[D.Arbib]

I have used in XP Raxco's Perfect Disk but in Vista SP1 Ultimate 64 bit it will not defragment System Restore files or exclude them, so generally I get a very messy drive and have to stop System Restore
to avoid this.

My question is: Is there another quality deframenter, free or paid for, which will work in this environment?

[minotaur]

I've never used it on Vista 64-bit personally, but Diskeeper 2009 Pro may do the job, since it supports x64.
http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/home/dk...chart-home.aspx

I have v2009 installed on XP Pro 32 bit, and it's excellent.

I used to run the older 2008 Pro version back when I had Vista 32-bit and used it's VSS defrag option to avoid conflict with restore points.

[D.Arbib]

I don't want to spend cash on Diskkeeper unless I can be sure that it will handle the System Restore Files in Vista 64 bit. So I rather hope smeone will come up with a reply.

No problems in 32 bit XP with any defragmenter.

[CoffeeFiend]

Perfectdisk is a great defragmenter (aguably the best), except for x64 systems seemingly. That's the only app I've encountered that didn't work as expected since I made the switch to x64 a couple weeks ago. The driver it installs is quite problematic (would often prevent the machine from booting normally, having to boot in safe mode to remove it so I can get back in Windows normally). Boot mode never worked either... Very deceiving.

Diskeeper isn't quite as good IMO, and I don't particularly care for the company itself. It feels like you're paying for little more than the brand name (besides supporting scientology, that is)

I'd be interested in other defragmenters that work fine on Vista x64 for sure (anything but Diskeeper, which ain't getting a penny from me, nor Perfectdisk which ain't quite working as expected). I might give the 'ol O&O a try again... It's been a lot of years since I even bothered.

[Zxian]

crahak, on Dec 22 2008, 10:30 AM, said:

Perfectdisk is a great defragmenter (aguably the best), except for x64 systems seemingly. That's the only app I've encountered that didn't work as expected since I made the switch to x64 a couple weeks ago. The driver it installs is quite problematic (would often prevent the machine from booting normally, having to boot in safe mode to remove it so I can get back in Windows normally). Boot mode never worked either... Very deceiving.

Really? I've installed PerfectDisk on several Vista x64 computers, and I've never had the problems you describe. This system here is currently running a normal SMARTPlacement defrag after having run a boot mode defrag 10 minutes ago.

There might be a conflict with another driver on your system, but I wouldn't blame the software outright. All four of the x64 systems I've got it on work as expected.

[CoffeeFiend]

Wow. That's good to hear. I'll make sure I'm using the latest build then, and disable all other "strange" drivers that might be installed (SPTD perhaps? Some DRM-related driver? who knows). Very good news, thanks!

[DonDamm]

You also might want to consider Vopt v9.08.1 which is one of the fastest I've ever seen, at least in normal mode. I use tightest mode for drives with video files. Like Perfect Disk it can operate in a very low free space environment (like less than 4%) unlike the built in Windows defrager or Diskeeper which it's based on (they strat to freak out at 15% free space or so). Vopt also has some neat utilities built in such as cleanup. You can try it out for 30 days to see if you like it. You can find it at Goldenbow.com. It's small and fast. I like PD, too, in some situations and have long had both on my systems and afaik both manage both 32 and 64-bit systems with aplomb.

[LordWarlock]

Try to run the defragmenter under the SYSTEM account (through scheduler), even if you run as an administrator, you still have no access rights to system restore files/folders.

[DonDamm]

Well, that's true unless you take ownership of the files...., but good point. Scheduler is a very handy applet that's rarely used or noticed. I forgot, but I use it for many things like running batch files to clean out cookies and temp files and whatnot.

[D.Arbib]

Thank you for all your replies. One of the great problems with Vista is that for so many programs there is a need to set up permissions and. sometimes, to disable user account control

Is it possible, I wonder, if this could be the cause of Perfect Disk not dealing properly with the System Restore files?

In any case, my experience with XP System Restore over many years has been essentialy very poor, in that, for example any new program installtion even if unistalled will make it impossible to restore, so I have disabled it so as to get proper defragmentation with Perfet Disk.

Incidentally Raxco are fully aware of the problem and are, apparently, waiting for a Microsoft fix.

This post has been edited by D.Arbib: 23 December 2008 - 08:29 AM

[minotaur]

DonDamm, on Dec 23 2008, 05:37 AM, said:

..or Diskeeper which it's based on (they strat to freak out at 15% free space or so)

Probably on the older versions; the new Diskeepers don't have that issue. I am currently testing the trial version of Diskeeper 2009 Pro and it fully defragged a 250GB drive with only 5% free space when I tried it. I created some fragmentation by deleting some files and adding new files until the space was only 5% and turned on the auto defrag before going to bed. Next morning the drive was fully defragged!!

This was on a drive with relatively static files (photos/torrents) but I would not recommend that any OS drive be filled up to the 90-95% mark though. Performance is bound to suffer regardless of fragmentation.

[mara-]

minotaur, on Dec 25 2008, 03:11 PM, said:

DonDamm, on Dec 23 2008, 05:37 AM, said:

..or Diskeeper which it's based on (they strat to freak out at 15% free space or so)

Probably on the older versions; the new Diskeepers don't have that issue. I am currently testing the trial version of Diskeeper 2009 Pro and it fully defragged a 250GB drive with only 5% free space when I tried it. I created some fragmentation by deleting some files and adding new files until the space was only 5% and turned on the auto defrag before going to bed. Next morning the drive was fully defragged!!

This was on a drive with relatively static files (photos/torrents) but I would not recommend that any OS drive be filled up to the 90-95% mark though. Performance is bound to suffer regardless of fragmentation.

This is true. I'm also using version 2009 and it really rocks.

Cheers

[DonDamm]

Glad to know that about v2009. I used to just get fed up DK and it's silly hype. Vopt was always reliable and safe and did the job. Perfect Disk while sometimes slower in some modes, has different strengths, so I've always like the pair. The fact is that we should have to deal with it hardly at all. If you think I'm kidding just look for a degragger for linux or unix. You find there basically isn't a demand for one because the file system takes care of it by itself by trying to put files into contiguous space to begin with. Check out the specs on ext2 or ext3 and you'll see what I mean. I curious as to how the stillborn WinFS would've handled fragmentation issues.

[weEvil]

jkdefrag. 64-bit version too. don't know about system restore files since I have that disabled.

[garnet]

mara-, on Dec 25 2008, 10:10 AM, said:

This is true. I'm also using version 2009 and it really rocks.

Cheers

Another for Diskeeper09, checked out the trial and its superb.

[CoffeeFiend]

Update: thanks Zxian! I tried build 64, and no more issues. Everything defrags 100% fine, no more driver or startup issues or anything weird. The vmware version works great BTW. Much better than diskeeper, but then again that ain't saying much.

Edit: BTW, I also tried the latest diskeeper 2008. That trash filled my event viewer with TONS of error messages too, like "Unable to check the VSS Shadow Copy status for volume {[GUID here]}:\ ." and tons of totally unhelpful crap like:

The description for Event ID 111 from source Diskeeper cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

{{[long and useless GUID here]}}

Hundreds of that one... Thankfully it's all gone now. PerfeckDisk working as great as it used to

This post has been edited by crahak: 28 December 2008 - 12:42 AM