Defragmentation Under Windows Vista

[Guest Reimar]

Defragment a harddisk under Windows Vista is not a such easy task as under XP if you want to use the Windows own system. If you want to do it you'll need to do it manually from the Command Prompt.

The Command Promt you'll find by clicking on the Windows Icon (lower left), All Programs, Accessoiries. Than you right click the "Command Prompt" button and select "Run as administrator". A command prompt window will appear. Everything you run in this Window will be run with administrator rights.

1. To view a file fragmentation analysis of (say) your C: drive, type:

defrag c: -a -v

The "-a" parameter tells the defragger to perform a fragmentation analysis. The "-v" option tells it to be verbose in its report. If you want a report on drive D: or some other drive, substitute that drive letter in place of c:.

Be aware that defrag may tell you that you have no fragmented files even if you have some. On NTFS partitions, the reporting function of defrag does not consider fragmented files with fragments greater than 64 MB as fragmented. If you need truly detailed information, you may have to consider getting a third party defragmenter such as those listed on the Free Defragmentation Utilities page on thefreecountry.com.

2. To defragment a particular drive, say C:, type:

defrag c: -v -r

The "-r" option tells the defragmentation utility to treat files that are fragmented with 64 MB fragments or larger as though they are not fragmented. This partial defragmentation is the default for "defrag", and it's the only way the GUI defragmenter in Vista works.

You can also force the defragmenter to defragment everything. That is, even if the file fragments are larger than 64MB, the Vista defragmenter will still attempt to put the file into contiguous sectors. To do this, run the defragger with the following options:

defrag c: -v -w

As you have probably have guessed, "-w" tells the Vista defrag tool to do a full defragmentation. All file fragments will be consolidated where possible.

Edited September 25, 2007 by Reimar