Defraggler acting strangely

[Stroby]

This isn't so much of a problem more a query as to why defraggler did what it did

After quite a long over due defrag with defraggler there were a few files left over with fragments I repeated the process until only pagefile.sys I know that this file cant be defraged due to its unstable nature but I decided to see what it would do expecting it just to give up but in stead it launched in to a massive defrag and despite pagefile.sys being the only file on the list to be defraged the "Drive C" tab was showing many seemingly random files, from registry keys to small jpegs and just about anything, were being defraged, and at some points on the key I could see fragments appearing being read then written then going, I thought this behavour was a little strange considering it is has been going for over half hour and still only "57%", any ideas what its upto?

 

EDIT

 

I cancelled the defrag and it had created fragmented files varying up to 1.5 GB down to 8 KB and varied types of files from sytem files, registry keys and documents some which haven't been accessed in a long time so i can only assume that defraggler actually did the opposite to its job

[FineDreadHawk]

I wouldn't defrag pagefile.sys it is virtual ram, its pretty much like telling a program to defrag you're Ram Sticks.. Its just not going to work its constantly changing, its reset on restart, and it just holds instructs for a time being. Most likely what happened is the files Pagefile.sys was pointing to those files because they were currently in access so I would delete Pagefile.sys and restart your computer if you can't just restart either way should work, as for those fragmented files I would use Windows Defrager then Defraggler to see if they are still there, and not try to defrage pagefile.sys in the future.

[PC_Tool]

I wouldn't defrag pagefile.sys it is virtual ram, its pretty much like telling a program to defrag you're Ram Sticks.. Its just not going to work its constantly changing, its reset on restart, and it just holds instructs for a time being. Most likely what happened is the files Pagefile.sys was pointing to those files because they were currently in access so I would delete Pagefile.sys and restart your computer if you can't just restart either way should work, as for those fragmented files I would use Windows Defrager then Defraggler to see if they are still there, and not try to defrage pagefile.sys in the future.

 

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.

[Stroby]

Thanks for that, I did so and it's cleaned up a few massive fragmented files that were unable to be defraged

 

I would appear a major issue with defraggler is in stopping a defrag, it does it too quickly for it's self and makes a mess of many different files some time its very difficult to straighten these files again, it need to be changed so it completes it's current action and then stops, this you may say is annoying as you would push stop and nothing would happen leading to confusion but the button could grey out and text change to "stopping" I'd rather have this than screwed files

[YoKenny]

PageDefrag v2.32

By Mark Russinovich

Published: November 1, 2006

 

Introduction

 

One of the limitations of the Windows NT/2000 defragmentation interface is that it is not possible to defragment files that are open for exclusive access. Thus, standard defragmentation programs can neither show you how fragmented your paging files or Registry hives are, nor defragment them. Paging and Registry file fragmentation can be one of the leading causes of performance degradation related to file fragmentation in a system.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb897426.aspx

 

It works well and maybe needs running once a month.