Can anybody explain excessive HD fragmentation from editing?

[ahhaa]

I was shocked last week when I had XP check my C: drive for fragmentation- the analysis showed mostly red- fragmented files. So I defragged it, which is duller and slower than paint drying.

After a couple editing sessions, I thought I'd check it again- and it was all 'red' again!

Even some big WAV files that hadn't been used came up as fragmented. I think many problems people are having might be due to excess fragmentation.

Is the defrag tool in XP reliable? Is there some way to move Temp file creation off the C: drive?

Any other overall wisdom on preventing the need for constant defragging appreciated too...

[Bjs]

Before the next defrag , reboot pc into safe mode (F8 during boot) , and defrag system here .
Reboot when done .
Then head to defrag and do a check .

Other possibilities come from trojan's , virus's , ect .

If you have not got these , give them a quick spin on the pc .

Avg free
Ad-aware se

Get them to check for any problem's that might be lurking about .

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Do a web search for "insert" , or "linux mini distro's" it's a specialized mini linux rescue distro packed with tool's to test the pc .

It include's the hard drive manufacturer's tool's to test the hd for problem's ... if these tool's report problem , it would be time to get a replacement asap .

The manufacturer's hd tool's also include hd cloning ... yes you can use wd's tool to clone a failing wd to seagate , samsung , maxtor ... it just complain's but dose the job .

Of course you could download the tool's from the manufacturer's website for your drive ... but many pc's these day's dont come with a floppy drive which these tool's need in order to create the required disk's .... pretty useless idea considering the thing is in the bios as a legacy device ... just disabled .

These tool's can copy one drive to another where even professional tool's crap out halfway .

[edDV]

I was shocked last week when I had XP check my C: drive for fragmentation- the analysis showed mostly red- fragmented files. So I defragged it, which is duller and slower than paint drying.

After a couple editing sessions, I thought I'd check it again- and it was all 'red' again!

Even some big WAV files that hadn't been used came up as fragmented. I think many problems people are having might be due to excess fragmentation.

Is the defrag tool in XP reliable? Is there some way to move Temp file creation off the C: drive?

Any other overall wisdom on preventing the need for constant defragging appreciated too...

This is part of the reason why you should be using a separate internal drive for your video and temp files. If this a laptop or if the second drive isn't practical, make a separate partition on the C drive to keep the video and windows files separate. It is much easier to defragment the separate partition and you won't be affecting windows response as much. If possible, use a separate drive.

[InXess]

Video files even freshly copied will immediately show as fragmented (red) so don't pay too much attention to it. That's the way defrag sees them even though they are written sequentially. To test it, copy a new file onto the partition and it will be as red as monkey's ass...

[ahhaa]

Thanks guys!

Xcess- that's somehow reassuring; just wondering if using compression would help/hurt or nevermind?

ed- Shoulda explained better- I have two drives set up; an 80G WD that is partitioned in 3 segments: C: for OS & software,
F: for photos & graphics storage, and G: for audio production & sound library. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but it means that each partition at 27 G is fairly full. The other drive is an unpartitioned 100G Seagate, only for video capture & editing.
I think my problem is that some video programs don't seem to give you the option of where to create temp files and assume C: which I've made too small to not get disrupted?

BJ- I have Puppy on LiveCD (a great Australian distro- only 60M & change, it can see NTFS drives), and will try seeing if it does this too. Never thought of the AV aspect, or using Safe Mode.

One other vague Q came to mind; does cluster size come into play here? I sorta get the idea of it, but haven't got a clue how to apply it.

[InXess]

Look carefully in the program options/prefs, every program I know of will give you an option to select temp and "final" folders. Try not to put any video files on C as that may trigger unnecessary defrag routine due to the reasons above. That slows down your PC and in end effect does really nothing as these files will end up in a garbage anyway after the project is done. Forget defrag unless you want to keep them for a long time. Separate partition for a video/media files scrubbing is the only reasonable way to go.

To add, some programs automatically assume as a working drive a largest free partition (most free space). That is for a good reason. If, as you say, most of your first drive partitions are close to "full" they should be bumped down the list of candidates for temp files/scrubbing.
C is often a default drive (C:.../My Docs/whatever folder) for some apps. I'd change that.

[edDV]

...

ed- Shoulda explained better- I have two drives set up; an 80G WD that is partitioned in 3 segments: C: for OS & software,
F: for photos & graphics storage, and G: for audio production & sound library. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but it means that each partition at 27 G is fairly full. The other drive is an unpartitioned 100G Seagate, only for video capture & editing.
I think my problem is that some video programs don't seem to give you the option of where to create temp files and assume C: which I've made too small to not get disrupted?

Which editing apps are you using?

You need to get the tmp file folder defaults over to the second drive. Not only will they defragment but when complete, they need to copy to the other drive. That gets very slow for big files.

More compression causes more tmp files. Fix the TMP file directory first.

[free is better]

tried and true advice always work s best. one drive for operating system and programs, other drive(s) for storage and workspace. only files that fragment are added files. it's true what the previous member said about how the defragger sees recorded files as red. i strongly suggest utilizing Diskeeper professional. it efficiently defrags before the operating system loads as well as defragging and rearranging placement of stored information to minimize fragmentation and speed access. considering that the inventor also created the defrag tool in wndows, you will appreciate why it is faster and leaves no remaining fragments. this is one of the essential elements which allows me to use a p3 dualie operating at 933 mhz to capture and encode mpeg2 flawlessly. (i use this system to learn system efficiency through tuning). faster systems will perform even better with proper disk management.

[ahhaa]

more to ponder...

I have Avid & most of the programs that came with various hardware loaded, due to experimenting with which does the best Firewire captures, and to see actual features:

Avid Free - frame accurate edits, multiple Vid streams for video over, lotsa QC controls, AVI output with a list of codecs.

Arcsoft ShowBiz 1.2 - simple, nice quality mpg, but not playable by WMmaker.

Sony Pixella 1.0- came with camcorder, survived SP1 update. Useless-ish except nice captures & makes MPEG-1s.

Nero 6 OEM looks great feature-wise, but staggers terribly in use; install converted my Lite-On burner to CD-only, which I'm unsure how fix in the flow of some other probs...

Windows MovieMaker is version 1, because 2 only comes with SP2, and installing SP2 means adding a dialup nightmare session to an already troubled computer. WMmaker files guaranteed play on most computers, but I get pretty erratic setups on other machines from Media Player.

I also have a Ulead OEM, its not installed. I have a Enable Sonic DMA icon in the toolbar that won't go away. A half dozen editing software updates to install, if I went for them all.

I just wanted to see which software actually did the best DV transfer job, and how fast which did what; then uninstall the more useless programs.

Right now, I'd definitely keep the Avid, tho it needs much more RAM; I'd keep WMmaker, and Nero if I can get it compatible.

Its driving me nuts because I want to edit , picking your tools and learning them shouldn't be this blind- its like those old time railroads, where every route had different width tracks!

Thanks for the venting opportunity!

[Seeker47]

This is part of the reason why you should be using a separate internal drive for your video and temp files. If this a laptop or if the second drive isn't practical, make a separate partition on the C drive to keep the video and windows files separate. It is much easier to defragment the separate partition and you won't be affecting windows response as much. If possible, use a separate drive.

Suppose you happen to be using a small form factor box, which can only accomodate one internal HDD. How bad of a performance hit will there be in trying to do your video editing etc. on a USB2 external HDD ? Enough to make a separate partition the much better choice ?

[edDV]

This is part of the reason why you should be using a separate internal drive for your video and temp files. If this a laptop or if the second drive isn't practical, make a separate partition on the C drive to keep the video and windows files separate. It is much easier to defragment the separate partition and you won't be affecting windows response as much. If possible, use a separate drive.

Suppose you happen to be using a small form factor box, which can only accomodate one internal HDD. How bad of a performance hit will there be in trying to do your video editing etc. on a USB2 external HDD ? Enough to make a separate partition the much better choice ?

An external drive is OK for editing (although slower) but ideally you would clear space for a capture partition on the internal drive. Capture to an external drive is more likely to drop frames.

Also you would need a program like Partition Magic to create a new partition on an existing windows drive. Alternative is to create space on the C: drive and defragment before capture.

I hope you are seeing that doing advanced computing on low end hardware creates a series of problems that wouldn't exist with a medium level mid tower with two internal drives.

[ahhaa]

Seeker- a kludge. I needed to move many files onto a new HD; same deal- small case. I ran a power lead & an extralong EIDE cable out the back; crude but it worked fine.
The drive-setup software (Seagate in this case) could both clone the old HD and re-partition it.