SOLVED defragmenter wants 15% free space

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

okay i know i asked about this someplace before but cant remember were,

more likely here some time ago but i'm at that point again.

and this is a new hd.

it just got filled. with the xp pro and all the updates to it. now its down to 3 % free space or was i have removed several hundred mb's from the hd and put the programs on another drive and that only got me to 7 % free space. 15% is 4 gb's on this drive what in the .... does microsoft think i want to waste 4 gb's of space just to run that defragmetor.

i remembered to try 3rd party programs. i got diskeeper light. but it won't defragment it cause of low space? 1.5 gb's is low space???

so i got one called my defragmenter, and it did better but it still won't defragment the whole drive.

so i'm back here to ask how in the ..... can i change that dang limit that the defragmenter wants to run. i'd like to put it to 2 % needed on that hd drive..

Sad

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 1242

From what I've noticed about defraggers is that the one built in seems to do the best job as optimizing things for the OS to run right. There are faster ones but the system doesn't seem to run as good so I use the one M$ provides.

As for the space, I DO believe it is a FIXED percentage & can't be changed. It depends on the size of the HD as to what the actual size is given to that percentage. But the bigger the HD the more GB it will be.

The drive needs working space to move the files & the bigger the drive the bigger the chunks it works with. Just as a bigger drive can move more data, quicker. So it would reason that you would need to keep a bit more GB free. This is also to your advantage as for the swap file as well.

One thing the "pros" do is to put all the data files on another drive & only allow OS related stuff on this drive. (pretty much what HAS to go there) That keeps the space "happy".

I see this as not being much of a help but hope it at least answered your question.

An after thought - you COULD ghost the HD & put it back, from what DOC says, this defrags pretty good. - I never really looked, myself. I'll have to the next time I do it.

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

yep but the hd is only a 12 gb drive it should not need 4 gb free space.

already have most the other programs that don't need to be by windows on other drives. had most them like that before i moved the last few big ones off.

the swap file is not a problem i got it on another empty drive i have 6 drives in the system.

yes in not ext. all on raid card and any edie controler i could find to reach.

looking for some sort of connector to plug a gray cable in to the second one on another gray cable so i can reach farther up the tall tower for two more hds i got room to put in. but thats another post. Rolling Eyes

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 1242

OK - that IS weird, 12G & it needs 4G? If my math is correct (which it probably isn't) that is 33% - not the 15% it is complaining about.

Yeah, sorry I can't give you a better solution (at this time) but I agree, something isn't right here. Maybe someone else has a better idea. Or if I come across anything I'll let you know.

goretsky · Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 2:30 am Post subject:

Hello,

Perhaps the given figure was about 0.4GB? 3% of 12GB is 360MB which, rounded up, is 400MB (0.4GB).

Many disk defragmentation programs work by moving large fragmented files to a contiguous block of empty disk space and then writing the smaller files into the spaces previously allocated by the larger files.

There are also operations to optimize file locations so the operating system files are stored on the disk in the order they are loaded, look at frequently used files and move them to faster parts of the disk and so forth, but those are all "value added" features beyond defragmentation.

It could be that there are files on the hard disk drive which are too large to fit into a 360MB "window," in which case your best best is to either delete or otherwise remove additional files from the system or install a bigger hard disk drive.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

thanks for the help but the numbers i said are not wrong numbers.

i have deleted enough to make 1.5 gb's of empty space. and it is only telling me it is has 7 or 8 % free space. on the hd. i've deleted over 400 mb's to get from 6 % to the 7 or 8 % there is nothing else i can get off the drive except the da,,,, OS. and it had enough space on there i'm sure the os does not take 10 gb's to fill up a 12 gb hd.

but something is filling that dang thing up and i cant get rid of the files by defragmenting the space and seeing what is there cause i can't tell it to get rid of that dam...limit that the morons at microsoft told it to keep.

it is the limit of the os not the hd. it asks for this dam 15% on every hd of every ..... size even my 1 tb drive it wants 15% of that to be free space

microsoft has a hole in their head if they think i'm leaving that much free space on a 1Tb hd.

they told it to keep that limit when they coded the software. which means if some one can tell it to keep that then some one can tell it to change to a different size.
we just have to find out how.
which is what i'm asking for, the knowledge on how to change that dam limit.

its really getting pretty stuipd when they ask for 15 % free space on a 1 TB hard drive.

baby tux i thought that was the correct math you said too but when i went up from 360 mbs of free space to the 1.5 gbs and only got 4 more %'s out of it then something aint right.

besides using that large of free space limit..

oh yep i got all the files un hidden so i can see every thing and i cant find anything else to get off the drive or delete this is stupid of ms to make this stuff happen. but just to ask again does anyone know how much space windows xp pro sp 3 should use for its own stroage. not the ram i know it needs 160 mbs of ram. but how much hd space does it need.

Confused

Tigercat · Joined: Dec 15, 2009 Posts: 1

FYI the 15% free space requirement* is for the windows in-built defragger partly because of it's inability to defrag the MFT. There is no setting in Windows to change this irritating limitation.

Advanced defraggers such as the Diskeeper 2010 that I am using on XP don't have this requirement. It has defragged even a 250GB HDD that was 97% full in automatic defrag mode. It also prevents a lot of the fragmentation before it happens, so less defragging in future Cool

* Having 15% free disk space does not guarantee a complete defrag, especially if you have fragmented system files and/or large files since the Windows defragger has trouble with these file types.

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 1242

This may be "totally off the wall" but, try running fdisk or even disk manager & see if by change you don't have something weird going on. - I'm not even sure what to tell you to look for. - you might even want to try running the system file checker.

Other than that & maybe the updates taking up your space,or maybe something IN one of the updates being bad, (<sarcastic> like THAT can ever happen </sarcastic>) I can't see anything that would be causing the problem. (at the present time anyway)

My system drives are around the same size for XP, I'll make time later & check to see what mine says. Maybe that will give a clue.

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 1242

Did some checking & yes 15% is M$'s requirement. BUT... the math doesn't jive up. 15% of 12G is 1.8G, a far cry from the 4G the system is trying for, which comes out to roughly the 33% I quoted earlier. - This COULD be a bug brought on by one of the updates, especially if it started afterwards. (mine seems to work as should, but I'm only about 1/2 full on that drive)

Given this, it sounds like the other defragger you tried is working more to what would be expected. So since your space is at a premium, I'd go with it. Actually, the defragger in M$ is a crippled version OF diskeeper. So guess which one should be better? Been a while since I've used it (NT days) so not sure which would optimize better but if you can't defrag, there won't be any optimization anyway.

So, I'll renege on what I said & say, just use the one that works best for you...

BTW: I usually do 2-3 passes anyway to get it as much as I can 'cause 1 never quite gets it. Even WITH adequate space.

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

found dklite don't work with crap its worse the the windows one. i keep getting a 2004 version when i try and get that.

so i got rid of it. got the my deframentor it worked but far to hard to understand what it is doing or what it is trying to show you.

so its gone.

found asuslogics free version. lets just say calmly it works, or i would sah IT WORKSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.... so i thought to say it calmly. Laughing

and the best thing is it has timer on for free. and runs in the background lets me chose which priority to set it at, and does file and folders opt's too.
and is easier for this old cowhand to understand cause it uses the square lites of the old style comptuers from the 60's lots of little colored squares flashing all over the palce.

last time i used this on win 98 and win Me it messed those up so bad i thought i'd never try it again but when i seen the new update i had to try it cause i need something to work.

so i came here to this computer and deleted the 2006 version of dklite faster then you can slide out of the saddle so i did. its gone it was a crippled version anyway. got this new asu's logic one and it works great on sata drives too.

so thanks for the help and for putting up with my mad mad mad world ravings.

Laughing

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 1242

A friend of mine gave me a copy of that a good while back, but I forgot about it & what the name was until I looked on there site at what you where referring to.

It works pretty good but like I said, the OP thing is what made me go back to M$'s.
We all have to use what works best for us (as I know you will Laughing

) Glad to see you found one that does.

Nisseviking · Joined: Aug 04, 2004 Posts: 62

Maybe I'm posting this a bit late since you have your problem solved, but I think Piriform has a great Free defragger
It presents a list of fragmented files and their sizes.
It then lets you select which to defrag and which to leave.

I don't know how much free space it requires,

Happy defragging
Nisse

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 207 Location: New Jersey

I see that nobody mentioned emptying the Recycle Bin. If it's not empty then the space that you think you freed up will not appear as free space.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 2238 Location: Central FL, USA

Windows defrag is NOT your problem.
The hard drive IS the problem. It's way too small for any version of windows, XP or later. Windows Vista and Win-7 require more than 12 gigs just to set up the OS.
Your C: drive or partition should be at least 20 gigs or better.

If the entire drive is only 12 gigs, then it's too old and slow to be running XP anyway. Your system performance level has to really be in the toilet.

And, why so many drives? The current draw on your poor old Power supply has to be horrendous, likewise the heat generated.

My crystal ball shows me a total system crash in your future. Rolling Eyes

Just one large drive, like a 250 or 500 gig'er would give you greatly increased performance, draw less power and generate less heat.
And, you wouldn't be here complaining about the defrag program not having enough free space to properly do its job.

Just a thought...... Wink

Happy Holidays!
The Doctor Cool

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

thanks for the tip Nisseviking about the other defragmenter.

and thanks for that tip about the trash bin photocarp

now now drwho07.

don't go trashin my system yet before you know it.

the powersupply is 450 watts.
its not old i replaced it 3 yrs ago when the other one got too small.

now the motherboard is a new one pcchips. i got it from tigerdirect
the board is a eide / ata system it has full eide system support and full ata support. uses amd semprone ? spelling might be wrong on that.
and has 2 gb ram support.

has pci slots has fdd controller for my floppy.

so there are 6 interal hd's 6 to 80 gb's
one external usb 320gb hd.

have 5 cooling fans two in the ps.
one cpu
and large rear case fan
one small case fan.

system turns off the fans when the cpu is cool enough.

one cdrw unit for use of cdroms.

one floppy drive for use of moving less then one mb files to it.

usb 2
in a matrix black tower case lots of room to move when working
in the case.

the hd's are maxtor and wd and seagate's

the 6 gb drive is the oldest 1997 it is being used for the swap and temp files.

it was messing up several yrs ago so i replaced it with the 12 gb drive. 1999

then i got another drive that was 20 gb's 2001
then 2008 christmas i got two 40 gb drives.

sometime last year i got an 80 gb drive. and this last christmas i got the external 320 gb drive so that is the age's of the system.

i just put all that on the new mb cause the old win95 mtLc mb with win98 on was having melt down issues and i wanted to get in to the winxp os before there was no mbs to buy that used it.

so the only things that is old about it is the hds. and the sound card. i had to use the old one i could not get the real tech on board sound to work.
since pcchips site is off line or not been updated in 4 yrs the bad sound chip don't bother me.

and others seem to have it working so mine is just messed up. can't have everything perfect. got to have salt with sugar now and then.

Cool

yes you read right i've been using that old windows 98 system build in 97 with a 2006 black matrix tower case. i have the window door facing the wall so nobody could see the old mb in it. Rolling Eyes

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 2238 Location: Central FL, USA

Keith, Keith, Keith, Rolling Eyes

You gotta know, I lub ya like a brodder, but I had to pick myself up off'n the floor from a laugh attack, after reading your hardware list. How can one guy, accumulate so much bad hardware? Question

Maybe by getting bad advice? Or maybe by not getting any professional advise at all?

PCChips is the catfish of the motherboard world.
You know..... bottom feeder! Lowest quality available.
ECS is a close second. Wink

450 watt psu? For all that hardware? I'd not want to bet against a PSU failure in the near future. Read the label.....That 450 on the label means the Maximum Surge Current needed to start motors and charge mobo caps (about one second).
The All-Day operating wattage will be somewhere between 350 and 400 watts, depending on the brand and model of PSU.

I do luv AMD processors, but surely you know that the Sempron is equal to the Intel Celeron. Again, bottom of the line. Very little cache and low performance.
Woof! For just a few bucks more, you could have a real Athlon, with ample cache and much higher performance.

IDE? Old school! Ancient technology! No longer used for 'performance' PC's.
This is from 'Wikipedia':

goretsky · Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:40 am Post subject:

Hello,

PC Chips is now owned by ECS. If you are having trouble finding drivers or manuals for a PC Chips device, it might be on the ECS web site.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 2238 Location: Central FL, USA

Birds of a feather, etc., etc., etc., Laughing

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

i tried all your big and best mb manufactures but they did not have
anything for the price i could afford and my needs.

some listed mb's on their sites that fit my needs but they were false adverts cause they stopped making them just left the info on their sites.

i got pcchips cause its the only one that fit my needs.

by the way if you seen my other new post about my computer not booting past the bios logo. that is one of your fancy computers that use ata systems and the likes that go with it. and it won't boot up.

the old one of pcchips is booting and running. with all that old hardware on.
and this computer here now is the backup one with all its old hardware on the shuttle 32A mb. i only paid 60 dollars for the pcchips mb and the amd cpu it came bundled with it.
got it working in less then 2 hours.

its been running all of december playing music and part of nov.
and this month.

and in the message above i said i had that mtlc board for 10 years now before it started its meltdown.

i guess some people get lucky buying new things. and some spend all the time in the shop with the new thing they bought.

some buy old crap and come out smelling like a rose, some buy old crap and smell worse then they did when they bought it.

but i ain't going to just toss all the old stuff that still works for new stuff if i can find a way to use the old then i'll use it till it melts or rusts. after all i paid good money for it.

i'm not like new kids if they get something its not worth it cause thier dad bought it so they trash it, i try to keep it in good shape after all its not mine its his and i should not destroy someone elses things.

and when i buy it i can't afford to destory it cause i cant afford to buy a replacement for it.

hold on a sec.. okay back had to close the winder the hoss was trying to stick his head in the house.
just cause the light's on he wants to see what i got to eat he can steal.

maybe i should get a room in the big house and not the barn.?
smells a lot like crap in this barn. but not in the house. even when i get in there after being in the crap it smells like roses.

do you all get the picture thar with that thar fake comments about the hossy.

so i buy crap. hardware according to someothers. but one mans trash is another mans treasure.

and i sure was lucky to get that new set up all for under 152 dollars. yep it only cost me 151 dollars for it

i've tried to buy things i need from the local parts store here. but he never has what i'm in need of. he calls my systems frankinsystem's cause i got them all mixed up with old some new and most of it crap stuff that ain't to work together. but its working.
Laughing

and this new sata system is dead in the water. Crying or Very sad