XP defragmenter size limitations

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hogyu - 29 Dec 2007 15:18 GMT

A friend is having trouble defragmenting his C: drive, which includes a 14
gig file. The defragger completes with a note that it cannot defrag the file
in question, which is a container file for a virtual drive.

I can't find any references to size limitations on files to be defragged.
Are there any, or should I look elsewhere for clues to the problem? There
are three such container files on his drive; the 1-gig and 3-gig files cause
no problems. When the volumes contained in those three files are mounted,
defrag of the volumes themselves is normal and successful.

Thanks.

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Maincat - 29 Dec 2007 16:35 GMT

>A friend is having trouble defragmenting his C: drive, which includes a 14
>gig file. The defragger completes with a note that it cannot defrag the
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Thanks.

How much free space is there on the drive? Defrag needs at least 15% to
work properly.

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hogyu - 30 Dec 2007 03:06 GMT

Yep, it's a 70 gig drive with 26 percent free. Thanks, though; appreciate
the reply.

>>A friend is having trouble defragmenting his C: drive, which includes a 14
>>gig file. The defragger completes with a note that it cannot defrag the
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> How much free space is there on the drive? Defrag needs at least 15% to
> work properly.

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Gerry - 29 Dec 2007 17:26 GMT

Given this is an NTFS volume I am not aware of any limitation. You
cannot have files over 4 gb on a FAT32 volume. Often the practical
problem with large files is for there not to be a sufficently large
pocket of free disk to place the file. I suspect that there are also
issues surrounding the handling of such a large file given that the sum
of RAM + pagefile is almost certainly far less than a 14 gb file. The
only suggestion I can make is to copy the file elsewhere and delete the
file in it's original location. Run Disk CleanUp and then run Disk
Defragmenter so that the free disk space fragmentation is minimised.
Finally copy the file back to the original volume.

Signature

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> A friend is having trouble defragmenting his C: drive, which includes
> a 14 gig file. The defragger completes with a note that it cannot
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> normal and successful.
> Thanks.

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hogyu - 30 Dec 2007 03:13 GMT

Thanks. You may be on to something here, because the screenshot he sent me
of the "completed" defrag shows a lot of bars and white space across the
diagram. I'll give him a bit more homework to do.

This is an NTFS volume, which I apologize for not putting in the original
post.

> Given this is an NTFS volume I am not aware of any limitation. You cannot
> have files over 4 gb on a FAT32 volume. Often the practical problem with
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>> normal and successful.
>> Thanks.

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