[gui-talk] Windows XP Home Defrag doesn't see my A: drive

Sun Sep 17 02:38:50 CDT 2006

thank you.  I undersand your instructions. I'm familiar with doing things 
from a command line, due to having used DOS computers before Windows.  It 
isn't that I'm having a problem figuring out how to do a defrag.  I know 
where to go and what to do.  I am  sorry if that was not clear.  Your final 
remark does address my question,  Apparently, it is now impossible to run 
defrag on the A: drive.  It wasn't always so, not on my Win 98 SE computer 
before this XP one.  Though I understand your reason, it wasn't this way 
previously in my experience.  But of course I will give up the idea now. 
I'll probably begin using only my flash drive even for minor daily backups 
instead,and that's fine.

Thank you.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles Oppermann" <chuckop at microsoft.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2006 11:59 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Windows XP Home Defrag doesn't see my A: drive

An easier way to do defragmentation is to use the command-line version of 
the program.  The program defrag.exe will do all that you want.  Typing 
"defrag /?" will list out the various options available.  To do a 
defragmentation of the C: drive you would type:

Defrag c: /v /f

The /v option instructs defrag to print an analysis of the state of the 
drive before and after defragmenting.  The /f option forces defragmentation 
even though it might not be needed.

Defragmentation is only allowed on hard drives because floppy drives don't 
have enough clusters to actually get defragmented, and often wouldn't have 
enough free space to build contiguous files.

I hope this helps.
Charles Oppermann \ Program Manager \ Speech Components \ Microsoft 
Corporation

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2006 8:40 PM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Windows XP Home Defrag doesn't see my A: drive

Hi,

I more or less followed your suggestions, although following my own usual
way of going about this.  I'm assuming it amounts to the same thing, from
what I can tell:  Instead of My Computer, which isn't my preferred method of
housekeeping, I just went to my A drive in Windows Explorer.  But that's the
same thing, of course, just another interface.  I just happen to prefer the
style of having the tree view of folders and drives on the left, and the
files within each of them in the pane on the right.  It's sort of a classic
arrangement, cgoing back to third party houskeeping applets you could get
for a DOS machine once.  that's what I am comfortable with, having learned
that sort of thing sighted, more than being in the sort of pipeline that
you're in with My Computer, where you have to go backward or forward.  It's
a different sort of conceptual paradigm.  Some day I'll start all over, get
an advanced degree in psychological research, and do a study about how the
brain works with these different paradigms.  It's fascinating.

Anyway, so then I opened the Properties dialogue by pressing alt enter,
again not your exact method, but also a normal way to get into Properties.

Control tab, of course, took me to the tools tab, and a press of the tab key
to the defrag option, which I activated by pressing enter.  I'm not sure why
you specify such different ways to get to that point, but as long as they
work, it's all the same.  I do understand that.  Just describing the more
standard way, by which I do *not* mean "more correct," just more standard.

So, now we're on the same page, as they say.  But what do I get?  A message
that, how did Windows put it?  Let me go back and do it again so I can
quote:

Disk defragmenter cannot run on this volume type.

Now, this is an ordinary 1.4 Mb. diskette, or whatever the capacity is,
formatted normally in Windows.  So I don't know what sort of problem Windows
is having with it.  But at least this would seem to agree with it not
showing up on the Defrag dialogue approached from the
Programs/Accessories/System Tools menu under the Start menu.

But it was interesting to find another way around to this point, in any
case, so thanks for the tips.  Another amusing example of Windows
redundancy,which is so often remarked on in mailing list discussions.  Oh,
well.
thanks again.
Go to my computer
arrow down and highlight "a" drive (do not double click/enter)
left click (application key)
arrow down to properties and enter
control tab to the tools tab
tab down until you get to defrag and press enter

Hope that helps.

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Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.4/449 - Release Date: 9/15/2006