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"Unmovable" files really fragmented

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by Chris, 2003/09/04.

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  1. 2003/09/04
    Chris

    Chris Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    When I defrag I see "ummovable files." I'm guessing there the Swap File. I see now that the unmoveable files are really, really fragmented. I have lots of 1 sector all over the drive. Are the unmovable files only my swap file, or are others umovable? What are they? How do I get the unmoveable files defraged? Thank you, Chris.
     
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  2. 2003/09/04
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

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    Are the unmovable files only my swap file, or are others umovable? What are they? How do I get the unmoveable files defraged?

    Probabley both, Swap and others.

    Setting the swap file to a fixed minimum size will help a great deal to keep that in one place.

    The other files we can't do much about.

    BillyBob
     
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  4. 2003/09/04
    Chris

    Chris Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I've allways let windows handle it. I just switched to let me decide. I put 1536 for both min and max size. I have 512mb RAM. Does that sound OK?
     
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  5. 2003/09/04
    Chris

    Chris Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I was sitting here watching Baseball. I was thinking about this. What if I checked to "Disable vertual memory ", then rebooted in safe mode, ran defrag, reboot and re-checked swapfile? Would my spap file then be defraged?
     
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  6. 2003/09/04
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

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    I put 1536 for both min and max size.

    That is about 4 times what you need.

    300-400 minimum would be fine.

    I would not set a max.

    BillyBob
     
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  7. 2003/09/05
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Hi Chris!

    I wondered the same a while ago. When using Norton SpeedDisk, the otimization screen showed a lot of "red spots" which were unmovable. When clicking on such a "red spot" Norton told me that it was index.dat.
    There are a few index.dat files but the one that fragments the most is the one in the Temporary Internet Files folder.

    There´s a tool which removes all index.dat files att next boot. You can download it here: Spider

    Our friend Bruce Krymow has a tutorial which can be found here: Bruce's Tutorial

    Hope this helps,
    Christer
     
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  8. 2003/09/10
    Chris

    Chris Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    billybob, I can't not set a max. "OK" is greyed out untill both min and max have values. I heard you should put 2.5 x RAM. I did 3 x. What's the rational for 300-400? Thank you, Chris.
     
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  9. 2003/09/10
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

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    Chris

    Yep. That is what has been said. But actually it works the other way around. The more RAM you have the less swap file you need.

    Unless you are using some real heavy duty graphics or audio work you should not need more than 200 min.

    I have XP Pro with 256 meg of RAM and the swap file is set to 500 meg. And for some reason I have yet to find out the max is set to 700. But I have plenty of room on the HD so it is no worry anyway. No problem so I no fix.

    But the idea of setting at least the minimum is so that it stays all in one place and the OS does not need to go searching for room. And also it does not need to be deframented. ( which Windows did not do anyway ) IF XP does I am not sure yet.

    OOPS !! I need to get going. Got to take My Wife for blood tests.

    Later
    BillyBob
     
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  10. 2003/09/10
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Chris,
    If I recall correctly:

    If the swapfile is set to be managed by Windows, the options are greyed out. The displayed maximum setting equals the available disk space. This value will vary depending on current free space on the disk/partition.

    If You then choose to do the settings Yourself, put in the desired minimum and let the maximum be unaltered. The maximum value will be different each time You check it, depending on free space on the disk/partition.

    I´m currently on WinXP and I know that memory management differs depending on which OS but I think this is valid for Win98 too:

    When being started, an application requests a certain amount of RAM. This amount is based on the expected maximum usage.
    Windows is rather clever since it swaps or pages out quite a lot of the request to the pagefile when the application is started.

    I´ve checked Task Manager and Norton System Doctor to compare the respective readings on pagefile size.

    TM displays the above mentioned occupation of the pagefile and it can read approximately 200 MB with a few applications started.

    NSD displayes actually used pagefile and it can read approximately 50 MB with the same applications started.

    I have 256 MB RAM and when I was on WinME, I set the minimum to 256 MB and the maximum unaltered as mentioned above.
    Windows never complained and the swapfile was never increased in size and in consequence, nor did it fragment.

    The difference between WinXP and WinME, according to NSD, is that WinME hits the swapfile more than WinXP hits the pagefile.

    On WinME, RAM usage and swapfile usage increased at the same rate when applications were started and when both readings were at 90-95% I had a low memory warning.

    On WinXP, RAM usage increase more rapidly than pagefile usage but when starting the corresponding applications, I´ve never had a low memory warning.

    Christer,
    who is waiting for BillyBob to give a lecture on differences between Win98 and WinME ;)
     
    Last edited: 2003/09/10
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  11. 2003/09/10
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Chris,

    How do You determine that?

    What defragging utility do You use?

    If it is the inherent Win98 defragger, it only shows clusters with unmovable files, not if they´re fragmented or not.

    If there´s a big area with red clusters, it´s probably the swapfile.

    Other areas of red clusters is probably system files.

    Single, spread out, red clustes are probably fragments of index.dat files that I mentioned in an earlier reply. If You clean out TIFs and other temp-files, these single red clusters are left, messing up free space.
    These are removed by running Spider.

    Christer
     
    Last edited: 2003/09/10
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  12. 2003/09/10
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

    BillyBob Inactive

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    Page file in Windows XP. Swap file in Win98 SE. I set and forget both. As long as they do not give me problems I could care less.

    Various readings. Who do we believe ? Norton or the OS. Both many well say something different everytime. It depends at lot on what is running. Or has been run.

    Setting a least a fixed minimum Swap file will stop quite a bit of that.

    Lecture on the difference. You asked for it so here it is :)

    For me and my machine XP is not one bit better than 98SE. At least not a $100 in cost and 2+ times as much disk space worth.

    But. I must and will add. It does depend quite a bit on what the machine is used for and personal preference. For me SE does ( did ) all I want(ed) it to and capable of more. If for some reason I were to lose XP Pro I would not miss it at all.

    BillyBob
     
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  13. 2003/09/10
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    BillyBob,

    In an earlier discussion I tended to believe in Norton but now I tend to believe in both since I´ve discovered that they measure different things!

    Christer
     
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  14. 2003/09/10
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

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    The readings may help in knowing what is happening but I do not use the readings to set up or make changes.

    Yes there are some basic rules ( they may depend on the version of Windows ) I do have to go by. But being honest about it other than that I go STRICTLY by how the machine behaves. I try it one way for a few days. Then another way a few days. They even maybe another way for a few days. Then pick the one that works overall the best for me and my machine. I may gain a little here but lose a little there but it all averages out so that ALL programs run and run properly.

    And I believe one reason that I have to do this may well be because I still have quite few DOS and/or Win3.1 programs on here. And many of them came on 1.4 floppys so you can see they are not in anyway new. I would not have been a bit surprised if XP had dumped them at the time of the overtop install but it did not.

    The only parts of Norton that I use now are WinDoctor and DiskDoctor. And DiskDoctor gets run from a CDROM DOS boot up. I run all 32bit and less than 20gig partitions so there is no problem there. And there is no worry about Norton/Windows version conflicts.

    BillyBob
     
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  15. 2003/09/10
    Chris

    Chris Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Thank you for replying.
    If I set to run it myself, I have two settings, min, max. When I set a min value, leave the max empty, the "OK" at the bottom is grayed out. I have to set a value in both places.

    I did alot of audio editing, but now I only do it every once in a while. I work with up to 1 gig files. I record audio tapes to HD, edit, and burn to CD. I did most of my 565 tapes already, so like I said, I only do one every once in a while. Usally surf, email, documents, srteem audio on this machine, with an occasional audio job.

    I used to see the unmoveable files in groups of clusters. Now I see a lot of single unmoveable sectors all over the place. It is an unusual amout. I clean out TIF before I defrag. Just saw way more single sector unmovable files then ever before.

    ***If I disable the swap file, start in safe mode, defrag, restart, enable swap file, does that defrag the swap?
    Thanks for replying, Chris.
     
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  16. 2003/09/10
    Chris

    Chris Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Also, I have got a lot of faster proformance with letting windows run the swap. Must of had the way worng valus set or something.

    I use win 98 system defrag.

    ***If I do as discribed above, will that defrag the swap? Why or why not? Thank you very much.
     
    Last edited: 2003/09/10
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  17. 2003/09/10
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Chris,

    I don´t know how Win98 would react to a disabled swapfile. If You get away with it and manage to defrag without a swapfile and then re-enable it, and set it to e.g. min=256, max=512, then You´ll get a contiguous swapfile in a position that is after whatever is on the disk. With the mentioned settings, it will probably stay there and not fragment.

    The problem with a Windows managed swapfile is that it grows and shrinks. When You start the computer, it is at its minimum size.
    Assuming that the swapfile is in the middle somewhere, other files in front of and behind it, if You decide to defragment at this state the defragger will move the files togeteher which means that the next time the swapfile needs to grow, it has to do it in a different space. It gets fragmented, two fragments.

    Somewhere in the middle isn´t the optimal position for the swapfile. It should be at the fastest part of the disk, which is at the front.
    A utility like Norton SpeedDisk (Nortons defragger), will rearrange the files and put the swapfile at the front. If it has sensible min and max settings it will stay there and not fragment (personal experience).

    Those aren´t swapfile fragments . As I mentioned before, those unmovables are most probably fragments of index.dat files which are removed by using Spider.

    Try Spider, it worked for me when I was on WinME!

    Then Win98 and WinME differ in this respect.

    I believe that the suggestions I made, 256-512, will work well. If You don´t get any Low Memory Warnings, performance should be okey. If You do get LMW, increase the maximum to 1024.

    You can set the maximum as high as You wish but when free disk space is lower than the set maximum, I believe that Windows will complain.
    A harddisk shouldn´t be utilized to more than 85%. If it is, defragging will take veeery long if at all possible.
    The balancing 15% can be set as maximum for the swapfile since it will probably never be used. If You have a 40GB harddrive, then the maximum can be set to 6GB.

    Alright ...... :eek: ...... I´ll stop now!

    Christer
     
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  18. 2003/09/10
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

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    Speaking of Swap files.

    I had been having problems with My Wifes machine so I did some checking this AM.

    Christer I can now tell you 100% for sure. Win98SE DOES NOT work well with a zero ( 0 ) byte swap files.

    I have yet to figure out how it got that way but it was set for user handling and at 0 minimum.

    Also there were TWO Win386.swp files. One in the D: Drive where it was supposed to be. And one in the C:\Windows folder and they BOTH showed a size of app 400meg.

    No dam wonder that machine was messing up. I think I was lucky that it ran at all.

    It may take me a while to figure out what I did to mess that up.

    BillyBob
     
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  19. 2003/09/10
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    BillyBob,
    I thought so and to be honest, I doubted that it would be able to start at all.

    I came to think of this:

    A Windows managed swapfile resides in the c:\windows folder, whereas a user managed swapfile resides in the drive root, c:\

    Once it is determined where it is, would it be possible to boot from a Win98 start disk and delete the swapfile, which will be rebuilt when restarting the computer?
    It wouldn´t be defragmented. It would removed and rebuilt but not in the optimum location on the disk.

    I think that it is a nice feature of Norton SpeedDisk, that it optimizes the swapfile.

    Christer
     
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  20. 2003/09/10
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

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    Once it is determined where it is, would it be possible to boot from a Win98 start disk and delete the swapfile, which will be rebuilt when restarting the computer?
    It wouldn´t be defragmented. It would removed and rebuilt but not in the optimum location on the disk.

    I think that it is a nice feature of Norton SpeedDisk, that it optimizes the swapfile.

    YES and YES.

    BillyBob
     
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  21. 2003/09/11
    Chris

    Chris Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I just ran defrag. Now, all the unmoveable files are all together. If defrag starts at the outside of the drive, there in a bad spot. There all grouped at the end of defrag. Defrag is supoised to put programs in optimal order. Should put swap in the right place if I designed the thing. Anyway to move the swap without paying?

    Why is indax.dat files unmovable? Why are ANY files unmovable?
     
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