I too read Derek's opinion with much surprise. The US dollar buys less than it used to but it is still very good to have. If I save $1,000 in the bank it is not as important for me to move that $1,000 to my pocket versus keeping it in the bank as it was in 1939. The defrag process may not be as important as it used to be but it remains as important. My unsupported understanding of these non-movable files are that they are system files or files that many are dependant upon or accessed all the time. If one of these common files are moved then too many pointers would need to be re-established so they are not moved. It's mat not be that they are impossible to move them it just makes sense to leave them in a part of the drive that can be easily/quickly accessed. Regards, Bryan

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Bryan Well OK, I accept it does depend upon what exactly these files are and how often these are accessed. All I'm really trying to say is that at one time if you didn't keep defrag as high priority then the performance drop would be noticeable. Defrag assumes lesser importance now HD access speeds have increased as well as the other technological improvements I mentioned. I would however concede an argument that was not put forward, the fact that HD sizes have increased. Just the same, keeping free of malware and unnecessary background programs is much more to the point because these can make a marked difference. Unless we measure before and after performance with various specs, states of fragmentation and defragmentation frequency it can only be a matter of opinion based on practical experience. I no longer notice any marked change after defrag, but used to on older machines. I was in no way intending to imply that we should stop defragging, only trying to keep it in perspective. Derek.W

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I understand. I think of it like an oil change on a car. You don't really need to do it and once done you don't see any performance improvement but it is certainly worth it in the big picture. With newer synthetic oils one does not need to change it as often like the faster PCs or bigger hard drives needing defragging. Regards, Bryan

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Yeah Bryan, I'll buy that but when I mentioned the larger HD's I was bordering on "arguing with myself and losing" LOL. In any event the merit of a forum such as this is that we all have varying angles on the broader issues and there is no reason why you and I (or anyone else for that matter) should have the exact same boring opinion on everything. Nice to have chewed this over, I'll note it as food for thought. Derek.W

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Derek An arguement could be made that defrag is even MORE important with a larger drive. The more surface area the heads must cover to retrieve data, the slower the access time. Larger drives have more area to search. The average seek time ratings for larger drives probably takes into account the date in the buffer. With out that the seek times would have to be greater. This is somewhat mitigated by the higher ariel densities on larger drives but I believe the premise holds true.

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OtheHill Err, yes. My wording was obviously bad on that one. That's what I meant by nearly "arguing with myself and losing", or conceding an argument that had not (at that time) been put forward. Like, I'm saying, you have a point.... Derek.W

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read the legend, it explain what each color square is for david

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David, Thank you for your insight. Would you be so kind as to offer an understanding of what and why there are those that belong at the end of the drive as they seem to show up in the middle of the drive all the time on mine before drefragging? Respectfully, Bryan

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I believe Windows defrag considers any file with any one (or more) of the system, hidden, or read-only attributes as 'immovable'. This can include files copied from CDs, for example. Most such files are safe to move - as mentioned, Norton's Speedisk had/has that capability. At one time, both IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS had to be contiguous, and located as the first files on the drive - MSDOS.SYS can now be just about anywhere, since its original function is now integrated within IO.SYS (which probably should be left alone) Defragging is (of course) beneficial - although many novices see it as some kind of miraculous 'repair tool' (that & format) 98% of all statistics are made up

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I am not ablt to scan from dos or in the window itself. I don't have screensaver on. No norton, and nothing else... What I do get is an error that says there is a problem with my drive.. and it won't defrag or scan until i fix it.. I will see about a boot disk.. and try that... in the mean time, if you have some insight I would appreciate it. Oh, btw.. I am not a nube.. just getting frustrated with my old system :| Red. Humans notorious upon knowing what to do in a given situation, tend to have a complete disinclination to do so. <Douglas Adams> Humans notorious upon knowing what is the right thing to do, have a complete disinclination to do so. <Douglas Adams>

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Hey, I'm getting confused. Can I assume re_viking -is- andy alker? If so, it's best to stick to one name per post otherwise we might think it is someone else posting on your thread (that often happens). Assuming you are the original poster, what exactly is the error report and did it mention a particular file? What happens when you try to run scandisk from DOS, does it produce the exact same error? Derek.W

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