Diskeeper at boot-time

[TBone 0]

I'm just curious, has anyone tried boot-time defragmenting with Diskeeper 6(SE)? I tried it once, and shortly thereafter I had all kinds of horrible drive errors. My system seems to have recovered, but I'll not be so quick to try it again. I didn't think there was any significant change made to NTFS for XP. Did Diskeeper screw me up, or was it just a random freak-accident? I've used Diskeeper for normal defragmentation and I've never had any errors from that, so I can't imagine why boot-time defragmenting would cause problems.

[Brian Frank 0]

Maybe because it's not meant for XP and might not understand NTFS 5.1.

[FatFish 0]

I used the same version as you did on boot time and regualr defrag. too, but i have no problem with it.

[ghayes 0]

There have been some changes made to NTFS and with the MS defrag APIs with WinXP. In terms of online defragmentation, some files that previously had to be done offline can now be done online. However, when you do a boot time defrag, no defragger is using the MS defrag APIs and needs to have a clear understanding of the file system. I'm not aware of ANY disk defragmenter (this includes my company's product - PerfectDisk, Diskeeper, Defrag Commander, SpeedDisk, O&O Defrag) that is officially compatible with WinXP. While defraggers that use the MS Defrag APIs (PerfectDisk, Diskeeper, Defrag Commander, O&O Defrag) should be able to run ONLINE safely without loss or corruption of data (SpeedDisk V5.x does NOT use the MS Defrag APIs), doing a boot time defrag should be considered a "risky" thing until the defrag vendor releases a version of their software that officially supports WinXP.

 

- Greg/Raxco Software

 

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility that competes with the defragmenters mentioned above, as a systems engineer in the support department.