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Is it ok to defrag once per week?? Would
cause any harm or would there be any
negative effects doing it once per week??
What is a good recommendation, if once
per week is not good??
About once a week is what most of the "experts" recomend.
It does depend on what you use your PC for though.also do a disk clean at the same time.
Clean out your cach everytime your going to turn your PC off.
Oz
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Agreed. I use Disk-keeper which is better than Windows defrag, and it recommends weekly, but it does depend on usage like how much downloading/file changes you make.
Defrag is good for the hard drive. Some claim it "wears out" the drive, but as I heard it, the opposite is true. It actually improves the potential lifespan of the drive as it revitalises the magnetic particles.
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Andrew; Generally a Defrag is done 1ce a
week. You should do a Thorough Scandisk 1st,
then Defrag. If Your PC is into heavy Daily
use, You might want to consider twice a
Week.
All the Best,
Christian
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Hi
One way to extend the time between defrags is to manage you own virtual memory, creating a constant swap space that windows can use.
I'm guessing this stops windows writing over the entire drive and files don't have to written around areas that are temporarily used by swap. Anyhow for whatever reason, defrags seem to be needed less often.
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Hi. got my first PC in 97. Crashed a lot back then. Tech guy said do the scan and defrag weekly. Have done so ever since.
Do it regularly. It's good advice.
Especially if are not well up on PC knowledge The more often it's done, the less time it takes.
Cheers.
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once a week is plenty. unless you add & delete a lot of files you probably won't notice any difference in performance.
The first time you defrag it might be slow, after that, it will be faster.hard to say about whether this affects the life of the disk. you have an old one & it will fail anyway. New disks are much more reliable. Defrag on newer disks might be better because they rewrite the data, but the head actuators are mechanical. The more mechanical parts get used the sooner they wear out. New drives on a home PC last almost forever anyway, so it isn't really an issue.
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I have been using this machine for over 4 years. I scandisk/defrag ~once per week.
I don't remember if I have ever used the Full Scandisk on this machine because it takes HOURS to run and I do not suspect that I have any problems with my drives.
I also use WinME's defrag tool (9th from bottom) because it is 5 times faster than Win98's.
Running Maintenance Wizard ~once per week takes the chore out of it. It runs in about 10 minutes start to finish.
Bryan
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I run mine when its needed!!
as i d/l and move a lot of stuff my d: drive gets fragmented very quickly as does my c: drive
atm c is 5% fragmented and d is 9% e and f are both on 1% fragmented
the alarm on my system is set at 5% but if i`m busy i`ll ignore it till its around 20 - 30% fragmented then i leave norton speeddisk running overnite to sort it all out.
as for scndisk i usually only run it after a crash or before doing speeddisk.
HTH
Woof
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Hello Andrew, ozyoiy, safeTsurfa, Christian Lee, anenefan, ripper, sonnysandiego, Bryco, bronson, Woof, hi everyone
Seems to me we all agree that once a week is sufficient. :-)
Like Bryan already wrote the Windows ME defrag is much faster, give it a try!
You can download it here, Win98 Defrag Problems, this link also provides information on how to backup your original file and install the "new" Windows ME file.
(http://www.mesich.com/defrag.html)bronson,
Hope these links help, Get rid of junk files
(http://www.mesich.com/junkfiles.html)Purge second from the bottom.
(http://www.mesich.com/freeware.html)Greetz from The Netherlands,
The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com
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Drives vary, as do manufacturers. I just swopped out my old 1.6 gig Samsung, which was the original installed with this box in 1997. Nothing wrong with it, not one bad byte on it, only did the swop out to get more space.
Even my present slave is now five years old, a Quantum Fireball 13 gig, and again not a bad sector anywhere. But then, I do defrag and scandisk regularly, and have never lost file cluster because of it either.
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This .pdf is useful and towards the end (at G) refutes the idea sometimes suggested that defrag is bad for the HD (it says quite the reverse).
Stability White PaperThe way I see it, defrag as often as you wish. The more often you do it the less time it takes per run, so it's a matter of chosing the right balance depending on your usage.
Re #4
No reason why you shouldn't set aside a block of HD for Virtual Memory by creating a setting in system.ini but don't make max=min (still banded about on outdated websites) or else you will be putting a max on virtual memory which is not a good idea.D
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Hi y'all,
Reference to response #8:
How to Clean your Internet Explorer Cache:
Click on INTERNET OPTIONS, which is either under VIEW or TOOLS, depending on Explorer Version. (Version 4 under VIEW and version 5 under TOOLS)
Click on DELETE FILES under the Temporary Internet File Category (in the General tab). Click OK.
Click OK again to exit.
OR... to automatically clean the cache in Internet Explorer - If you don't want to take the time to clean out the cache, you can set Internet Explorer to automatically clean it out every time that it is shut down. This will save space on your hard drive, but it also can cause pages that you go to frequently to load slower because the data is no longer located on your computer.Click on TOOLS
Click on INTERNET OPTIONS
Choose the ADVANCED TAB
Scroll down to the SECURITY section and checkmark the box that is titled: "Empty Temporary Internet Files when browser is closed." Everytime you close Internet Explorer the cache will be automatically deleted.Happy Holidays
beansoup
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Hi again
Re #12 Hi Derek - I guess there is a lot of stuff said about virtual memory. I can only say, that those who do keep the memory to a "trapped" space on the disk - have few problems. So min=max is good, as far as I see it. [You'd be suprised how some problems just drop away!] Setting the computer to use "static virtual memory" has been done for a while, even by experienced users.
I have done this for a while, and not had any real problem with it.
[There is one thing which springs to mind - if you are using a separate partition for swap do not choose maximum amount available, max should be shy of the total amount in the partition]
The biggest task is deciding on how much space you might need for swap. With drives increasing is size, it would be easy to set aside 1.5G, and not miss it. I actaully use 400MB and on the heavist days, there could be a small performance drop.
Limiting the amount of space the temp internet folder can occupy, is another helpful thing to do.
The objective is to create as wide a canvas as possible for files to be laided out without interruption. Hence less need to defrag, so the theory goes.
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anenefan
If you set a Min (only) in system.ini it does still trap a block of that size. The main difference is that if for any reason the system does want more then it will still be able to add it, at all other times it will remain static.
I've had no problems at all.
D
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Hi again
Hi Derek - I don't expect you to have any problems - as per your settings.
As long as you have set a min and set it high enough, there is no reason it should change.
What I was outlining was a method where windows is unable to stomp all over the drive (so much) Consequently defragging is required less often. (seems that way)
If max is not confined to be the same as min, when the swap file size changes, it stomps all over the drive probably at a time when you would be writting more files to disk.
Moving slightly off topic
Setting a truely static swap (with a generous amount allocatted) forces windows to either manage memory or crash. If it crashes it suggests that one or more applications have not released memory back properly.
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anenefan
Please allow me to keep my awkward head on just once more LOL. After this I promise I'll just accept we have different views.
Whether you just set a Min or whether you set Min=Max then the swap file will not stomp all over the drive unless more than the minimun it is actually "required".
If you set to just Min then the swap file can still grow beyond the same reserved block that Min=Max gives, if it should ever need to. The only difference when you set Min=Max is that you are restricting it from ever growing beyond this reserved block. In theory at least it could lead to a crash.
Fine if Windows never needs it, but if it ever should then it is placing an unecessary restriction that just setting a Min will not, with no additional advantage. You've still reserved the same placid block. So I say that never putting a Max on a swap file is a safe and wise philosophy.
Quite happy with the fact that if you make VM massive then it will probably never use it anyway, so in that respect maybe this subtle difference we are talking about becomes a bit academic.
Please don't see this as some sort of argument, just the sort of stuff forums are made for - an exchange of ideas.
There now, I've "done it to death". Sorry Andrew about this intrusion, hope it is of interest.
Derek
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... suppose I should add, this is how you set for no maximum if anyone wants to play:
First set VM to Windows Management and reboot.
Type system.ini in the Run box and at the end of the [386Enh] section add:
MinPagingFileSize=******
****** is a number. If you wanted,say 200M then you put in 204800 (which is 200 X 1024).
Reboot and it will show (greyed out):
Min "200"
Max "No Maximum"Apologies if you already knew all this.
D
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