Why is my hard drive still fragmented after I run defraggler?

I ran defraggler last night because and I let it run while I slept. I woke up this morning and it still told me my hard drive was 20% fragmented. So I ran it again before I left the house for a couple hours. I come back, and it still says 19% fragmented.

What is the reason for this? Is it normal or is there a problem with my hard drive? I'm preparing to re-manage my partitions so I thought it would be smart to defrag first.

Edit: After a third reanalysis, Puran Defrag and Defraggler both tell me I have only 125mb fragmentation. Just some kind of fluke I guess.

Thomas B.

Posted 2010-08-27T19:03:12.957

Reputation: 410

Answers

An alternative is to use a better defragger that can do boot time defrag.

CGA

Posted 2010-08-27T19:03:12.957

Reputation: 3 767

1I agree... some defraggers cough cough "windows" cough cough, aren't as robust or as good. – James Mertz – 2010-08-27T23:31:07.133

Maybe you've not enough free space in each partition. And make sure to run Defraggler before the OS start if it's able to.

cYrus

Posted 2010-08-27T19:03:12.957

Reputation: 18 102

I am not aware of Defraggler having the capability to run off a live cd. And I do not understand what you mean by, "Maybe you've not enough free space in each partition." – Thomas B. – 2010-08-27T19:33:10.137

When Defraggler tries to defragment your partitions he does a kind of housekeeping so it needs to move your data within your partition to create the largest possible contiguous empty space. So it needs some room to make these operations: more room means more chances to success. You may want to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation.

– cYrus – 2010-08-27T20:05:25.430

Certain files such as those currently in use and certain operating system files can't be moved (or not, at least, while the system is running). A couple of examples might include device drivers and the swap file (if present). I'm fairly comfortable saying that you'll probably never get the fragmentation percentage down to 0.

BillP3rd

Posted 2010-08-27T19:03:12.957

Reputation: 5 353

Do you know of a defragging program that will run outside of windows? Like on a live cd? – Thomas B. – 2010-08-27T20:24:11.660

Very, very strange. I just re-analyzed my hard drive with Puran Defrag like CGA suggested, and it told me I have only 125 mb fragmentation! I then went back into defraggler and it also said the same thing. I don't understand it, but oh well. I'm not complaining. – Thomas B. – 2010-08-27T22:46:37.777

I do a defragmentation using Diskeeper on the 1st of every month, and this time my hard drive wasn't too fragmented but it was kind of fragmented so I ran the defrag and then after it was done it was still a little bit fragmented...when I used to do this..it would get 100% defragmented. I think it happens when it gets TOO fragmented!

2tb

Posted 2010-08-27T19:03:12.957

Reputation: 11

Its probably the restore files. Turn off system restore ( have an image available just in case) Run defraggl;er and turn restore back on

Greyguru

Posted 2010-08-27T19:03:12.957

Reputation: 36

The MFT cannot be defragmented while the volume is in use. Neither can files that represent some registry files, the pagefile, C:\hiberfil.sys.

You need a defragmentation program that can run before Windows starts (like chkdsk does) to do that.

LawrenceC

Posted 2010-08-27T19:03:12.957

Reputation: 63 487