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What a Fragged Drive Actually Is Written by: Dan Daily
Hi Gang! .Since my last paper on avoiding system crashes, I've received some feedback on problems folks are having with the defrags, and questions about what a fragged drive actually is.
The Hard Drive In Detail Picture your drive as a music CD, It starts in the middle and goes out. It is divided into clusters, that your computer identifies. (or your CD player identifies) Therefore, when it's looking up data, (a song) it knows just what cluster it's in and finds it quickly. Actually the CD player works in a much simpler realm, but for our purposes, it's good enough. Let's start with a fresh defrag. (a new CD) All your programs (songs) and data are packed in order, all data related to a program is packed next it's program etc. This is why your computer is so fast with a packed drive. Your drive only has to move a smidgen (like that technical term?) to access all the data from say, Aol, as all it's related files are right next to it. In CD terms, it means all the songs are all in a row without any holes. Now; lets say you delete a little program because you don't use it, or a picture. Wherever this resided on the drive is now blank. With the CD scenario, we now have a spot in the middle of a song that's blank somewhere. Lets say, this would cause a skip in the music, in the first song. Now we delete an old address book, this causes a skip in the 3rd song. etc etc. So now we have 2 skips in the first song, 5 skips in the 4th song and so on. In short, if it were a music CD, we'd throw it out. OK, now you save a large image file, when you do this, DOS, (yes, you still have DOS, it's in there) uses the first available space on the drive, than the second, and third and so on. So, this image is now on 30 different places on the drive. When you open the picture, your drive has to actually read clusters at 30 different locations to get all the data it needs just to show you that one picture. This is why it slows down so dramatically. This scenario, repeated over and over again, is called a fragged drive. The Government estimates that over 3 Billion dollars a year is lost in productivity due to waiting for fragged drives in business. You aren't the only one, but now you know better! Over time, this will seriously kill you computers performance to the point that you think you need a new one. You do a defrag, and BOOM, it's like a brand new computer. In our scenario, the defrag takes that image, and puts it all in one place, in order. The drive no longer has to search all over the disc for it. Get the picture? No pun intended, LOL. The best way, I've found to avoid over fragmentation of the drive is to divide it. That is, Partition it. If you have a newer Compaq, this is already done for you, as Compaq's quick restore feature, uses it's D: drive to mirror your C: drives data. I know this is getting a little heavy here, but bear with me. By partitioning the drive, you actually make it two drives. It's still only one hard disk, but DOS, and Windows "THINKS" it's two, and actually gives you a new drive letter for it. The setup I have, is as follows: My Aol, and my Danny's Daily's download files are on this second drive. As most of my work is in Aol and the Danny's Daily's files, these are what frag up my drive the most. Instead of fragging up my C: drive, and Windows, if they just frag their own "little" drive, it takes about 4 minutes to defrag this drive, vs. the 50 minutes the main drive takes. Confused? Just ask your local 14 yr old. LOL There are programs like "Partition Magic" that can do this for you painlessly. Next time, I will tell you how important it is not to use Aol's download file. You will to create your own download file, away from Aol. Then you can point Aol's default download to it. (my aol,,,/ preferences,,,/ download) This keeps all your data out of Aol; in the event of an Aol crash, your data is separate, and safe. My separate download file is called Dannys Dailys. (original, huh?) How to actually do the defrag; You must prepare your computer for the defrag. While it's defragging, if any changes occur to the drive, defrag will tell you so, and start all over again. Some computer tech teams will actually tell you do defrag in "Windows safe mode," rather than take the time to explain this. You must shut down any program that might "come to life" on you. I have two, my screen saver, and my clock chimes. The chimes remind me to look at the clock so I'm not online until dawn, who, me?) To shut off your screen saver, you have to go to control panel,,,/ display, and shut it off from there. Or use a little program I use from plemsoft. Click here to get it. Welcome to PLEMSOFT http://www.plemsoft.com/ It's called Power SS, and it's really great! This program puts a tray icon at the bottom of your screen, now your screen saver is a one click affair. The last I knew, it was free. The free version is available on my "Danny's Junk" CD, that you have. Try it, you'll like it. You won't be able to live without it, especially is you use a program to answer Aol's system clock screens. If your screen saver is running, these programs can't function. Once you have all of these type of programs turned off, you're ready to try a defrag. (notice, I said try) start,,,/ programs,,,/ accessories,,,/ system tools,,,/ defrag, and you're on your way. If there are no problems with the disk, it will start right away. If there are problems, it'll halt, and tell you to run ScanDisk. If it tells you this, make a copy of your Aol organize folder immediately, before you do anything else. I'm already assuming your download file is not in AOL. Make sure your Aol, Setup folder is not in Aol. If you downloaded your newest version of AOL, the setup file will be in your old AOL directory. There is a chance, (a small one) after ScanDisk, if you've never run it before, your Aol could be toast. A lot of times, you can corrupt Aol, and not even know it. Sometimes you don't know it until you make a specific command to Aol, and Crash! This can be what's holding up the defrag. (Probably not, I'm just trying to cover all the bases.) But you must run the ScanDisk, so now, run it. When it's done, try your Aol again. Still runs? Good, run the defrag. If it doesn't run, reinstall AOL first, you want it packed, like all the rest of your data. If you've never run a defrag, and only have a C: drive, the first thing you'll need is time. Lots of time. LOL Click on details, and watch what Windows actually does, it's nothing short of amazing. If you religiously defrag BI weekly, (I recommend weekly) it'll take much less time the second time around. And, if you've never done it before get ready for some serious speed. You'll think your computer is brand new! OK, Windows 95 says you don't need to defrag; Don't believe it, it's full of it. All 95 does is look at the drive, if it doesn't see "holes" in it, it considers it packed. This is a bad assumption. You could have your Aol in 1000 different places, and Windows 95 would have no way of knowing it. So don't believe it, defrag it anyway. This confusion, is the reason Windows 98 no longer makes that judgment. I hope this clarifies, and helps you on your journey to sanity. DO YOUR DEFRAGGS!!! What? You want a story before I close???
Ok, A funny experience: I'd IM'd a friend with whom I frequently chat. Long pause, then he responded. Seems that he'd been trying to interest a neighbor in getting a computer. She was intrigued by these "intelligent" machines, but was uncertain about whether she could use one, so he'd told her that he'd sign her online under his screen name and let her explore, while he tended to some household chores. Suddenly, he said, she began screaming frantically. "Your computer just started talking, all by itself," she told him. "And it's talking to *you* -- I don't think it likes having a stranger meddling with it!" And, of course, that "talking," was my IM. LOL .Danny I hope this helps you on your road. Your Road? Yes, Your Road To Computer Sanity Danny
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