The defrag utility in Windows XP was a useful utility that provided a text report on fragmentation statistics as well as a graphical representation of the hard drive showing fragmentation.
Vista has none of that. For some reason, the developers removed all the reporting and set defrag as a background process. Admittedly, it does a good job of keeping the system relatively cleaned up.
However, sometimes as an admin, I just gotta know what's up with the volume. Command line to the rescue!
Open a command prompt in administrative mode (right click and choose Run as administrator and then type defrag /?
Description: Locates and consolidates fragmented files on local volumes to improve system performance.
Syntax: defrag.exe <volume> -a [-v]
defrag.exe <volume> [{-r | -w}] [-f] [-v]
defrag.exe -c [{-r | -w}] [-f] [-v]
Parameters:
Value Description
<volume> Specifies the drive letter or mount point path of the volume to be defragmented or analyzed.
-c De fragments all volumes on this computer.
-a Performs fragmentation analysis only.
-r Performs partial defragmentation (default). Attempts to consolidate only fragments smaller than 64MB.
-w Performs full defragmentation. Attempts to consolidate all file fragments, regardless of their size.
-f Forces defragmentation of the volume when free space is low.
-v Specifies verbose mode. The defragmentation and analysis output is more detailed.
-? Displays this help information.
Below are defrag.exe examples:
defrag.exe d: (defrag the D: drive)
defrag.exe d:\vol\mountpoint -w -f (defrag the mountpoint while consolidation all file fragments regardless of size and if volume space is low, forces it to defrag)
defrag.exe d: -a -v (run analysis on the D: drive and set verbose mode for detailed output)
defrag.exe -c -v (defrag all volumes on your Computer and set verbose mode for detailed output
