for those familiar w/PerfectDisk & defrag apps-- *PIC*

[npish]

I've been using PerfectDisk 8 on my Vista-based T60p, and I noticed in the analysis map a large amount of files that are "excluded" and "cannot be defragmented"-- cf. attached screenshot image, i.e. the number of dark gray squares towards the bottom; interestingly, I just recently wiped my machine clean and performed a "clean" install of Vista after formatting the partition;

I'm curious-- is it normal to have this many files on your disk that cannot be defragmented (perhaps they're associated with the recovery partition?); I ask because I've used many disk defragmenters on many different machines, and I don't recall ever seeing such a large group of files "excluded" from the procedure;

Thanks for any insights.

[bill bolton]

the number of dark gray squares towards the bottom

The page file and hibernate file (hiberfile) are the usual items that show up as excluded, and your screen capture graphic doesn't look particularly unusual to me.

If you have a lot of physical memory in your T60 the excluded files will generally be larger.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[K0LO]

Besides the hibernation file and paging file, a lot of the excluded file areas that you see are occupied by Vista's restore points and shadow copies. The shadow copy mechanism keeps a map of changed sectors so that a file can be restored to any previous date (Previous Versions of Files feature). The space occupied by the shadow copies cannot be defragmented because if the sectors are moved around then the information needed to restore previous versions of files is lost, so PD8 marks these areas as excluded.

If you don't mind losing your restore points you can do a quick check. Run Disk Cleanup and choose to also delete all but the most recent restore point. Then compare your PD8 analysis map to your current version. There should be a lot fewer excluded areas.

[npish]

thanks for the responses guys; the interesting thing is that I use neither system restore, nor hibernate (I like to conserve the disk space), so I don't have any restore points or a hibernate file to be claiming that "unavailable" space;

I suppose that leaves the pagefile, no? which shouldn't take up that much space, I would think...what else could it be?

[K0LO]

npish:

Do you use Rescue and Recovery? If so, the program stores backups by default on your local disk, hidden from Windows. To see them, start the Rescue and Recovery Windows application. I'm not sure whether PD8 would treat them as excluded, however.

You can check the size of your paging file in the control panel. Default size is usually 1.5 X RAM.

Other than those, I'm not sure why so much of your disk is marked as excluded. Are you positive that you have System Restore disabled and that you have deleted all old restore points? That's normally responsible for most of the excluded files in PD8. By default, if you fill up the area reserved for restore points and shadow copies it will occupy 15% of your disk.