defrag questions

at times when a partition gets fairly full, i get a message from disk defragmenter saying that windows needs at least 15% free space on the drive/partition to work properly. is this overly important to make sure 15% is free?
also, this morning after a defrag of a non-os partition i got a message that some of the files could not be defragmented. i checked the log and it was 4 .mpq files from Diablo 2 totalling about 1.2gb, anybody know what's up with that?

Well, the 15% deal, isnt an absolute requirement, but it will speed things up if you have at least 15% free. As for the non defragmented files, it is probably because they were too large to fit in a single space due to free space restrictions.

pejsaboy said:

at times when a partition gets fairly full, i get a message from disk defragmenter saying that windows needs at least 15% free space on the drive/partition to work properly. is this overly important to make sure 15% is free?

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A volume must have at least 15% free space for defrag to completely and adequately defragment it. Defrag uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15% free space, defrag will only partially defragment it. To increase the free space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk.

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... taken from the following PPD site for XP:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/defrag.mspx

pejsaboy said:

also, this morning after a defrag of a non-os partition i got a message that some of the files could not be defragmented. i checked the log and it was 4 .mpq files from Diablo 2 totalling about 1.2gb, anybody know what's up with that?

Click to expand...

Try defragging the volume in Safe Mode.

Also, lower your recycle bin size as low as possible.
Being that it normally reserves 10% of the disk space, this is a good way to free up the some much needed space.
I normally don't use a recycle bin due to the fact that I just shift-del and make sure I only delete things I want to, but if you have problems with filling your drive to the max, you might want to keep the recycle bin set to 15% so you can always be sure you have enough space to defrag with...

\Recycled has got to be a waste, really...when I used XP I set mine as low as was permitted, and just was careful about the delete key, and watched my hard drive usage pretty closely, as well. If you try to delete something and it's too big for the bin I believe Windows says 'You are gonna permanently delete this, think before pressing ENTER'.

Windows does require free space to operate; as for how much, I don't know, and that's a good question, therefore, I shall research it and get back to you.

Although the checks can be disabled, when the amount of free disk space reaches 200MB, you'll receive a Low Disk Space notification... and another at 80MB, and the final one at 50MB.

Another thing to help clear up disk space, is the disk cleanup tool. Right click your drive | properties | disk clean-up. Check all boxes that you want, but look at the one that talks about compressing old files, it defaults to anything older than 50 days. I've set that on mine for 5 days and in some cases the inital pass will 'free' up several hundred megs.

System Restore points can use a lot of disk space. I always turn that off, as I have yet to have a need for it, your mileage may vary though.

The wonderful Indexing service, on by default, can be another hog for space. I turn that off as well.

good information. i'll try defragging in safe mode later on. there should be plenty of space for defragging, there's about 30% free on the 10gb partition in question.
EDIT: i was looking at the wrong partition for that 30% there was actually only 16% left on the storage partition. moved the Diablo 2 folder, and everything's just fine.