Hard drive stuck at 2% fragmented?

[wburton]

I cannot defrag my hard drive. Its says 2% fragmented no matter what I do. Last thing I did was move around some game files to an external hard drive and then installed a 12gig game.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

What you defragging with; what app?

Try restarting the system first. Defrag sometime can't defrag files that are in-use.

If you are using the built-in Windows OS defrag, use a better one; like Auslogic Disk Defrag Free; or Piriform Defraggler.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Defraggler can do Boot Defrag.
Simply select the drive, click Settings > Boot Time Defrag > Run Once

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Ultra defrag is one of the best programs out there for defrag.
That being said, don't try to defrag to 0%. Most defrag programs are smart enough to no defrag huge files for no reason. It really doesn't matter if a 300mb file is in 2 parts, the performance impact is negligable and there is no reason to wear your harddrive for no performance gain. Its like washing your car, and then going over the tire tread with a qtip to clean all the crevices, at a certain point you are just wasting your time.
Defrag can only do so much, and you shouldn't get fixated.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/the_disk_defrag_difference?page=0%2C0
Actual benchmarks and it just shows sometimes its just voodoo.
In anycase if you want the most thorough defrag, ultra defrag has a a boot time option. As the other guy said, if you defrag within windows, windows can't defrag its own files in use.

[Chris Dee]

Hi@all.

It's the system files and windows temp area. If you want to use defraggler in future times (doing it myself), set the temp to 0 before defragging. Afterwards, with the clean file system, you could create the new temp area. With this scenario i get always a clean 0% defragmentation.

Greetz.

[wburton]

Windows defragger had always worked for me. Just strange that its doing this now.

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

No defrag even windows defrag would defrag files windows was using.

In any case as I said it really doesn't matter. Don't fixate on the number.

[PowerHaus930]

Originally posted by MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™:

Ultra defrag is one of the best programs out there for defrag.
That being said, don't try to defrag to 0%. Most defrag programs are smart enough to no defrag huge files for no reason. It really doesn't matter if a 300mb file is in 2 parts, the performance impact is negligable and there is no reason to wear your harddrive for no performance gain. Its like washing your car, and then going over the tire tread with a qtip to clean all the crevices, at a certain point you are just wasting your time.
Defrag can only do so much, and you shouldn't get fixated.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/the_disk_defrag_difference?page=0%2C0
Actual benchmarks and it just shows sometimes its just voodoo.
In anycase if you want the most thorough defrag, ultra defrag has a a boot time option. As the other guy said, if you defrag within windows, windows can't defrag its own files in use.

That article is 6 years old.

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

Originally posted by PowerHaus930:

Originally posted by MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™:

Ultra defrag is one of the best programs out there for defrag.
That being said, don't try to defrag to 0%. Most defrag programs are smart enough to no defrag huge files for no reason. It really doesn't matter if a 300mb file is in 2 parts, the performance impact is negligable and there is no reason to wear your harddrive for no performance gain. Its like washing your car, and then going over the tire tread with a qtip to clean all the crevices, at a certain point you are just wasting your time.
Defrag can only do so much, and you shouldn't get fixated.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/the_disk_defrag_difference?page=0%2C0
Actual benchmarks and it just shows sometimes its just voodoo.
In anycase if you want the most thorough defrag, ultra defrag has a a boot time option. As the other guy said, if you defrag within windows, windows can't defrag its own files in use.

That article is 6 years old.

And defrag technology is even older.

It kind of tells you something no one else really bothers to actually benchmark these things. Mostly defrag is IT voodoo.

[Azza ☠]

You must have at least 15% free space on the drive, in order to allow temporary moving of those huge files around.

If your running low on disk space, try uninstalling some programs you don't use or removing some large files to free up space.

If you have > 8GB RAM, consider locking down the page file is a certain size such as 4GB. If 16GB or more, then reduce to 1GB page file. The Windows page file becomes less used with the more memory you have, but still not recommended to disable completely. It however matches your memory size or does 1.5X it! This will only be used if the entire system crashed with a memory leak and you wanted to dump the entire lot to disk in order to recover or debug it (which a normal user would never do).

To do this...

Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings > Advanced > Performance > Settings > Advanced > Virtual memory > Change. Fix the custom size Initial and Maxiumum size (For example: 1024 meaning 1GB). Reboot.

If you don't use Windows hibernation (a certain sleep mode), disable it and remove the hiberfil.sys, as that file takes up the same amount of hard drive space as your memory. For example: If you have 16GB RAM, then that's 16GB wasted hard drive space - which you might never even use thanks to Microsoft.

To do this...

Control Panel > Power Options > Select High Performance > Change plan settings, ensure sleep is set to 'Never'.

Now under an Elevated Command Prompt (Start > Run > type 'cmd.exe' and right-click it, selecting 'Run As Admin').

Type 'powercfg -h off' (without the quotes and press enter). That will disable hibernation and remove that 'hiberfil.sys' file on the root of your drive. If the file is still there, remove it manually.

Note: If you ever do want it back, just repeat and type 'powercfg -h on' instead, it will automatically recreate it.


Next download 'CCleaner': https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Scan and clean your system, this will get rid of temporary junk files, log files, and old memory dumps, etc - your system collects over the years. Regular use of this program will help you free up space and clean up your system.

If you have massive files, such as an > 8GB single file on your hard drive (we have already dealt with page file and hibernation from Windows, but you might also have large backup files, encypted files, ISO, VM images, etc), that would be even harder to defrag. Sometimes it's best to move it off, defrag, then place it back.

Then finally try the defrag again, after the clean up. Note: If using SSD (Solid State Drive), they don't need to be defragged at all, you can ignore the defrag for them.

[Alkpaz]

SlimCleaner Free also has a SSD defragger, but considering what I read, in that article it is IT Voodoo.. good to know, and even better one less step to keep thy system maintained.

[wburton]

Not to be mean but I'm not asking what program is the best to defrag my hard drive with. Don't need to start another software war.

[wburton]

I'm trying to figure out why that 2% is there when it was not like that ever before. The last thing I did was installed STALKER Lost Alpha, downloaded the expansions and moved them to an external hard drive for later, and then my system auto installed some windows 8 updates.

[wburton]

Just found that my page file is set to auto manage. Could that be the issue?

[Azza ☠]

Read my post about - it can be due to any huge files, i mentioned page file, hibernate file, and dump files, or ISOs, etc. You can reduce their sizes or move them off and back on after the defrag. It can also be due to not having enough space available to freely move those larger files around. CCleaner isn't a defrag software, rather just a good cleaning tool.

[NoxiousPond6697]

disable hybernation and PageSwap also disable system restore points they are useless

then defrag with Auslogic Disk Defrag Free
make shure in the settings it has checked "move windows to front of disk"