On edge

They do lock it, at least in the current version of their programs. I think asrm.bin is Acronis Stratup Recovery Manager. It let's the user boot into recovery mode without use of a recovery CD or USB stick. If you defrag it while the system partition is offline, you just need to De- and Reactivate it from Acronis Tools menu.

How do you patch the executable?

JkDefrag's help file provides the following tip: I assume the above reasoning applies to Defraggler too. And if defragging in safe mode is better, then defragging from a BartPE boot disk or a bootable USB flash drive should be ideal, no? But let me pose the original question another way: If I remove a hard drive from my desktop, power it up on my laptop as an external drive, and defrag it, will defraggler optimize it correctly*, and how does it deal with the meta files? (both computers have Windows XP Pro with SP3) *by correctly I just mean optimally for use by the desktop, or the way the desktop would itself defrag its own C: partition, if it could move 'locked' files too.

Defraggler doesn't work on my computer, except in safe mode and in XPE mode when I boot my laptop off Bart's PE Rescue disk. That's okay since my theory is that it's better to defrag drives offline so that none of the files are locked. My question is if there's any problem defragging my system partition in this way since presumably Defraggler was not designed with XPE in mind? Will it also defrag all the system meta files; reg hives, MFT, USN Journal files, etc. when they are offline and optimize their placement? fwiw, I'm using a portable version of Defraggler 1.11 that I run off a USB flash drive rather than the boot CD itself.

Here's the debug file. The original was 40MB and the max upload size is under 2MB, so I cut out the parts with either clear patterns, or with the description of what Defraggler did to each file (latter for privacy reasons too). i.e. nothing important, but if something crucial is missing, or if you'd like a log from Safe mode, just let me know. I took the following actions: 1. Started Defraggler in Debug3 mode 2. Tried to analyze C -> "Analysis Failed" 3. Tried to defrag C -> "Building File List Failed" 4. Tried to defrag free space on C ->"Building File List Failed" 5. Tried to defrag free space on C with "allow fragmentation" ->"Building File List Failed" 6. Checked drive for errors -> No major errors found 7. Analyzed and defragged my other partition -> worked fine. (A flash drive was also attached, but I didn't analyze or defrag it) FWIW, I've tried different settings and the usual things to fix this. I have no other software problems, except with PerfectDisk. It's 'analysis' crashes my Windows in normal mode, but boot defrag works, and I haven't tried the stealth/automatic or command line modes). Other defraggers I've tried have worked fine (Diskeeper, Auslogics, IOBit, JkDefragCmd,...). Defraggler.exe._1_6_118__2009_01_30_23_44__short.txt Defraggler.exe._1_6_118__2009_01_30_23_44__short.txt

Same here - defraggler.exe fails to analyze and defrag my primary NTFS partition (C: with win XP/SP3 and most programs). It works on my second partition (logical NTFS use for data mainly). defraggler works on C: in safe mode, so you could try that (safe mode), and df.exe always works in any mode. The other day, I ran msconfig, chose 'selective startup' from the general tab, and unchecked win.ini, system.ini and startup items. At first defraggler.exe worked, so I enabled win.ini and rebooted, ran defraggler, and at first things were looking good. i think it worked and I defragged something, but then either the defragging or something else messed up some security permissions; i couldn't run anything so I toggled the 'use simple folder sharing' function, maybe something else too, and I had access again but defraggler stopped working. now it doesn't even work with everything unchecked from msconfig, except system services... i can only use it in safe mode. let us know if you do the safe mode and msconfig thing, and figure out what program, service or driver conflicts with defraggler. fwiw, i use rising anti-virus, online armor firewall and acronis true image.

I like your program, but unfortunately I'm unable to run the graphical version in normal mode. I get "Analysis Failed" and "Building File List Failed" for Analysis and Defrag commands, respectively. I ran (tried) the analysis component in both Safe and Normal mode with the /debug switch on. The logs were about the same up to the point of "Initialization finished," but after that Defraggler in Safe Mode goes to ReadMftVcn...sing MFT record data...UpdateDriveMap...AnalyzeNtfsVolume...ReadFileRecords... etc while whereas in Normal mode it just fizzles out with: [21:22:39.796] 00aa8 1 CNtfs::ReadFileRange#65 SetFilePointerEx failed with error code: 0x00000003 (hVolume: 0x00000568, offset: 0) [21:22:39.796] 00aa8 1 CNtfs::LoadMft#38 ReadFileRange failed with error code 3. ... Does that mean anything to anyone?

My father increased his NtfsMftZoneReservation from 1 to 3 in hopes that the extra reserved space would help make defrags faster and his drive function better. He's been using defraggler exclusively, and it moved his reserve zone to the end (lots of purple blocks at the end, empty in the middle, and rest is close to center of drive). Question: Is that a good place for the MFT, or should it be closer to center? Question: What are the general guidelines for choosing NtfsMftZoneReservation value? [fwiw, I have 2 partitions; a 45GB primary for WinXP and programs, and a 67GB logical for documents, data, video, music, downloads, etc. (lots of coming and going)].