XP Optimizer (5.1)

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I had previously done a clean install of XP on my hard drive in a single partition. Recently I installed Linux in a dual boot configuration. The Mandrake Linux installer repartitioned the drive to accommodate the Linux installation.

The problem is that all of the Linux partitions are smaller than I would like. The reason for that is that there is a large block of data at the end of the XP partition, and I can’t make that partition any smaller. If I could move the data towards the front of the partition, I could free up some room to resize the Linux partitions.

I have tried Defrag and Disk Keeper, and neither of them moved the data. I have also tried to use PartitionMagic, but that wouldn’t work either. Does anyone know of a disk optimization app that will move all data toward the front of the XP partition? I have searched Google and ZDNet, but I have come up empty. I don’t really want to start from scratch, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

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I have found that two things may help. Try a boot time defrag. If that doesn’t do it then turn off System restore then perform a boot time defrag. Then hopefully you will be able to repartition and then re-activate system restore if you wish.

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I don’t know of any that specifically move data to the front of the disk; however, I can give you two suggestions to follow up on based on past experience.

Norton SpeedDisk has an optimisation algorithm that is supposed to place frequently used data at the front of the drive. I seem to recall that it also tries to move data blocks towards the front of the partition for faster access.

The other product that comes to mind is Raxco PerfectDisk. I haven’t used it in years but it follows a similar scheme for optimisation. If you find something that does what you’re looking to accomplish, I would love to know about it….knowledge is power!

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Knowledge is power, but I

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Hey, Lounge Gang, what about the fact that he’s got a Dell computer? Does Dell do any monkey business with the hard drive similar to what Compaq does? I’ve not worked on any Dell PCs before. The only reason I ask is that I too use DiskKeeper and it moved MOST data to the top of the drives. I don’t remember for sure if it took a boot time defrag to do it, but most of the bottom of my drives are empty.

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Dell does not do anything special that I know of. You can read the Diskeeper theory of operation in the User’s Guide. I quote ‘It is not designed to make the disk look pretty – it is designed to inprove disk performance…”. So, I doubt that you can count on it moving the file in question.

Joe

--Joe

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…designed to inprove disk performance…

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[/indent] And I guess that’s why I figured there must be something about that particular file or files that’s preventing it from being moved, Joe. I haven’t been using Diskeeper very long and I admit I really didn’t notice when I first asked it to analyze my drives, but I just checked again and all my drives have the data at the front (top?) of the drive, with the exception of empty spaces scattered in there that it doesn’t care about. Surely you take some small performance “hit” when the drive heads have to access that data all the way at the end of the drive’s space. So, if it isn’t a Dell kinda problem, what would a fella do to find out exactly what that data is, way down there? In the “old days,” I used to use NU to do my peeking and tweaking on a drive.

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BigAl, Diskeeper can do a boot time defrag which can do much more than the live defrag. The Diskeeper manual has a section devoted to it. It will only work in the full (for $$$) version not the lite (free) version. I’d sure read the manual before running a boot time defrag. I know this does not answer your last question about identifying the file but it may solve the original about moving a file.

Joe

--Joe

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I talked to Dell a couple times this week and their hardware techs and supervisors say they don’t touch the hard drive. They do some adjustments to OEM Windows “to be compatible with Dell hardware” they say. What those “adjustments are” I don’t know. One thing that confused me, is that they sell what is billed as an 80GB hard drive, but the computer “reads” it in decimals as 74.5GB.
I wonder if Krasnejv can get some help for this problem on Executive Software’s website under Help and Support>Index of NT Articles where there are a lot of detailed articles many written in 97-98 but a couple weeks ago I talked to them and they apply to XP. One of their staff Chris Jenson has an extensive defrag manual on their site which might answer your question. They are easy to reach directly by phone and I believe you can reach Chris who wrote that manual and spends a lot of time on defrag and optimization type research at 818-771-1600. With some time, I’ll go into that manual and if I see anything specific, I’ll hyperlink it.

defrag

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Remember that the sales people still thinks that 1K = 1000, when the computer knows that 1K= 1024, and that will make the difference.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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I also have a new DELL PC with a “80 GB” hard drive. I created a simple table in Excel to calculate actual size, based on C drive properties (see attached illustration). The results of calculations are shown in table below:

Exp	Bytes	KB	MB	GB
2^10	1,024	1	0.001	0.000001
2^20	1,048,576	1024	1	0.001
2^30	1,073,741,824	1,048,576	1024	1
“80 GB”	80,015,519,744	78,140,156	76,308.75	74.52

The table shows how size of alleged “80 GB” hard drive will vary depending on which digital unit of measurement you use (KB, MB or GB).

HTH

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