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I recently bought a new laptop that runs windows 8. It has been about a month and I wanted to clean the system up a bit to keep it running smooth. I tried to defrag the system hard disk drive but when I click "analyze" or "optimize" the optimize drives window disappears for a millisecond then reappears and states the system still "needs optimization". It doesn't matter how many times I click on "optimize" It simply repeats the previous event. I can clean my removable disk and recovery hard drive without a problem.

Why won't it let me clean the system hard drive?

Brad Patton
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kasekris
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    Is your main hard drive a SSD or traditional HD? – Brad Patton Mar 25 '13 at 19:56
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    Windows 8 defragments system drives on a regular schedule, so there is no need to run a manual defrag. By default it runs weekly. On top of that, defragmentation does not add any noticeable system speed increase, unless you are running very old hardware and software. –  Mar 25 '13 at 19:57
  • @moses That makes sense to me, but why would it still think it needs optimizing afterwards then? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Mar 25 '13 at 19:59
  • @kasekris If your new laptop is only a month old there is definitely no need for defragmentation. – Simon Mar 25 '13 at 19:59
  • I realize that there wasn't a need to defrag it, more curious than anything else, and its on a traditional HD. – kasekris Mar 25 '13 at 20:03
  • it's just very odd that it won't do it. ... i set the auto defrag once a day, to see if the auto mode would just take care of it. it didn't.. its very odd – kasekris Mar 25 '13 at 20:04
  • Can you post a screen shot? – David Marshall Mar 25 '13 at 20:30
  • i dont think that would work it happens too fast to capture – kasekris Mar 25 '13 at 20:40
  • @kasekris I meant the window before you click 'analyze'. – David Marshall Mar 26 '13 at 11:22
  • @Simon: "If your new laptop is only a month old there is definitely no need for defragmentation" – Really? Without knowing *anything* about the usage pattern how can you be so sure? – Karan Mar 26 '13 at 20:30
  • @Karan I was under the impression that defragmentation is needed at best twice a year (for desktops at least with traditional HDs), for laptops it might be different. Before carrying out a defrag it best to "clean up" with a program like CCleaner, then reboot, then defrag. Even then there will not be a significant performance boost as indicated by moses in his coments above. I could be wrong. – Simon Mar 26 '13 at 20:38
  • @Simon: There's no fixed time period for ending up with high levels of fragmentation, since it obviously depends upon the amount of data and especially usage patterns. I defrag manually whenever I notice that one of my mechanical drives is getting *heavily* fragmented, which could be once a month or once a year. As for precisely quantifying the performance boost, I don't think we can generalise that either. – Karan Mar 26 '13 at 20:53
  • @Karan I suppose I was making a generalisation & of course it depends on usage patterns - agreed – Simon Mar 26 '13 at 21:01

1 Answers1

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Try running a manual check and defrag using the command line defrag tool. You will need privileged command line, to access it:

  • Open Start screen and type cmd
  • One item should appear, right-click on it
  • Choose Run as Administrator and confirm.

Then type the command you want and confirm it with Enter.

To analyze drive:

defrag c: /a /u /v

This will provide a verbose report of the fragmentation of the drive.

To force a defrag:

defrag c: /d /v /x

This will defrag C: plus consolidate free space and provide a verbose report.

I would recommend a backup and a chkdsk before the defrag simply because you have unusual behavior from the GUI based defrag option. The latter can be run from privileged command line by executing chkdsk c: /r

Once this is complete, reboot your system and then check with the GUI options to see if you have the same behavior. Just keep in mind that it may take a long time to complete the defrag depending on the current state. You may want to run it overnight and check the following day.

gronostaj
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Chris E. Avis
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