Okay folks I need help. I am trying to make a dual boot system with one hard drive. I just want to try out the linux for awhile then I will get a second drive and install on it. I need to know how to defrag windows all the way down. For some reason I can't get all of it down. Steve thought he knew how to but it did not work for me. I have windows xp so can anyone help. And please in layman's terms I am new at this. Thanks for the patience.

You probably can't get it all the way down. That was realy only possible with 9x windows. XP is based heavily on Windows 2000 and the hard drive maintenance tools are different. They are faster and harder to trip, but they won't defrag 100%. I've never gotten XP to do it.

In fact, the section of "unmovable files" is often large and in the middle of the drive.


My best advice is to make backups of everything you care about first. Repartitioning is ALWAYS dangerous.

I believe Steve was able to do it with someone else's computer though. For some reason though that did not work with mine. He had XP too. I will have to get with him more than likely but just wondering if anyone here had any ideas. Thank you.

A third party partitioner like PM8 works well.

Easy way to get most of the files in the right place and compacted in XP: Turn off the swap space (I can't remember where to do this, somewhere in the Win+Pause dialog), reboot, run the defrag, re-enable swap, reboot.

That will put your system "unmovable" files at the end of your current data and make it safer to partition the drive.

I tend to agree with Pzatch, though. Use a 3rd party partitioner like PM8 or Paragon Partition Manager. I used Paragon last time I had to do this, they have a free trial. I think the only feature that is disabled in the trial is the ability to merge partitions.

What you are talking about LiquidZoo is what Steve did except now I need to figure out how to do that. Hehehehe. Man why do computers have to be so hard.

Like I said, it's somewhere hidden in the WinKey+Pause dialog (right click on My Comp -> Properties does the same thing). It's a button that's hidden somewhere. I will try to find it for you when I get home if you can't find it beforehand.

Thanks.

Wow....It's more hidden than I thought. M$ must not want you to screw with this setting

Anyway, it's in the System Properties dialog (Win+Pause, or right click on My Computer -> Properties)

Advanced Tab. There should be 3 "boxes" there, each with their own Settings button. Click on the Settings button for Performance (First "box")

In the Performance Options, click on the Advanced Tab. The virtual Memory (swap) options are at the bottom. Click on the Change Button, then click on the option for "No Paging File"

Click several OK buttons and it will tell you to reboot. Do so and then run your defrag. Reverse the procedure to turn the swap back on (Important in Windows)

Hope that helps you out.