PC_Tool

Yup. System restore points, especially in Vista, continue to take snapshots, even while you are defragging (part of Volume Shadow Copy). I believe the currently suggested fix is as you stated or simply disabling System restore, restarting, defragging, re-enabling System Restore and immediately making a new restore point (all previous points are lost). PITA, but until MSFT provides a way for folks to pause it without losing restore points...what can we do?

I wouldn't guess that's a very valid test. Hard Disks are different than Floppy disks...and SSDs...and Flash disks.... Every software will treat them differently and I am under the impression defraggler is optimized for hard disk defragmenting.

Disable System restore, restart, defrag, re-enable it, and create a new restore point. You *will* lose all previous restore points. Vista is a PITA when it comes to restore points. I really wish they had provided a way to "pause" the process or provided defragmenting software a method to temporarily disable it without losing restore points. I don't use 'em, but I wouldn't suggest that anyone permanently disable them. In vista especially, their functionality is *greatly* increased and it can be a life saver. (I don't use them because I generally reload my systems every 3 months or so anyway...not because of some routine or some maintenance cycle gone wild, but merely because I seem to rather consistently get the urge to "break" stuff....)

On the rare occasions one might want to defrag pagefile.sys the easiest solution would be simply to disable it, reboot, defrag and re-enable it. (Start - right-click "Computer" - properties - Advanced System Settings - performance - settings - advanced - virtual memory - change...YMMV, this is for Vista in "classic" mode) A tip: Set it to a specific size (use the same number for both the upper and lower limits) of generally 1.5x your amount of system RAM. This will keep it from getting fragmented. Do this *after* disabling it and defragging. I personally have it disabled permanently on any system I own that has 2 or more GB of RAM, but I would not suggest that to anyone as it *can* potentially cause a number of problems.

I would hesitate before blaming Defraggler for this issue. While it may have been a catalyst, there are literally thousands of people using this software with no issues. I personally have used it since April on over 30 different PCs (XP and Vista) and have only experienced problems with it on one system that was quite literally overloaded with adware and viruses. A good suggestion to *any* defrag user of *any* utility (defraggler or otherwise) would be to run a full system scan and disk check (CHKDSK, or the equivalent GUI tool) *prior* to defragging the system. It is very likely your disk had errors prior to the defrag process that led to the issues you describe. That said, I would *love* to see a disk check as part of the normal defrag process (or even run on startup of Defraggler). Not in fix mode, as that generally requires a reboot, but just a standard check. Defraggler could then warn the user and suggest a full check if any errors were found.