If the update is defective and causes instant BSOD's etc on some systems, can you be confident that this defective update is PERFECTLY providing the intended benefits on the the systems which still APPEAR to work ? QUESTION :- If this defective update is retained, and after subsequent Patch Tuesday updates a problem does arise, will it be more difficult to uninstall this defective update. I was only one of many XP user victims of the Microsoft Fiasco called Net Framework, which is effectively a high rise tower of wooden sheds built on-top of one another, and an "urgently needed security update" could not be installed in Net Framework 2.0 because of problems in the foundations of either 1.1 or 1.0. Unfortunately the only solution for was was to total uninstall 2.0 then 1.1 then 1.0. Many of us were even more unfortunate - the operating system had lost the manifests which told it the precise stages of un-installation, and my only solution was to restore the partition image backup which I had created before the failed attempt of that "urgently needed security update". An ingrowing toenail does not hurt you until it gets established and cause inflammation to grow over it. Do not wait for gangrene to set in and then have a surgeon remove the leg

You are welcome. Piriform developers consider users desires that are posted in the suggestions forum http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showforum=21 It should be very simple to add your wish to the existing Windows Explorer context menu options of "Check Fragmentation" and "Defragment" Regards Alan

You CHANGED THE SOFTWARE FROM INSTALLED TO PORTABLE when you chose to "save settings to ini", and your choice may have modified Defragglers registry keys and values. I only use the portable versions of Piriform products so have little personal recent experience of the installed versions, but I doubt that uninstalling the installed software purged the registry of ALL the defraggler RELATED registry keys and values, because if that was done a normal uninstall followed by a fresh install would destroy any previous user choices, AND there would NOT be the registry flag that is supposed to allow you a few months of NOT being pestered with a Google Chrome installation offer. I think it all boils down to whether what you did to clean the registry was sufficient. By the way you never referred to cleaning the registry in your previous posts. I have just looked at the documentation help file and found :- http://www.piriform.com/docs/defraggler/using-defraggler/defraggler-shell-extension Consequently, IF INSTALLATION IS CORRECT, then you the only defraggler actions for which you can use Explorer Right Click are to designate an item to be checked or defragged - but not placed. Please note that you DO NOT NEED SHELL EXTENSIONS to select an item check or defrag or even to place at the end of the drive. Run Defraggler and ANALYZE and click on the "File List" TAB Then click on either the "FileName" or the "Path" headings to sort the list and then you can scroll through the list to find the File or the Folder you wish to move. To move a Folder :- Select a File that is within that folder and Right click and and select "Highlight Folder" and choose the folder level, then Right click and choose "Move Highlighted to the end of the drive". To move a File :- Select the File and Right click and choose "Move Highlighted to the end of the drive" Your first post concluded with Obviously Defraggler has the capability to move folders and their contents to the end of the drive, but Piriform has never seen the need to add this with the existing Windows Explorer context menu options of Check Fragmentation Defragment If you want "Move Item" added to Windows Explorer context menu options then start a fresh topic in the Defraggler Suggestions forum. Meanwhile, if your Windows Explorer context menu options does NOT include "Check Fragmentation" and "Defragment" then either your registry or your Windows Operating System is corrupt and needs fixing.

That indicates to me the source of all your problems. Portable software is NOT supposed to modify Windows Context Menus, shell extensions, etc. I guess that when INSTALLED the registry was ready to provide shell extensions, and when you "enabled save settings to .ini file" the registry may have noted that shell extensions etc will not be active, and when you "disabled save settings to .ini file" the relevant "shell extensions" flag was not enabled. Perhaps it will work for you if you perform a total clean UN-install and check that the registry no longer refers to Defraggler, and then install properly without any further messing around with the "save settings to .ini file" flag etc.

And all this time I thought it was a health check in the bathroom mirror

The only possible reasons I can think of for your "colleague" to install CCleaner was to :- Undo some accidental damage to your computer software whilst he was using it ; or to alter your computer, e.g. to wipe from internet history and other types of history any evidence of what he was doing to your computer whilst it was under his control. It is even possible that whilst you are reading my reply, your computer might now be copying it to him

I fully agree with the advice you have been given, and a Deep Scan may work. HOWEVER I suspect your diagnosis is wrong. The actual installation of Portable Recuva is less than :- 4 MByte on a 32 bit machine 5 MByte on a 64 bit machine if you refrain from unzipping the 32 bit executable - or 4+5=9 Mbyte if you unzipped the whole package. The absolute worst case, regardless of whether you installed the non-portable version or how you unzipped the portable version, would be 9 MByte that is over-written and destroyed due to where you installed Recuva. I suspect that you are concerned by a data loss that is much worse than 9 MBytes because your lost pictures etc are present on partition C:\, and unfortunately SOME of what could have been recovered by Deep Scan before you started this topic has now been over-written by Windows itself as you use this same computer, and MORE of what could have been recovered by Deep Scan will become destroyed the longer you spend using this computer. For your future benefit please note that It is always better to use a partition OTHER THAN C:\ for any pictures, documents etc. so that Windows cannot overwrite them within seconds of their being lost. Between them Windows and your use of an browser is likely to overwrite on C:\ more than 1000 MByte per day, BUT FORTUNATELY this is mostly overwriting yesterday's Windows temporary files and browser caches and not the lost files you have yet to recover. I would guess that less than 5% of what Deep Scan is able to find will be overwritten today, but if you think it is worth some money and time and effort you could start a new topic in the get advice on how to clone your partition C:\ to that external drive. Then you can attach that external drive to the other computer So - If you put off till next week and attempt to deep scan recover, any further use of the computer during this week will only overwrite a part of what could be found by deep scan today. If you are prepared to spend a little time and money and can use a different computer you could start a new topic in the software forum http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showforum=9 and get advice on removing the drive with lost files and attaching as an external drive to the different computer for safe recovery without further over-writing.

I SUGGEST that you use Defraggler to ANALYZE ONLY and send a screenshot. You may find that Defraggler shows that 68% of the cells are empty (white) because they ARE occupied by OVERWRITE files that were actually deleted from the MFT but Windows FAILED to add the deleted space to its estimate of Free Space. Although Dennis is using an obsolete operating system ( XP ), I am sure it is FULLY functional. Is it possible that when some computers have SLIGHTLY corrupt systems, which are good enough for the normal user controlled creation of a file that allows Windows to choose which sectors to populate, and which are also good enough for the normal user controlled definition of a file for Windows to locate and delete and add add its size back to free space, BUT when CCleaner tells an API which sectors should be populated with by a new file with an overwrite pattern, and then tells an API to cancel that file and add its size to "Free Space, perhaps this is using a different AND CORRUPTED part of the Windows operating system. My preferred Disk space analyzer of NTFS partitions is WIZTREE from www.antibody-software.com The benefits are that :- It even reports the sizes of $MEtaData files and the contents of System Volume Information ; And it is very much faster than anything else I have tried

Are you sure they were ASCII and not UTF-8 or UNICODE ?

I am sure you will be totally successful in not SEEING files to defrag if you first close Defraggler.exe So long as Windows is running it will be causing some continuing fragmentation in the System Drive partition.

Welcome to this forum BUT A suggestion of an "alternative" third party tool of unknown origin is not really relevant to software that has advanced 16 versions since this bug report.

Although the name of the file was changed, it is possible that the last time stamp and file size might be preserved. So sorting the results on the relevant time or size column might allow you to choose possible candidates - if you know the size or date/time

You have misunderstood what is meant by Partition and Drive and the purpose of ALL DEFRAGGERS - EVEN YOUR RECOMMENDATION. Defraggers do NOT defrag Disks, They only defrag Partitions which are regions of a Disk that MAY have assigned a Drive Letter. There is no real difference between a the start of a simple Drive and a simple Partition. "Put a file at the start of a Drive" is a convenient and normally well understood phrase to mean "Put a file at the start of a the region of a Disk to which is assigned a drive letter"

WizTree shows the names and sizes of all $Metadata files including $MFT and $MFTMirr. If you check the Defraggker Search TAB option "Include no-fragmented files" and "Filename contains:" and specify "$MFT" You will be shown the names and sizes of both $MFT and $MFTMirr., and if you select one or both then their positions in the file clusters will be shown. When I select the square in front of the $MFT System.ServiceModel.ni.dll 1 23913984 C:\Windows\assembly\NativeImages_v2.0.50727_64\System.ServiceModel\0b51b0626d95de7446d132c73edd77cc\ There is freeware available for Hexadecimal displaying and even editing the contents of file clusters if you stipulate the LBN address. It may also be able to find the start address if you give it a file name. If it cannot accept and search for the very special and generally inaccessible name $MFT, it may be able to accept and search for whatever file precedes it, such as System.ServiceModel.ni.dll, and this will give you a starting point. N.B. I do not recommend that you alter the content of C:\$MFT, But would really enjoy hearing about the consequences if you attempt that :D

We could use more clues, such as a screen-shot showing Windows Disk Management expanded to display all properties of all Disks and all Partitions. I for one cannot see how formatting Drive D:\ would change it to Drive C:\

May I assume that The same Speccy is looking at THE VERY SAME CPU - if not then your statement is obviously false. Less obviously, perhaps you also the same "Quality Assurance" problems with all your DELL motherboards. Perhaps bad fan error messages and bad network adapters are the least of your problems. I suggest you try an alternative to Speccy for measuring your CPU temperature. You may find that the alternative also gets results that change upon a refresh.

This indicates very strongly to me to that when you refresh then Speccy receives the correct information which it never received at first. Either your hardware or your operating system could be the source of intermittent data quality.

Probably an issue with BitDefender doing what it "says on the can" - it is defending your bits Perhaps BitDefender is "asleep on the job" when CCleaner quickly deletes a file, but lurches into action once over-writing is initiated.

Surely it is NOT your responsibility to perform forensic examination to prove yourself innocent. It is entirely the responsibility of the investigators to prove both the date of notice delivery and the date at which you destroyed information. I am suggesting that this topic be locked to prevent any further implication of any forum members in legal entaglements

I use the portable version of CC I have launched and then closed CC and CCleaner.ini was updated with a modified time-stamp of 10:22:01 Then I launched again and the time stamp only changed when I closed CC,and became 10:23:10 This shows when CC was last closed, even if it only Analyzed and did not clean.

I have a solution that fits my present needs - Freeware FastCopy. http://ipmsg.org/tools/fastcopy.html.en FastCopy runs under Windows and is able to copy everything I want from one drive to another, but excludes the wretched $MFT and other $MetaData files, and as each file is copied across, the destination $MFT is updated by Windows with the relevant information. It even correctly duplicates Reparse Points, unlike Freeware Portable Teracopy v2.27 which mistakenly copies the contents of the Reparse Point destination. Other benefits of FastCopy over Teracopy are that when the duplicated file is read back for hash check-sum verification against the source, it actually reads back the file that was written to the destination and NOT the intermediate copy to RAM which Windows used as a write cache. I am disappointed that this is not an in-situ solution that simply re-writes a small $MFT but requires the writing of all the contents of one partition to a new partition, but thankful that I am not having to buy another 1000 GB HDD to temporarily hold this new partition. All I am afflicted with is a 10 GB partition with thousands of real files and the ghostly remnants of a gazillion browser cache files which Firefox accumulated and deleted. Regards Alan