Windows Vista Defrag question...

I use Disk Defragmenter. Awesome app. Now, I have the Vista-compatible version and it defrags Vista just perfectly. On XP, however, it just doesn't want to work. I have it installed there as well and it just leaves me with a lot of "red ".

Here's my question: If I defrag my primary partition where XP resides FROM within Vista, will it mess anything up? I remember having the dual-boot set up this way when I ran Vista RTM before, and I did something to make XP inaccessible. I don't remember if the defrag was what did it. I really want to keep XP for certain things and applications that are not Vista-compatible yet. My XP partition is HEAVILY fragmented, though.

Am I taking a risk in defragging my XP partition from Vista given the above scenario? Thanks so much for any help and input!

 

Can't you get into your XP installation and run defrag.exe? You could also run defrag.exe from Vista pointing it at your XP partition.

Roger

 

Hey Roger,

Yes, I have Disk Defragmenter installed on my XP partition as well. I purchased it once and installed it on both OS's. For some reason, it won't work WITHIN my XP, but on Vista it works. Yes, of course, I can point it to my XP partition and defrag it. However, and this may be a dumb question, I am concerned that it will mess up my XP to where I can no longer boot into XP. For example, when I used Partition Magic from XP one time to give Vista more space, Vista went bad. I could no longer boot into it. Totally different ballgame, of course, but I don't want to take chances being that something similar happened once already.

As I said, I've done something at some point that did that, and I don't remember if it was the defrag.

Thanks for your help!

 

Hi Crunch,
No, I don't mean your Disk Defragmenter, that's a third party app. I was talking about the built in de-fragmenter run from a command line. That should be foolproof as far as XP goes.
In Vista, if your XP partition is 'D' for example, the command would be
defrag d:\ -w and if you want to know if it really needs a defrag the command is defrag d:\ -a for analysis.

Roger

 

Hey Roger,

I know about the built-in defragger, but I don't want to use it as I purchased Disk Defragmenter for its advanced capabilities. So I need to know that if I defrag my XP partition from within Vista using Disk Defragmenter that it won't ***** up my XP partition. What do you think? Should I go for it? I did an analysis and that didn't mess it up...

Merci beaucoup!

 

I think that you are going to give it a try anyway Crunch! Who needs XP now anyway?

Roger

 

I'm going to do it right now. And you're right about the XP comment LOL...I like taking risks. I'll post back in 30 mins.

 

And it worked...Posting from XP. Thanks dude...

 

I have a dual boot with XP on my primary partition. i run defrag from XP and it shows the Vista partition which I can choose...BTW you can also use Norton Antivirus and probably other utilities from XP to Vista when current software is still incompatible or unavailable with Vista alone.

 

You have to get Vista-ready/compliant/compatible software for Vista as it is brand new code. Never install software designed for XP on Vista. Most software has new versions you can download where you bought it from if you provide information as to where you bought it.

 

I'm booting and running the utilities from the XP partition. The Vista partition is visible from XP as the E drive. They seem to work just fine. The same programs will not even install on the Vista drive. I found this out playing around. It works in the dual boot configuration. It is only a temporary trick till new updated Vista ready programs come out.

 

The reason they are working is because Vista has the same file system as XP does - XP's defrag works just fine as you found out. "Vista ready" in these cases mean GUI differences.

If you're going to continue the dual booting, nothing wrong with what your doing.

Regards - Charles

 

I wouldn't go that far. TWICE I've done a resizing of the partition using Partition Magic FROM XP and it was the Vista partition I had wanted to make bigger. Both times, Vista no longer booted after the re-partitioning.

 

Hi Crunch,
You have found out the hard way that PM is not Vista compatible! I waited long enough for Symantec to make a Vista version available, then gave up and bought Acronis Disk Director. If it performs as well as True Image I shall be quite satisfied, and I am sure that Symantec will manage to turn ¨PM into bloatware!

Roger

 

Using PM was going too far.

There are links to compatability lists posted in this forum

Regards - Charles

 

CRUNCHDUDE,
Thanks for the heads up about using PM. I knew about the compatibility issues with Vista and was going to try to resize by running it from the XP side soon...I guess you were using PM 8.0 (thats what I have). Please let me know if you get your dual boot back. BTW I get the Microsoft dual boot menu(choose earlier or Vista). I did not use the PM Boot Magic. Which one did you have?

 

No problem. Yea, I found out the hard way on my old laptop, but I knew not to do it this time. And yes, I have PM 8.0 with the 8.01 upgrade.

Anyway I've been using PM for years on XP and I've also divided my 80gig drive into two partitions on my current Thinkpad on XP. I'd like to eventually give more space to Vista and have XP merely as only an emergency backup OS. So PM is out for now. Roger mentioned Acronis Disk Director as well as True Image. Besides those two, are there any other ones anyone can recommend? I've always loved PM for its simplicity and it has never messed up one me ONCE on XP.

Until we meet again...

The Crunch

 

Hi Crunch,

Give Disk Director a try out. The UI is very much like PM, but it has more tools that could be useful, like making it possible to boot from any partition, making a boot disk, recovering lost partitions, etc. What really impressed me though is the Help file included with it. That has a load of information on how, and why, disks can be partitioned, installing other OS's, explaining the BIOS workings, file systems etc..
Really useful!
Roger