Defragment

[Pedah]

Just to say, I just installed latest version of PCmechanic. I am impressed with the advanced functionality, great today plugin, I soft reset 5 or 20 times a day. offers me reg clean, duplicate file clean up.format defrag AND DETAILED GRAPHS OF SYSTEM/STORAGE usage more to come.

[Pedah]

Have to say try it, most useful function free ram, defrag ram in one step, obviuos percentage difference on battery pack today plugin. I've not done any of the benchmarls cause I'm not on AC power, I' will hopefully make some time at work to run benchmarks on power run defrags and run benchmarks again, will attach screenshots.

[nonimiki]

When trying to defrag a 4GB Transcend 150x SD memory card, Pocket Mechanic would give an error report and refuse to start the defragmentation process when using the "Defragment" module. I then used the Pocket Mechanic's "Scan Disk" module and it reported thousands of lost clusters. When I ran the "Scan Disk" module and chose to let it automatically fix the errors, it successfully finished.

I then tried to run the "Defragment" module and again it reported finding errors on the SD memory card and refused to start defragmentation. Going back to the "Scan Disk" module, it then found second batch of lost clusters and after deleting them it hung up on "Fixing lost chains" for more that six hours.

In frustration I had to do a soft reset.

I then put the SD memory card into a USB 2.0 card reader and copied data on the card to a folder on my PC's HDD. I then put the SD memory card back into the PDA and let Pocket Mechanic reformat the SD Memeory card, using the default settings for FAT32, cluster size 32KB. I then put the SD memory card back into the card reader and copied back the files onto the SD memeory card.

And now again my PDA is working fine. (BTW, this is the second time I have done this. Generally speaking, I am a trusting soul and assumed that the software I was using was working "as advertised". That is why I used Pocket Mechanic a second time to defrag my SD memory card. What a mistake.

After all that work, and even calling the technical help desk at Transcend to confirm that FAT32 and a cluster size of 32KB was OK, I ran across an article written in late 2006 that recommends not using any Pocket PC defrag software because they are "unreliable" (and in my experience, unusable and/or not working as "advertised"). Here is the URL ro the article which confirms my experience: http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/ind...&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

I hope no one else has to go down this painful road.

Conclusion, To defrag your SD memory card, use an old tried and true method. Use a USB 2.0 reader, copy files to you PC's HDD, reformat the SD Memory card using the PC, copy back the data to your SD memory card, and you are "good to go". That is the most time efficient method I have found.

[Pedah]

Thats interesting my Sd is FAT 16, no problems with format and it's 75% full. I don't think it is necessary to use defrag, but the other disk utilties like, find duplicate files, reg cleaner etc, seem to be useful if I'm getting a true reading from pocket mech. I ran find duplicate files two days ago and saved 4.4 mb apparently.

edit: that's a great link, thankyou.

[Frank Amaral]

Pedah,
I have registered copy of Pocket Mechanic. What I have discovered at least on my Dell Axim X51V, if I defrag the programs, after I'm done doing so usually at least ten of my programs/games will not run and I have to reinstall them. I have sent a message to Pocket Mechanic and am waiting for a reply. I also remove the duplicate files that PM finds but I don't think it's the problem.

If PM works for you all the better. I use SD Card for programs and CF Card mainly for backups.

Just thought I would pass this on to you as my experience with PM. Keep your eyes out for nonfunctioning programs after you do defrags.

BTW I want to thank you for providing that list of addresses a while back. I have printed it out and use it all the time when using IE. Thanks again, Regards, Frank

[Pedah]

Hi Frank, I haven't been using defrag for a while since earlier benchmarking/defrag testing although I have more programs installed now than when I first thought about the necessity for defrag. I have a 2gig CF that I install all programs to and 4gig SD that I use for storage. CF is 4% AND sd IS 76% Full. I ran benchmark/defrag/benchmark on both cards today and there is very little change in either card, and all programs worked fine. I then soft reset and ran defrag on CF four times with a soft reset each time and all programs work perfectly each. What programs is it affecting for you?
Thanks for the good info.

[Pedah]

Ok It took a while but I’ve finally done a before and after montage of screenshots to see the effect of defragmentation using Pocket Mechanic Pro. It was an x51 520 Mhz on power in the cradle and Ilium screenshot and activesync were running in the background. Also the defrag in between the benchmarks, showed no results [last two shots]. I wasn’t really scientific because of time constraints, the second bench was not the full benchmark, just the read and write benchmarks, but the shots I am posting are of the same parts of the benchmarks. I don’t think this is conclusive and the differences are minimal but here it is. Have to say though that some of the other utilities in pocket mechanic Pro, reg clean and file cleanup are really good.

Before After

11.jpg 12.jpg

13.jpg 14.jpg


Make of that what you will. HTH.

[Pedah]

Before After

01.jpg 02.jpg

07.jpg 06.jpg

[Mahstah]

Nice job Pedah! This is great info to link to for defrag and xfer speed questions.