Defragment DOESN'T defrag Maestro compiled files?

[defense]

I just did my first defragment in about four months. I noticed in the defrag log there were some files which could not be defragmented. When I checked the log just about all of the files that could not be defragmented were completed, compiled, Maestro project waiting to be burned. I have a couple of files which I've run pulldown on awaiting "compiling", and those too, couldn't be defragmented.

My question is, why can't those files be defragmented, and did I affect any of those files waiting to be burned? I am thinking I didn't because they couldn't be defragmented, but I just want to make sure. If anyone can please let me know why those files can't be defraged, and if I have screwed anything up, I'd appreciate it.

[damnim]

If you don't have enough harddrive space on the drive you are defragmenting you won't be able to defrag those large .vobs or .m2vs.

Depending on what you are using to defrag, the program may appear to hang when you are defragging a drive with huge files on them. This is because the program is moving this file around on your harddisk to defrag it.

Your system will also appear to be hung or slowed down enourmasly as well when defragging a drive with huge files on it.

[defense]

damnim, what don't you know? lol....can I call you my personal DVD Consultant? lol...well, I thought my defrag would take several hours being that I hadn't defragmented in so long but It took less then one hour. I have a 40 GB Maxtor HD, and basically it is "maxed" out always..no pun intended. Anyway, I did get a message a while back when I attempted to defrag and only had about 3 gb's of space...windows XP gave a message saying there wasn't enough disk space to defrag which I guess is what you are saying. This wasn't the case here, I had about 8 GB's of space BEFORE I defragged and it finished completely. It was after where I saw those big files weren't defragged.


Is it good to defrag those VOBS or .m2v's for any reason? I mean, should I just rip two movies a time and defrag every so often with them on the hard drive, or is it not necessary to defrag those files at all? If you can let me know when you get a chance, that will be very helpful. I am anxious to see how smoothly my pulldown goes now with the defrag.

[damnim]

I don't defrag the dedicated drive that holds the material I am going to write never have never will.

When I point out to folks that they need to defrag regularly it is with the intent of the primary active partition that holds the OS and the Drive the Burn program is on and not the material that is going to be written.

It isn't necessary, if you have a dedicated drive, to defrag the volume after ripping or compiling a movie unto it. If you have a cycle of storage, write, delete on the volume defrag will have no effect.

I have a 60gig dedicated drive that I only store material on that I am going to burn and I have yet to defrag it. I store, create, burn, delete.

Windows will not defrag large files if there is not enough disk space. It sounds as if you have one drive only. If this is the case then 8gigs would not be enough "disk" memory to defrag. Sometimes Windows will defrag the smaller files and not the larger ones.
I use diskeeper and know this to be the case. Diskeeper actually integrates with the Defrag thats in the WinXP.

If you haven't partitioned your harddrive into 3 or more drives I would urge you to do so.

[defense]

damnim, I do only have one drive, and I also only have 1 partition. I understand what you are saying regarding 8gb's not being enough disk space to run defrag, but it did run and it worked. I'm noticing all of my programs are loading up even faster then before, and what's interesting, is my hard drive is running more quiet.

Anyway, I have had dual partitions in the past but figured with all the sub folders I could make it would be easier to just have a single drive letter access. I could back everything up and create 3 parititions or so, but are you saying that I should have my burn program on say letter "F" while I do all of my encoding on letter "D" and ripping and stripping on letter "E"? If so, will that make a big difference in anything being that it will still be on the same "hard drive" istself anyway?

I haven't noticed any problems with anything, so It's one of those things where I've heard people say all sorts of things like I should have more then one hard drive itself, etc. But with no problems whatsoever, why should I do it? If my hard drive burns out, then believe me, I got my money's worth. I've also heard you mention that you switched your burner and rom from DMA to PIO, I've always heard it the other way around, and I wouldn't switch those to PIO because I have never had a single problem burning or otherwise.

I average my rip speeds at 12x, and it's usually 15.2x-15.4x, so I don't want to screw anything up. But it's one of those things that works for you, so you, so you won't change back to DMA. I feel the same way about the hard drive, but let me know what you think and if you think I should definitely either get another hard drive just for storage, or if I should at least make a few NTSF partitions out of the one I have. One last question though, why don't you ever defrag the dedicated drive you are storing your info on? What's the reasoning behind not defragging that drive? Obviously, you must be thinking something negative can happen, and I'm just curious as to what that might be so I know if I do eventually get another drive to dedicate to storage only. Thanks

[damnim]

Defragmenting the drive that I store my material on I have found to be a waste of time. I don't have any problems burning the material and I delete it after doing an inspection of the burn. Using the cycle I mention does not create a defragmented drive. When the drive is viewed with a graphic defragmenting program such as what I have, the data is in a continuous block and not all over the place. I have burned well over 200 disks using this method. If data is deleted there is nothing to defragment. The drive is empty and ready for new data.

As to partitioning, I've learned that if I put just my OS on the C: drive and distribute my partitions to include only the OS, apps, archives, video, mp3s it is easier to maintain and easier to repair if something goes wrong. I have had to reinstall windows at various times and it is easier just to format the C: drive and reinstall the OS. If something goes wrong with the hard drive there is a better chance of data recovery if you have partitions. It is not that difficult.

[defense]

I see where you are coming from.

If something goes wrong with the hard drive there is a better chance of data recovery if you have partitions. It is not that difficult.

I have a Ghost Image of everything I have, and if something goes wrong with the OS and it is fatal, I have no problem getting it recovered quickly. I've had problems with viruses and tweaking the registry, that's why I have an image. No biggie for me and I screw around with everything. But again, people have to do what works for them, and being that this works for me, I guess I'll keep a single partition, for now at least. Thanks for the info though