Unable to defragment hard drive WinXP Pro

[pschmeer]

I have not been able to defragment completely the hard drive on my relatively new custom built computer. The defrag process completes, but there is a large percentage that stays fragmented. I have Win XP Pro installed from a full install disk and fully updated. I have the same version installed on two other older computers, and their HDs defrag completely with no problems. I have tried defragging with both Window’s built in defragger and with EaseUS Home version. Neither worked. Anybody have any ideas? Note: I just recently noticed that Windows had only allocated about ¼ of my HD during original formatting leaving ¾ “unallocated.” I merged the unallocated space using EaseUS and now have access to the entire drive on one partition (C.

Thanks much for trying to help me out with this
Pete

 

[fzabkar]

I can't answer your defragmentation question, but FYI ...

Windows XP was limited to 137GB HDD capacities. That's the maximum size that can be accommodated by 28-bits. To see capacities greater than that, your OS needs to support 48-bit LBAs. This support was added in a subsequent Microsoft Service Pack.

How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013

 

[fzabkar]

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Defragmenter_(Windows) ...

"In Windows 2000 and later operating systems, Disk Defragmenter ... does not defragment files residing in the Recycle Bin or files that are in use. In particular, this includes the registry, page file and hibernation file."

 

[willard]

1. Buy Windows 7
2. Format HDD
3. Install Windows 7
4. ???
5. PROFIT!

 

[MidnightDistort]

Try defraggler. It will show you the individual files that are not being defragmented.