[comp.sys.atari.st] Hard Drive Defragger

mkenwort@BBN.COM (Mark Kenworthy) (09/06/89)

I am looking for a hard drive defragger program.  Does anyone know of a
shareware or commercial version that is reliable?

	- Mark -

+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Mark Kenworthy      |    "It's always something"    |
| mkenwort@bbn.com    |     Roseanna Roseannadanna    |
+-----------------------------------------------------+

alderaan@tubopal.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) (09/06/89)

In article <8909052223.AA16894@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> mkenwort@BBN.COM (Mark Kenworthy) writes:
>I am looking for a hard drive defragger program.  Does anyone know of a
>shareware or commercial version that is reliable?

  Try REORG/DL_II by Simon Poole (PD). Seems to work really great.
  I have had no problems yet. But you should backup your HD before using ANY
defragging program. Think about power fails :-)

-- 
Thomas Cervera         | UUCP:   alderaan@tubopal.UUCP       
SysMan RKOpdp (RSTS/E) |         ...!unido!tub!opal!alderaan (Europe) 
D-1000 Berlin 30       |         ...!pyramid!tub!opal!alderaan (World)
Motzstrasze 14         | BITNET: alderaan%tubopal@DB0TUI11.BITNET (saves $$$)

klute%trillian.irb@unido.uucp (Rainer Klute) (09/07/89)

In article <685@opal.tubopal.UUCP> alderaan@tubopal.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>  Try REORG/DL_II by Simon Poole (PD). Seems to work really great.
>  I have had no problems yet. But you should backup your HD before using ANY
>defragging program. Think about power fails :-)

Not only power fails may cause trouble. I have used REORG
several times successfully *until* it obviously ran into an
endless loop. (There is a bar showing how much of the harddisk
partition has already been defragged, and this bar exceeded its
rightmost limitation.) The partition was trashed. I don't use
REORG since then.

I also noticed problems with DLII when de-erasing files on a
harddisk. Often the directory gets disturbed: Several file
entries are duplicated, others are missing. - The only thing I
use DLII for is *looking* at disk sectors (but better not try
to *write* to them).

  Rainer Klute           ----    klute@trillian.irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
  Univ. Dortmund, IRB    |)|/    klute@unido.uucp, klute@unido.bitnet
  Postfach 500500        |\|\    ...uunet!mcvax!unido!klute
D-4600 Dortmund 50       ----    Tel.: +49 231 7554663

landay@cory.Berkeley.EDU (James A. Landay) (09/08/89)

In article <1604@laura.UUCP> klute@trillian.irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) writes:
>In article <685@opal.tubopal.UUCP> alderaan@tubopal.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>>  Try REORG/DL_II by Simon Poole (PD). Seems to work really great.
>
>I also noticed problems with DLII when de-erasing files on a
>harddisk. Often the directory gets disturbed: Several file
>entries are duplicated, others are missing. - The only thing I
>use DLII for is *looking* at disk sectors (but better not try
>to *write* to them).
>
>  Rainer Klute           ----    klute@trillian.irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
>  Univ. Dortmund, IRB    |)|/    klute@unido.uucp, klute@unido.bitnet
>  Postfach 500500        |\|\    ...uunet!mcvax!unido!klute
>D-4600 Dortmund 50       ----    Tel.: +49 231 7554663

I had the same problem as Rainer.  I would stay away from that program
unless you want to lose lots of data.  If you do use it, BACK UP FIRST.





James

    

James A. Landay

ARPA:       landay@cory.berkeley.edu
             ..!ucbvax!cory!landay

saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) (09/08/89)

I personally use and recommend 2 methods of defragmenting hard disks.  The
heavy-duty, slow, reliable and ever-so-important method is to back up the
entire disk with turtle and restore it with unturtle.  The faster method I
use between backups is Hard Disk Sentry, distributed by Beckemeyer Development
Tools (the program is nice, the documentation is, er, a little brief).
                                       Steve J.

alderaan@tubopal.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) (09/08/89)

In article <1604@laura.UUCP> klute@trillian.irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) writes:
>In article <685@opal.tubopal.UUCP> alderaan@tubopal.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>Not only power fails may cause trouble. I have used REORG
>several times successfully *until* it obviously ran into an
>endless loop.

  If I remember right, there is something in the release notes telling you
to watch for zero-length files (check option) with DL_II before bringing
REORG up. This should preserve REORG from infinite loops.
  Sure, REORG should check for these files itself, but it doesn't yet.

-- 
Thomas Cervera         | UUCP:   alderaan@tubopal.UUCP       
SysMan RKOpdp (RSTS/E) |         ...!unido!tub!opal!alderaan (Europe) 
D-1000 Berlin 30       |         ...!pyramid!tub!opal!alderaan (World)
Motzstrasze 14         | BITNET: alderaan%tubopal@DB0TUI11.BITNET (saves $$$)

poole@chx400.switch.ch (Simon Poole) (09/08/89)

In article <1604@laura.UUCP> klute@trillian.irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) writes:
.....
>
>Not only power fails may cause trouble. I have used REORG
>several times successfully *until* it obviously ran into an
>endless loop. (There is a bar showing how much of the harddisk
>partition has already been defragged, and this bar exceeded its
>rightmost limitation.) The partition was trashed. I don't use
>REORG since then.
........
Besides the whole thing being unsupported, the documentation explictly
states two things:
	1) Make a backup of the harddisk partition you are reorganizing
	2) Run a diskcheck program on the partition BEFORE you run REORG
If don't know of anybody who's had trouble with the program after
following these two rules.

				

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
						Simon Poole
 poole@verw.switch.ch/poole@chx400.switch.ch/mcvax!cernvax!chx400!poole
------------------------------------------------------------------------

wsflinn@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Scott Flinn) (09/09/89)

In article <1604@laura.UUCP> klute@trillian.irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) writes:
>
>Not only power fails may cause trouble. I have used REORG
>several times successfully *until* it obviously ran into an
>endless loop. (There is a bar showing how much of the harddisk
>partition has already been defragged, and this bar exceeded its
>rightmost limitation.) The partition was trashed. I don't use
>REORG since then.

I also had this problem once.  It seems that it will happen if DLII does
not report that the partition is OK.  You should always check that you
do not have cross-linked clusters or any such thing (if you do, DLII will
fix many of the problems), then REORG should work well.  I have not
had problems using REORG since I began this practice (although I still
do full backups before reorganizing).

Cheers.

jlf@a.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu (Jack L Forester) (09/11/89)

Now for the question that is probably on everyone's mind...

****************************************
* Where can we find this PD defragger? *
****************************************

Personally, I would rather take the risk, since Whenever I back up my HD I
always reformat and restore it to defragment the thing.  I did this last night,
and it took a total of over 2 hours to do it.  Not to mention that somehow I
lost supboot.sys from my supra utilities disk and now I have no autoboot.

Here's something I've pondered and want to know if anyone has tried yet...

-- Using PC DITTO and running Norton's Speed Disk to defragment your hard disk
   I imagine it's terribly slow with PC DITTO I, but much faster with 
   PC DITTO II.

Jack Forester
jlf@a.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu
                                    
Whenever I reach for the stars, I
usually end up grabbing asteroids.