Can defragging your hard drive damage anything?

[infin|ty]

Hey, I was on a friends computer and he has had his computer for over a year now and has not reformated or defragged since he got it. I told him he should atleast defrag because it looked almost like a solid red bar. He says that it could "mess up your system." I totally disagree.

Does anyone have any proof or just know for sure if it can harm you computer?

[ozziegn]

your friend obviously doesnt know jack about computers.

[Bad_Boy]

never heard anything like that lol. if it hurt your hd, im sure microsoft wouldnt include it into windows.

[T-Bird 151]

Or rather jack about windows vs. *unix operating system. From what I understand, Windows pretty much is one of the only guys out there that writes files in a non-sequential order while many of *unix file systems do and don't have to be defraged...and I'm right (seriously?).

[kronchev]

Or rather jack about windows vs. *unix operating system. From what I understand, Windows pretty much is one of the only guys out there that writes files in a non-sequential order while many of *unix file systems do and don't have to be defraged...and I'm right (seriously?).

ok first off its *nix. second off they need to be defragged a lot less because they use journaling file systems, which longhorn will pick up.

[Koslov]

omg this one is pretty funny. No it can't damage the computer

When you use the same file over and over again, writing, rewriting, saving, and deleting parts of it on the same disk, the file becomes fragmented. That means that although you can't tell, your operating system is storing all the data from that file as separate packages of information, distributed on different parts of the disk. Although fragmentation does not lose the information contained in the file, it does eventually slow down access to the file itself, because the OS must search the whole disk to create the sum of the file's parts. Defragmentation collects all those parts into one stream of data again, speeding up your system...defragmented files load more efficiently

[infin|ty]

I knew I was right, I felt dumb posting but I had to show him he was romptastic.

[Liam]

The only thing could be even *argued for the point of arguing* is that it causes some wear and tear on your HDD because it has to move so much data, but that can be contered by saying the HDD doesnt have to move the head as much after it is defragged because all the data is in the same part of the drive.

[nomar]

I prefer to keep my hard drives highly fragmented. :p

[emorphien]

While Windoze generally doesn't handle file fragmentation as well as *nix, it's been getting better. My Win2k system didn't need it often and I have an XP Pro system which is the same or slightly better. Win 98 on the other hand fragmented things for fun I think.

[Ice Czar]

Hard Disk Myths Debunked! (http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=84&pgno=0) @ Adrian's Rojak Pot
Myth #4 Defragmenting the hard disk will stress the needle (head actuator).

That is actually contrary to the truth. Defragmenting the hard disk may involve a lot of seeking as the hard disk rearranges its data in a contiguous fashion. This allows the read/write heads to read large amounts of data without seeking all over the platters.

However, after defragmentation, the hard disk no longer needs to seek all over the platters for your data. This reduces the amount of head actuator movements as well as greatly increase the hard disk's read/write performance.

Therefore, while it may be technically correct to say that defragmenting your hard disk will stress the head actuators, the truth is defragmenting your hard disk will reduce the amount of seeking from then on and thus reduce the head actuators' workload


Background information - hard disk fragmentation (http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodefrag/backgrnd.html) @ O&O
Fragmentation and Defragmentation (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/clust_Fragmentation.htm) @ The PC Guide

[adc1986]

A windows 98 defragmenter could damage a drive. After 500 or so "Drive contents changed, defrag restarted" it could hurt something. Ha ha just kidding, but the win9x defrag does suck.

[DrT]

I agree totally with what Liam said.

Anyways, on top of the whole Windows fragmentation problem, there's also the problem of the defragmenter itself: it doesn't rearrange or compact anything. It just tries to reduce fragmentation. What you really need is a good quality 3rd party tool.

[nomar]

I agree totally with what Liam said.

Anyways, on top of the whole Windows fragmentation problem, there's also the problem of the defragmenter itself: it doesn't rearrange or compact anything. It just tries to reduce fragmentation. What you really need is a good quality 3rd party tool.

Interesting point DrT. Has anyone ever noticed the difference between the different defrag programs? When XP says its completely defragged, I can run Norton and it will show that it is highly fragmented. Then if I try the defrag tool in System Mechanic, it will show that it needs to be defragmented. Its like these 3 apps have different ideas of what is defragmented. Since I don't have Norton anymore and I purchased System Mechanic, I use that about once a week. It is the best I've seen so far.

[Ice Czar]

Has anyone ever noticed the difference between the different defrag programs?

well....I didnt spend $45 because I had "extra" money :p
the features in advanced defrag programs and the way they can be employed to optimize file locations in addition to contigious files make them a valuable "tuning" tool

I use O&O Defrag Pro v4, others swear by Perfectdisk or Diskeeper

[the who]

I heard from somewhere it depends on the file system. I heard on NTFS fragmentation doesn't really effect performance at all and this was from pcworld magazine. Not sure if I believe it though.

[Ice Czar]

complete and utter balderdash let me assure you :p

NTFS Defragmenting (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/info/defrag.shtml) @ Sysinternal
proper title is Inside Windows NT Disk Defragmenting by Mark Russinovich

also located in the FAQ > Advanced HDD Issues > NTFS Advanced Studies

NTFS is better than FAT32 but still needs to be defragmented ;)
ther are strategies you can employ to reduce fragmentation however
Partitioning Strategies (http://partition.radified.com/partitioning.htm) @ Radified
and it can even be taken to the extreme (http://zapwizard.com/Partitioning/results.html)
however that complicates the hell out of repair and recovery when you split off the registry dependent programs from the OS

[Carnival Forces]

A windows 98 defragmenter could damage a drive. After 500 or so "Drive contents changed, defrag restarted" it could hurt something. Ha ha just kidding, but the win9x defrag does suck.

yes it does, that's why, if you're running Win98 (idk about 95), you should go d/l the WinME (yes, ME) defragger...

that's the ONLY thing M$ did well w/ ME, was upgrading the Defragger (it's really quite good)

[Vegeta]

A defrag can totally screw up your system if something goes wrong. A fatal error during a defag is just as bad as FDISK is in DOS. I had a win 98 machine being defragged once when it started to load some files over a network to another computer.. the HD had to stop what it was doing and get the files.. which somehow locked it up.. I had to restart the computer, whereas since half the HD was defrageed and the other wasn't the system would not boot windows since the file system was so corrupted. Now I do not know if WinXP or 2K's Defragmenters have a prevention for something like this, but it could definately be a problem on Win 98.

[awdark]

Yeah defragging and crashing is very damaging.. havent tried that recently though. :D

Oh also if your drive is on its last leg and its giving you lots of errors and all that.. the defrag will probably kill it.. its better to use those cycles for backing up to a new drive.. I did that when i couldnt understand why my drive was being so slow.. I thought it was so fragmented that it was causing me to lag... it was hardware not the data on the drive

[digitalman]

I use O&O Defrag Pro v4.I sugesst you update to O&O Defrag Pro v6. The money spent is well worth it for the increase in speed.

[Ice Czar]

v4 does what I need, and its setup to work in the background with a 1% threshold
and Ive heard v6 phones home

besides my priority list far exceeds my dollars :p


A defrag can totally screw up your system if something goes wrong. A fatal error during a defag is just as bad as FDISK is in DOS. I had a win 98 machine being defragged once when it started to load some files over a network to another computer.. the HD had to stop what it was doing and get the files.. which somehow locked it up.. I had to restart the computer, whereas since half the HD was defrageed and the other wasn't the system would not boot windows since the file system was so corrupted. Now I do not know if WinXP or 2K's Defragmenters have a prevention for something like this, but it could definately be a problem on Win 98.

havent run a Win98 in a long time so I can address this
but its not very applicable in NTFS, youd either have corrption or you wouldnt, and if there is corruption it could be a critical system file, in which case the OS is borked and you need to repair it, and there are several ways to do that from a repair reinstall to a registry replacement to if you are given the file that is borked as simple file replacement

but it seems to "keep track" of the fragment locations without much problem
guess Id need to reread the NTFS Advanced Studies Links again and review fragmentation in FAT32 as well for the exact differences

[digitalman]

I've heard v6 phones home That's news to me. :eek:

[Ice Czar]

damn cant remember who, but it wasnt that long ago
he caught it at the firewall

unfortunately the search queries to find it are either too short
or too common