I may have posted this before

On 4/3/12 2:58 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I believe so. But what does that have to do with it? Unless you remove
the existing FAT or NTFS or whatever file allocation table or directory
you're not going to get a defragmented drive, since ith those tables still
intact, the OS simply ooks for the next available cluster space to store the
next cluster, and nothing more.

When you delete/empty the trash can, the allocation tables should
indicate those areas are now empty, and the space on the hard drive can
be used.


Way back in DOS days, DOS simply replaced the first letter of the
filename with a character, I can't remember which one. The data was not
actually deleted from the drive. So, if you accidentally erased/deleted
a file, you could take a byte/sector editor, look in the FAT, change the
character back to the correct letter, and your file was miraculously
recovered. :-)

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 11.0
Thunderbird 11.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.0 rc3

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:51:17 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 4/3/12 2:29 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:14:11 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 4/3/12 1:44 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:38:08 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:

Why not leave your computers on overnight, once a week, and schedule a
defrag while you sleep?

I suppose the obvious question is, what benefit do you expect to
notice as a result?

It's simply automated, you don't have to do anything manually. I just
picked overnight as a time frame when most people aren't likely to be
using the computer for anything else. That leaves the computer with
just that single task, assuming no other tasks, automatic updates for
example, are also scheduled.

My point was that defragmenting a drive doesn't carry any obvious
benefits, at least as far as I can see. I would have had a different
opinion 15-20 years ago, but not today.

I'd postulate the benefits are the same, but with today's computers,
which are much faster, you simply don't notice them. :-)

At the point where I no longer notice it, it's no longer a benefit.
:-)

Although..... if you have huge files, you might.

But, as I work mostly with old computers, having those files defragged
can definitely be noticeable.

I only work with older computers long enough to get them running and
then donated.

Ken Springer wrote:
On 4/3/12 2:58 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I believe so. But what does that have to do with it? Unless you
remove
the existing FAT or NTFS or whatever file allocation table or directory
you're not going to get a defragmented drive, since ith those tables
still
intact, the OS simply ooks for the next available cluster space to store
the
next cluster, and nothing more.

When you delete/empty the trash can, the allocation tables should
indicate those areas are now empty, and the space on the hard drive can
be used.

That seems pretty logical, so maybe my memory is off.

I guess we could do a simple test. Take a floppy disc, fill it with
several files, erase it using erase *.*, then copy some new files back over
to it, and see if it is fragmented or not.

Way back in DOS days, DOS simply replaced the first letter of the
filename with a character, I can't remember which one. The data was not
actually deleted from the drive. So, if you accidentally erased/deleted
a file, you could take a byte/sector editor, look in the FAT, change the
character back to the correct letter, and your file was miraculously
recovered. :-)

I remember that. :-)

On 4/3/12 3:17 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:51:17 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 4/3/12 2:29 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:14:11 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 4/3/12 1:44 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:38:08 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:

Why not leave your computers on overnight, once a week, and schedule a
defrag while you sleep?

I suppose the obvious question is, what benefit do you expect to
notice as a result?

It's simply automated, you don't have to do anything manually. I just
picked overnight as a time frame when most people aren't likely to be
using the computer for anything else. That leaves the computer with
just that single task, assuming no other tasks, automatic updates for
example, are also scheduled.

My point was that defragmenting a drive doesn't carry any obvious
benefits, at least as far as I can see. I would have had a different
opinion 15-20 years ago, but not today.

I'd postulate the benefits are the same, but with today's computers,
which are much faster, you simply don't notice them. :-)

At the point where I no longer notice it, it's no longer a benefit.
:-)

LOL

Although..... if you have huge files, you might.

But, as I work mostly with old computers, having those files defragged
can definitely be noticeable.

I only work with older computers long enough to get them running and
then donated.

I go a little further, as I try to assemble complete systems, minimum of
tower, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. If I've got something else handy,
such as speakers, I'll toss those in. Maybe swap out the CD Rom for a
CD burner or DVD player/burner, or simply add a 2nd optical player. It
just depends on what I have hanging around.

And, I assume the recipient is a newbie.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 11.0
Thunderbird 11.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.0 rc3

On 4/3/12 3:41 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 4/3/12 2:58 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I believe so. But what does that have to do with it? Unless you
remove
the existing FAT or NTFS or whatever file allocation table or directory
you're not going to get a defragmented drive, since ith those tables
still
intact, the OS simply ooks for the next available cluster space to store
the
next cluster, and nothing more.

When you delete/empty the trash can, the allocation tables should
indicate those areas are now empty, and the space on the hard drive can
be used.

That seems pretty logical, so maybe my memory is off.

I guess we could do a simple test. Take a floppy disc, fill it with
several files, erase it using erase *.*, then copy some new files back over
to it, and see if it is fragmented or not.

I don't have anything installed at the moment like the Auslogic program.
After a number of questionable actions by yours truly, I'm in the
midst of rebuilding my multiboot computer, and at the moment, my new to
me Win 7 computer is bare bones as it came from HP.

What we should probably do is coordinate tests by both of us, using the
same OS, same defrag program, etc. Maybe, even the same file(s).

It could be an interesting experiment.

Way back in DOS days, DOS simply replaced the first letter of the
filename with a character, I can't remember which one. The data was not
actually deleted from the drive. So, if you accidentally erased/deleted
a file, you could take a byte/sector editor, look in the FAT, change the
character back to the correct letter, and your file was miraculously
recovered. :-)

I remember that. :-)




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 11.0
Thunderbird 11.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.0 rc3

"Ken Springer" wrote in message ...
On 4/3/12 1:44 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I want to clear up something. AFAIK, even if the destination drive has been
"erased", that is insufficient (meaning - if you copy files to it, they will
still end up fragmented on the drive). It has to be freshly formatted (not
simply erased, per se), which eliminates the existing file system allocation
map.

Let me ask.... Was the recycle bin empty when you did your testing?

I emptied the RB in my test before doing the last copying to C:. I should have checked if the new 7 fragments occupied
the same sectors as the original 7 fragments, but I didn't.
--
SC Tom

Ken Springer wrote:
On 4/3/12 3:41 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 4/3/12 2:58 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I believe so. But what does that have to do with it? Unless you
remove
the existing FAT or NTFS or whatever file allocation table or directory
you're not going to get a defragmented drive, since ith those tables
still
intact, the OS simply ooks for the next available cluster space to
store
the next cluster, and nothing more.

When you delete/empty the trash can, the allocation tables should
indicate those areas are now empty, and the space on the hard drive can
be used.

That seems pretty logical, so maybe my memory is off.

I guess we could do a simple test. Take a floppy disc, fill it with
several files, erase it using erase *.*, then copy some new files back
over
to it, and see if it is fragmented or not.

I don't have anything installed at the moment like the Auslogic program.
After a number of questionable actions by yours truly, I'm in the
midst of rebuilding my multiboot computer, and at the moment, my new to
me Win 7 computer is bare bones as it came from HP.

What we should probably do is coordinate tests by both of us, using the
same OS, same defrag program, etc. Maybe, even the same file(s).

It could be an interesting experiment.

Way back in DOS days, DOS simply replaced the first letter of the
filename with a character, I can't remember which one. The data was not
actually deleted from the drive. So, if you accidentally erased/deleted
a file, you could take a byte/sector editor, look in the FAT, change the
character back to the correct letter, and your file was miraculously
recovered. :-)

I remember that. :-)

Well, you're right, and my memory was off, Ken (and not the first time :-).
If you take a floppy and do the *.* erase, it seems to work just as well as
formatting does - in terms of the fragmentation.

I guess it only makes sense, in retrospect! So as long as you're able to
completely erase the target disk first, you're good to go (in terms of
fragmentation). If you can't do that, you'll probably have to resort to
either running defrag, or using the "image and restore image" method, to get
a completely defragged outcome (if wanted).