Defragmenting your Memory Stick

[Drakkenmensch]

I've been getting an unusually high amount of crashes on Exostra Run lately, always right after the race ends, before the profile autosaves. It occured to me that with the high amount of file transfers I made, there could be some file fragmentation on it, so I made a test. I connected my PSP in usb mode, accessed "My Computer", went to properties o fmy PSP memory card and surely enough the defrag option was there. Because of the FAT memory format, the progress report during the process is a bit weird - it keeps showing up as "1% done" the whole way through, but it completes normally and the red spots in the drive status bar do reorganize themselves back to blue.

So if you've been getting a lot of crashes, you might want to try that too.

[Lance]

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what OS are you using on the computer, XP?
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[Drakkenmensch]

Correct, sir!

On previous versions of windows, the defrag tool is located in:
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools

[Lance]

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i was wondering if users of pre-Win2000 systems would have an easier time because their computer file system is FAT instead of NTFS, or if it was more a question of some incompatibility of the PSP with any OS
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[lunar]

I`ve also been having problems with Exostra Run, Euro Version. It`s the only track I`ve had any trouble with. It`s twice frozen my PSP at the same point you described; and seeing that on both occasions it was after the penultimate race of a Descension, once Flash and once Rapier, I was not happy. I suspect that if you go through the post race screens real slow it may not happen, but I`ve hardly tested that theory a lot. I had one other Exostra Run freeze on Phantom single race, in the middle of the race as a quake rumbled through from behind and quaked my PSP too. I`ll try defragging, but I wonder if there`s a bit of a bug at work here. I`ve never had any issues with the US version, apart from the usual sleep mode crashes mid-race and mid-tour. Can you tell whether defragging has fixed the problem yet?

[Drakkenmensch]

Now that you mention it, I've only seen this happen in the Euro version...

[Mobius]

Just out of curiosity, do you gain back some space when you defrag?

Ive always done it, but that has always bugged me.

[Drakkenmensch]

It doesn't gain any space, but it recovers all the scattered fragments of your files and puts them back together again for ease of use by your OS. Think of it as a massive game of Tetris where all the "holes" in your playing field get miraculously filled at once, setting up your game for a series of tetrises that will boost your score rather than threaten a catastrophic "game over" collapse.

[Dominator]

I have this same problem but with the Omega League, will try a defrag!!

[Dogg Thang]

My only major computer problems in the last ten years have been a result of defragmenting. I have learned to keep well away from that option.

[Rouni Kenshin#1]

@dog something is wrong with your PC then because defraging it actually is good for preformence.

[Lance]

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i tend to defrag every week
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[Jittery-Joe]

Last time I tried to defrag, my crappy PC got stuck on 0% for two days. Then there was a powercut... :frown:
Anyway, it's getting replaced, so it'll trouble me no-more

[lunar]

I`ve had all kinds of dramas with defragging SCSI disk drives in the past, so I try to avoid it if possible. Instead of defragging I like to copy all the data off a disk-drive safely to another, delete the original data and then copy it back again, which doesn`t take take much longer than a full defrag on my system and is a lot less scary, and has the same effect, afaict. This way your data is never "in limbo" or not backed up anywhere. Of course you need the spare disk space to do this. I`ve never defragged an IDE drive but would still prefer not to do it. I just don`t trust the things. Computers have caused me so much misery I won`t take any unnecessary risks, but for those who`ve never had bad experiences I suppose there`s no reason not to do it...... yet. ;)

[Rouni Kenshin#1]

I think that we can all agree that defragmentation is good but a pane in the arse.:turd

[Mobius]

The best place to try it if you are having problems where it keeps restarting is trying it in safe mode, you have a lot less active so its faster.

[Lance]

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not trying to sound like an expert here, cos i'm not one. maybe i'm just too ignorant and lucky to have experienced a defrag problem, but i've done defragging many times each on Win98, Win98SE, WinMillenniumEdition, Win2000Pro, and Win XP on at least 15 different IDE/ATA drives in several different computers and never lost any data [hopes that will continue to be true forever.] [i've never had a SCSI drive to play with, so i don't know anything about them.] is it because i'm not using Linux or Mac? is it because i only used the built-in default defrag program instead of third party? are there any special circumstances or environments for you guys who have had major trouble? what operating systems were you using at the time?
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[Drakkenmensch]

I own a five year old Win ME box, and it's never lost any data during defrags - or indeed at all. It's stable beyond belief, efficient and will jump through hoops of fire if I ask it nicely. Of course, I've tweaked the hell out of it and no default settings have remained unchanged, but that's just me. I like to optimize things.

[lunar]

Im definitely no expert either and Im only speaking from experience - but I reckon there have been at least three occasions where defragging a SCSI drive has led to data corruption for me. Thinking it through, though, this may be more to do with SCSI drives than defragging. I`ve been using them for about 10 years and I must have had 15-20 drives just die or get corrupted on me - often permanently, and on operating systems ranging from windows 3.1 through NT to 98, 2000 and XPPro. And when they do die or corrupt it`s usually fairly instant and catastrophic with little hope of rescuing data. So for that reason I don`t do anything which has the slightest element of potential risk attached to it, when dealing with them. In that time I`ve never known an IDE drive go seriously wrong, apart from one I`ve got now which has been dying very very slowly for over a year, and still basically works. The thing is tough as hell. Maybe it just needs a defrag.....;)

[Rouni Kenshin#1]

OK I'm better with software but know a Little bit about hardware. Could somebody explain the differences between the different drives because it seems that SCSI drives are just bad.:PC

[Lance]

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lunar said: '' Maybe it just needs a defrag.....''
lol
:D
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[Dogg Thang]

I think maybe it's the case where, if you defrag on a regular basis, it's cool but if you leave it to a time when the drive is like spaghetti the defragmenter has a hard time making sense of things.

The first time I defragmented a hard drive, it stalled. I left it for about 24-48 hours and eventually turned it off. The drive was dead.

The second time I did it (a long time after that), it seemed to work fine. Later I realised that a whole bunch of folders were inaccessable. Like they were there in name only.

So I've never done it since.

[Seek100]

I didn't defrag my computer for about 3 years, literally since I got it new, it took f**kin forever but when it was done it made everything run like a dream, for about 2 days... I then had to reinstall my computer because of a problem with my graphics drivers causing random monitor power downs.

[eLhabib]

defragging is something you really should do every week, or at least every month. if you do it on a regular basis, there is no reasonable chance that it would mess up any files at all.

[Dogg Thang]

Maybe, but I'm finding my 'if it aint broke' policy with my comp has worked well over the last few years. If the machine works I don't mess with anything,

[Lance]

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when i bought a new computer [in 1999!!], i used it for three years without defragmentation of the drive; then it took 12 hours [Quantum Fireball Plus KA-18.2 on Windows 98SE]. the comp sure worked a lot better after that. since then, i do it pretty frequently, preferring once a week, but depending a lot on amount of installation, testing, and uninstallation of new programs. i run two computers now, and try to keep both of them running near peak potential [especially since they're old and their potential is low compared to later models]
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[eLhabib]

dogg, you have to view it more in the likes of a car. it needs an oil change from time to time, even tho it doesn't go any slower if you DON'T change the oil, but then the engine will eventually kill itself. same with the defrag, if you do it regularly, you won't ever notice a change, but also your system is far less likely to hang itself eventually.

[Rouni Kenshin#1]

it is recommeded that you do it at least once a month, but your comp does slow down if you don't "change the Oil". I can see how defragging one after years would crash you computer because i've seen some pretty crazy file modification.(recently had to deleat my video card driver and then redownload and install them:paperbag )

[Drakkenmensch]

The first computer I owned, I wasn't too savvy yet about maintenance, so when my friend asked me when was the last time I defragged, my answer was "what's that mean?"

Defragging my 2 gig drive took the better part of 4 hours, and we had time to watch two whole movies while it did so ;) It ran MUCH smoother after that, a year and a half of constant installing and uninstalling games will do that to a drive.

[Rouni Kenshin#1]

When was that? a 4 gig hard drive? i have a 37.2gig. We almost never defag it but that's not my fault. My dad won't let me do anything seriout to it ,even if as he knows, could do it better than him.

[Dogg Thang]

I've got over 240gig. What would that take? Several days? Nah, I'd still be terrified to go through with it.

[infoxicated]

Modern drives are far faster and usually have some memory that makes the whole process faster than it was a few years ago.

[Drakkenmensch]

With my current machine, I can defrag a 45 gig partition in just under 20 minutes, and still browse and chat WHILE doing so without any noticeable slowdowns.

[jospicy]

ahh i remember the days of my first computer... 486DX + 4MB EDO Ram 40MB HDD (YES 40MB !!!!) and the drive still took around 3-4 hrs to defragbut thats DOS 5.2 + Win 3.11 for you. All i can say is that the time for it hasn't changed much but the speed of the drives and the RAM avaliable for it to use have making the process run more quickly eaning more data can be shifted in the same amount of time.


OK I'm better with software but know a Little bit about hardware. Could somebody explain the differences between the different drives because it seems that SCSI drives are just bad.:PC

ok here we go:
there are 3 main types of internal drive IDE, S-ATA and SCSI

IDE: this has been the standard for the last 10-15 years and comes in multiple forms, all have a 40 pin connector BUT the type defines the speed of transfer they range from ATA 33 (around 1995) to the new P-ATA drives

S-ATA: quite a bit faster and also bigger than the IDE drives these have started to come in in the last 2-3 years and will be found in just about all systems bought in the last 18 months

SCSI: these are smaller drives with a very higr spin speed(10000-12000RPM) they are usally used in servers where a large amount of data is being accessed and stored you can get PCI extender cards to allow your normal desktop machine to support them but they are not very common in a desktop machine

i'm sure there are other obscure formats in existance but i don't know anything about them so can't say anything

hope that helps
jo

[Lance]

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most current SCSI drives run at 15,000 RPM. SCSI has always had both shorter access times [due to heavyweight and noisy {and more expensive} read/write head-carriers] and faster transfer rates [due to the high disk speed, although data density also plays a part here but can be just as high on an IDE].

IDE drives are also known as ATA drives and use parallel connector terminals and cables, those flat ones that you so commonly see.

S-ATA is the same basic device as an IDE, but uses a serial interface with a small serial connector and cables. S-ATA and IDE will both generally run at the same disk speed and data density. both IDE and S-ATA are getting bigger in capacity as data density technology improves, but IDE will probably gradually cease to be made because of the convenience and speed of the latest serial interface and connectors.

P-ATA simply means parallel connected ATA, in other words parallel connected IDE. this is just a renaming sometimes used by the tech writers togive a similar naming system for the current two connection types. both the cheaper drive-types are IDE/ATA.
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[jospicy]

shows how out of date my knowledge of SCSI is the last one i dealt with was either a 10 or 20GB 12000RPM disk, this is when 80GB IDE drives were just appearing:rolleyes: why is it you only remember things after someone else has posted them :p but the largest IDE dirve i have seen is 400GB and the largest S-ATA i'v seen is 500GB so it may be that they have stoped developing the IDE technology.
jo

[Lance]

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i've been wondering for the last couple of years when we will see the first 1 terabyte drive for home computers.
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[jospicy]

too late these have been aorund a while but the price is a bit eyewatering:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10128

[Rouni Kenshin#1]

:o 999$ wow, and i was amayzed when looking into a new processor.

[Lance]

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:o
argh. a 1000 dollars.
and they're external.
i think i'll wait a bit longer. ;)
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