[Klug-general] Defragging Vista

[Karl Buckland]

James,

I'm slightly confused as to why you're so upset by how NTFS stores
files, or why you're so desperate to get the files at 'the beginning'
of the partition, as opposed to the end. NTFS stores files like this
for the sake of performance. Vista will also defragment if you leave
the system turned on but don't use it. Other filesystems, such as some
of those used on Linux (XFS anyone?) also do odd things like this.

I'm also a little confused by the options for backup you have in mind.
Are you planning to re-install windows and then restore your personal
files, or are you thinking of restoring all the files from the windows
partition (system files and all)?

I would just, as Dan has advised, back up your important files, then
use a gparted live CD to resize the NTFS partition. I've done it
plenty of times with no issues whatsoever - it can take an hour or
more for a large partition, but it works very nicely. I've also used
it to copy a partition from one disk to another, and then resize it.

Karl


On 5 October 2010 07:33, Dan Attwood <danattwood at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> While the defragmentation process appeared to be doing it properly, it
>> does of course conspire against linux by leaving a handful of files
>> scattered around the end of the Vista partition just to prevent
>> shrinking it.
>>
>  If you use the gparted live cd that will let you essentially boot you into
> gparted. From there you will be able to resize your hard disk partitions and
> set up any other partitions you might want. I can't vouch as to if all the
> files files be in a tidy block afterwards but it will work. An of course
> you'll want a back beofre you do this. One option would be to use the
> clonezilla live cd and create an image of the disk onto a usb disk or
> similar.
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