Quote:
Here's a screen shot


Man, that's some fragmented disk. Basically, you've got the following problems:


  • The graph shows less free disk space than Windows is reporting. This is simply a problem with rounding. Each one of those vertical stripes refers to several sectors(*). I'm guessing that if any of the sectors it's referring to contain fragments, then it's coloured red. So, even if it's showing 10 sectors and 9 of them are free, but the other contains a file fragment, it'll be coloured red. This is where your missing space is hiding.
  • Defrag will ignore deleted files when moving things around. Any space they're living in will just get overwritten if it needs to put a file there. This doesn't apply (obviously) to files in the Recycle Bin.
  • Windows defrag really sucks if you've got a disk that badly fragmented. When it talks about 10% free disk, it really wants contiguous free space. Some of the other defragmenters do a better job in a tight space.


So, to summarise: don't worry about the discrepancy in the space reports; delete some files to make more room (or move them somewhere else temporarily); run defrag lots more times.

Or buy a bigger disk, of course.

(*) Probably not actually real sectors, but my point's the same.
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-- roger