No way for defraging?

[ceckin]

Hi! First I'm sorry that i have to bother you with my problems, but it seems there is no defraging software that can actually defrag my partition:

1) the partition is 321GB
2) it have 8% free space
3) The biggest single file is about 22GB (Blu-Ray movie)
4) It has fragmentation ratio over 75%

I tried: O&O, Diskeeper, Vopt, jKDefrag, MyDefrag (which i actually didn't tried cause it crashed after analyzing, with no evidence of problem whatsoever in the log) and the result is NOTHING, most of the programs usually end quickly with obviously no defragmentation done, JK however runs for soooooo long, but it says "Alternative method failed, file stays where it is". So actually is there a way to defrag this partition without deleting the information on it?

[jonib]

If you can move the 22GB file to another place temporarily and then defrag  and then move it back, is probably fastest.
When I want big files defragged I alternate between Contig to defrag the big files and then MyDefrag, you will probably need to run them several times.

jonib

[jeroen]

JkDefrag will write the message "Alternative method failed, leaving file where it is" when it has instructed the Windows defragmentation API to move the file, and the API has returned successfully, but has left the file was fragmented. There is any number of reasons why the API does this, usually because another program has created a file somewhere in the space where the file is being moved to.

Where did you get the "fragmentation ratio" (75%)? I suspect that the number is the total number of clusters in fragmented files, percentage of the total number of used space on disk. A single huge file with only 2 fragments can show a high percentage, and the display will look terrible, but it's actually not that bad. For a better picture see the numbers in your "JkDefrag.log" file.

[ceckin]

Well actually the two 22GB files has fragments literally all over the partition (total > 400000), and some other files, so it's heavy fragmented and using contig, lower down this but not much, so for now no result. Can you fix the analyze crash in the next version, so i can i try MyDefrag?

[jeroen]

Can you fix the analyze crash in the next version, so i can i try MyDefrag?

I hope so, I am doing my best.

[jonib]

Well actually the two 22GB files has fragments literally all over the partition (total > 400000), and some other files, so it's heavy fragmented and using contig, lower down this but not much, so for now no result.

I have one more strategy that should work, use the Force together(-a 5) defrag mode in JkDefrag excluding(-e) the big files, and then use Contig to defrag the big files, repeat until results are acceptable.

That is how I ultimately was able to defrag some big and stubborn files I had, only difference is I used MyDefrag and a custom script that moved the big files last.

jonib

[khagaroth]

Try PerfectDisk, that's about the only defrag program that does work correctly on drives with low free space as it moves files in small chunks. Most defrag programs only move whole files, so they don't work if there is not enough free space for the whole file.