Fragmented Files

Success at last:

First downloaded malwarebytes; found five noxiuos little viruses.

Second downloaded and ran smart defrag NO HELP.

Third deleted a few programs not used regularly, still not enough free space for microsoft to defrag.

Ran smart defrag again, no success; but as it was scanning I noticed a program that I had uninstalled was passed by the screen several times; at the end still no success.

Went to search all files and folders, put that unistalled program in the search frame. and a litteral ton of files came up.

The program GOOGLE EARTH.

Deleted all the file and caches stored for google earth

Before deleting ZERO space on C used 150 Gigs

After deletion of Google 136 gigs of free space, and 99.89% of red is gone.

John Damon

One very happy computer guy

There is no good reason for a hard drive to go from 80% free to no free space overnight, so I would suspect that (to paraphrase the Bard) something is rotten in Denmark.

Unfortunately, the MS Answers forums implementation does not prompt for any system information when a new question is asked, so we know absolutely nothing about your system.

Not knowing fundamental information about a problem prolongs the frustration and agony of resolving these issues but that is the way they choose to run things here.

Thank you MS Answers owners, for continuing to make the resolution of simple problems as frustrating and time consuming as possible.

What is your system make and model?

What is your XP Version and Service Pack?

Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation:  Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), McAfee, Symantec, Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!,  Panda, Trend Micro, CA, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools, Comodo, etc.

There is some malicious software that will generate enough temporary files on your system to render it inoperable so take measures to be sure that is not the problem:

No matter what else you are using for malicious software protection, do this:

Download, install, update and do a quick scan with these free malware detection programs (not at the same time) and remove any threats:

Malwarebytes (MBAM):  http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS):  http://www.superantispyware.com/

SAS will probably report a bunch of tracking cookies and you can just let it delete them.

They can be uninstalled later if desired.

When the scans run clean, reboot and then troubleshoot any remaining issues.

If you want good help that does not involve guessing or trying things, do this:

From your desktop, double click My Computer, right click the drive or volume on which XP is installed and choose Properties.

Reply back exactly what you see without paraphrasing the:

Type:

File system:

Used space:

Free space:

The Windows defrag reports lists files that cannot be defragmented - is that what you are talking about and what are the names of the files?

If you want someone to look at your defrag report, you can save the report to your desktop as a text file (something like VolumeC.txt) and then copy/paste the contents back here.

If you are running low on disk space the Windows defragmenter may have difficulty defragmenting your hard disk.  XP needs 15% of the total hard disk capacity to run properly (you would get an informative message if you don't have enough room).

The XP defragmenter is a slimmed down version of the popular tool from Condusiv Technologies called "Diskeeper".  It does a pretty good job most of the time, but there are some other tools (many of them free) that folks like better.

It makes sense that the XP defragmenter cannot defrag files that are in use (like the registry files, Event logs, hiberfil.sys, pagefile.sys, etc), so they may show up as fragmented files in the defrag report.  These files must be defragmented before XP loads up all the way and starts to use those files.  Microsoft has a tool called "PageDefrag" to help you with some of those files.

PageDefrag will add an entry to the registry to run the page defragmenter on the next reboot.  The registry entry is automatically removed after the system reboots.  Then these files and other system files will be defragmented on the next reboot, but you still may not end up with zero fragmented files.

Get PageDefrag and other good tools, videos and commentary by Mark Russinovich, the master of Windows troubleshooting here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545021

On a healthy system it is certainly possible to have zero fragmented files (according to the XP report) by using the built in defragmenter and PageDefrag.  Defragmenting your HDD does not mean that you will suddenly see more free space on your HDD though (that is not what it is for), so don't let your expectations exceed reality when you get to zero defragmented files and still have no more free space.

Here is an example of such a report (VolumeC.txt) showing zero fragmented files I ran on my system:

Defrag Results

Volume (C:)

    Volume size                                = 932 GB

    Cluster size                               = 4 KB

    Used space                                 = 68.00 GB

    Free space                                 = 864 GB

    Percent free space                         = 92 %

Volume fragmentation

    Total fragmentation                        = 0 %

    File fragmentation                         = 0 %

    Free space fragmentation                   = 0 %

File fragmentation

    Total files                                = 144,366

    Average file size                          = 677 KB

    Total fragmented files                     = 0

    Total excess fragments                     = 0

    Average fragments per file                 = 0

Pagefile fragmentation

    Pagefile size                              = 5.22 GB

    Total fragments                            = 0

Folder fragmentation

    Total folders                              = 19,104

    Fragmented folders                         = 0

    Excess folder fragments                    = 0

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation

    Total MFT size                             = 294 MB

    MFT record count                           = 165,343

    Percent MFT in use                         = 54 %

    Total MFT fragments                        = 0

---

Fragments       File Size       Files that cannot be defragmented

None

There are many free third party defragmenters you can download from the Internet.    Some folks like the other tools better than the built in XP defragmenter, although you can see from the report above, the XP defragmenter is certainly capable of a result of zero fragmented files but sometimes you have to run it many times or do some unnatural things to get to that point.

Here are some examples (in no particular order) of popular third party tools that you can investigate and you can do some Google searches for others:

Some people like the Piriform suite of products and their Defraggler application which you can get here:

http://www.piriform.com/

Some people like the Auslogics suite of products and their defragmenter application which you can get from here:

http://www.auslogics.com/en/

Some people like the PerfectDisk suite of products and their defragmenter application which you can get from here:

http://www.raxco.com/

Diskeeper (not free anymore)

http://www.condusiv.com/products/diskeeper/

I already informed you that Mr. ElderL is my father.

I tried to find where TechDoctor2013 had any posts in the MS Answers forums that were marked as "Helpful" or as an "Answer" but did not find any. 

Tell us - what are your credentials and what is your area of expertise?  We can always use good help here.

And I see that you have not yet contributed anything useful here but I would sure like to hear what you have to say:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-system/win-xp-assistance-wa-xps/aa78e12d-167d-4eec-b272-77d7bd9e5376

Have you actually tried your advice to see how it works?  Please demonstrate that in your next reply.

If you are going to suggest contig.exe, why don't you tell us how to use it?  As a matter of fact, tell me how to use it and I will try it right now. 

Paragon?  Give us a break.  Why suggest things with a bad reputation when the XP tools (used properly) work just fine?

Here are some scripted replies from people regarding that debacle:

Paragon reviews:

Look somewhere else. Don't waste your time with this pay-for paragon software.

The program shuts down while in the middle of a backup. I have uninstsalled and reinstalled three times and still get the same error message.

I will uninstsall this program and look for another that will not shut down halfway through the backup.

there u go mr elder  again with ur scripted template.

Can u please tell me what do you mean by this

**"Thank you MS Answers owners, for continuing to make the resolution of simple problems as frustrating and time consuming as possible"**no one has given any answer before u...

to the op

download contig or paragon softwares

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897428****

http://www.paragon-software.com/downloads/home/

cheers

I have the same problem, Aol systyem mechanic defrags and shows a nice clean orderly hardrive,

but when I check with the system tools defragmenter it shows the hardive is still full of fragmented files.

I continuely receive the low,no disc space remaining pop up.