If you read this forum, you will see that PerfectDisk 8.0 Defrag is the defrag of choice for most of us. Until Dec 15, it is reduced from $40 to $20 by using this checkout code: DEFRAGVISTANOW

It of course also supports Windows XP.

www.raxco.com

If you get the "PerfectDisk V8.0 Professional Power Pack" which includes two copies, it's only $30! I might just have to break down and do it! Hurry, hurry, the deal is ending in two days!

I've heard several forum members talk about how much they like this program. Seeing this offer, I decided to give it a try. Now I'm a believer. Optimizing my little X41T's hard drive shaved 10 seconds off the boot time and made the whole machine feel a few percent "snappier". I liked it so much that I bought a second copy for the desktop machine. Even though the desktop has a very fast SATA hard disk, I could also feel the improvement there.

PerfectDisk is definitely worthwhile.

Thanks for the tip on this software. Defragging is something most people don't think about much, but for the price of a twelver of Heineken, PerfectDisk is worth it.
Bought it and did a quick job on a couple disks, definitely worth the money. Lets you defrag the system files and the other files on your boot drive separately, never considered the benefits of defragging single files, but using PerfectDisk lets you optimize large files(like video or PDF files) before final production for a better overall result.
Good product for the price, good tip by thinkpads.com member dfumento.

Quick opinion question, there is an option added to the cart for "Technical Support & Upgrade" or something very similar. If you purchase the workstation pack i mentioned, it costs about $12. Does anyone here have an opinion about whether this cost is worth it? I believe it gives you free upgrades (ex. to version 9) for 1-year. I doubt I would ever use the tech support and if they don't upgrade that often, it definately wouldn't be worth it. For people who are more familiar with the company, how often do upgrades come out? Do you think it's worth the relatively small cost?

Well, I bit the bullet and just bought the 2-pack with the upgrade and technical support added. The way I looked at it is that I'm getting two copies and a year of upgrades for the same amount as it would cost to buy just one copy.

I got mine. Looks good so far! (I was going to get two ... but then the disk on my wife's X31 is so empty that it rarely needs defragging. )

My only problem is that I'm becoming a little obsessed with defragging! Hopefully I'll learn to leave it alone and let the weekly defrag do its thing. So far this is much better than both Windows and Diskeeper and it's much cheaper than the Professional version of Diskeeper. With this deal my total for both and the upgrade service cost less than a single copy of Diskeeper. If I had opted not to get the upgrade service, my two copies would have cost the same as Diskeeper Home Edition.

In what way is it much better than the other de-fraggers?

Being free gives the others a rather large head start.

Thanks for the PerfectDisk 8 tip and discount code dfumento!

Thanks for the Professional Power Pack tip kf_man!

I just downloaded, installed, and ran the PerfectDisk Professional Power Pack last night.

What's better than other defraggers? As a first time user of PerfectDisk, this is what I see as an improvement over Norton Speed Disk and Windows built-in defrag. The best thing is that you can schedule a defrag on reboot before all the processes and drivers are loaded into memory. This frees up files that would otherwise be inaccessable to defragging because of being in use. You can choose to defrag an individual file such as a video clip or movie. You can also defrag USB and Firewire devices (that appear as a hard drive to Windows). You can schedule defrags and automatically bypass scheduling when on Battery Power. There are other features as well, but these seem to be the main ones.

I have to second everything that GomJabbar just said and add that the main reason I like any third-party non-free defrag program is that they do more to optimize the placement of files. Using the SmartDefrag option of PerfectDisk causes it to analyze your file usage and place rarely modified file toward the beginning of the disk where hopefully they will stay defragmented. Windows doesn't really do this at all and just tries to group files, not even trying to consolidate free space (at least in my experience).

For the price I purchased two copies of this program and all the neat little features and improvements it has over the other programs, I think it was quite a deal.

I've used PerfectDisk for years on our servers but had not used it on my Thinkpad. So, armed with the information from this post I bought PerfectDisk 8 and ran it last night.

Now, I'll admit it might be a coincidence, but after it ran and optimized the files I allowed it reboot to optimize the pagefile and hibernate file. On the next boot my Outlook was crashed and my VirtualPC failed.. The Outlook.PST file was corrupted which natually sent Outlook into outer space. And the VirtualPC drives were trashed.

I have no clue on Outlook except to say that in typical Microsoft fashion the recommended recovery procedure (run scanpst.exe) did not work until after I ran an intensive chkdsk /R. I do not recall for certain but I suspect Outlook was open when PerfectDisk ran and that this is the cause of the corruption.

As for the VirtualPC I suspect that one has to close it before PerfectDisk runs otherwise PerfectDisk defrags the "virtual disk" files which are then corrupted when VPC shuts down and saves the machine state because the "virtual disk" file has been reorganized. It is worth noting that this does not happen with the built-in DiskKeeper --- it probably isn't smart enough to optimized the "virtual disk" file which raise the question 'what is it smart enough to do'.

It might be a good idea if PerfectDisk refused to run while some kinds of programs are active --- programs that keep files open all the time. I know the user should be sensitive to this, but some programs, like Outlook, are just 'ubiquitous' and the user doesn't even think about them. In the case of VirtualPC its running in the background and in a sort of "out of sight, out of mind" mode.

Anyway, it took me the better part of a day to recover the Outlook file and to rebuild the Virtual PC so I thought I'd pass this along in case it saves anyone a problem in the future.

Just curious to hear any other opinions on letting PerfectDisk 8 defrag the system files before boot-up; I have yet to do this because of the previous posting, but if no one else has had any problems with it - I might try. I love the results so far though with just the regular defragging, my machine runs quite bit nicer. Thank you

Worked alright with me.

I have used Perfect Disk vers 7 and 8 to do this on many occasions on numerous T4x ThinkPads, with zero problems.

Cheers,

Bill

I have used PerfectDisk 7 and 8 on multiple Thinkpads, and other systems, to do a complete offline defrag and online defrag. Worked flawlessly.

thank you gentlemen!

I just purchased another copy for my daughter's laptop today. Even though the 1/2 off special was supposed to expire on 12/15, it apparently is still in effect because I was only charged $20.

To add another testimonial to the collection here, after running the SmartPlacement on her drive the laptop's boot time decreased from 120 seconds to 75 seconds and there is a lot less disk thrashing in evidence. And this on a machine that has been defragged weekly with the built-in Windows defragger.

Merry Christmas!

For anyone that's interested, the discount code still works. I just used it a few minutes ago.

David

Can I get a single license and install this on both my X31 and T60?

From the help file: