Defragmentation causing trouble? I have a bunch of questions!

[CuriousHatter]

Okay, first of all this didn't happen to me, personally, but now I'm worried it might.

A friend of mine told me that her hard drive went and died after she did a routine defragmentation. It also happened to my uncle, years back. The computer works fine after the defragmentation, but when you try and restart it, it will just restart itself in circles after trying to initiate windows.

Now I'm worried since I also defragment my hard drive on a regular basis. So I have a LOT of questions for anyone who might know about it.

1. Can the hard drive actually die because of defragmenting?

2. If so, does it happen because you defragged too often? Not often enough?

3. I'm using Raxco's Perfect Disk, but is that good? Is it better to use the Windows default defrag thingy? Or is it better to use separate software? If so, what kind?

4. Someone told me that the hard drive will die if you defragment it when you have big size files there. How big is "big"? I mean, is an average movie of around 700 megs big? Is something that has 100 megs big?

That's all I can think of for now.

I mean, I can't just go and NOT defrag my PC at all - that would just screw it up in a different way, but now I'm going to worry whenever I do it, so...someone please ease my mind and tell me if there's a "proper" way to defrag your hard drive? Precautions? Is it better to do it often and have it last for a little bit or to do it, like, once every month and have it work for hours?

Thanks in advance!

[libertypo]

Anything is possible. Depends on how old is the disk, how big and how often do you do said defragmentation. You have to keep in mind that the process is very disk stressing and as such it's pretty tough on older disks. And yes, the size of the files is influencing since it has to move them from one sector to the other according to their order

[Munemasa Katagiri]

Did you try a 3rd-party defrag software? Defraggler - Download
Test your cables as well.

[KarumA]

Why do you defrag so often and how often do you do it
I only do defrags when it is absolutely needed because since it is stressful for your disc you surely do not want to do it regulary. I only do it when I am in need of disc space for the rest I simply make sure I don't have any spare useless files lying around by using a registry cleaner and CCleaner

[CuriousHatter]

Anything is possible. Depends on how old is the disk, how big and how often do you do said defragmentation. You have to keep in mind that the process is very disk stressing and as such it's pretty tough on older disks. And yes, the size of the files is influencing since it has to move them from one sector to the other according to their order

But...how big is BIG? I mean, I know 1+ GB stuff IS big, but what about stuff that's, say, 100-200 MB? o_O'

Did you try a 3rd-party defrag software? Defraggler - Download
Test your cables as well.

Well, like I said, I'm using Raxco's Perfect Disc, but again, I still have no idea if it's better or worse than the default Windows software

Why do you defrag so often and how often do you do it
I only do defrags when it is absolutely needed because since it is stressful for your disc you surely do not want to do it regulary. I only do it when I am in need of disc space for the rest I simply make sure I don't have any spare useless files lying around by using a registry cleaner and CCleaner

Well, when I say 'regularly', I mean every 1-2 months I check if Defragmenting is needed and if Raxco says yes then I do it.

My logic is this - if you do it more often, there's less to do, it lasts shorter and it's much less stressful for my PC. But I always did wonder if it's better do have little stresses more often than ONE huge one every blue moon.

I also run CC and Registry Mechanic once a month.

[Munemasa Katagiri]

@CuriousHatter Defraggler is good because you can defrag only the fragmented files, you can select them and save the rest of your HDD.
See if your cables are good and not loose, defrag can heat a little, if your cables are not well you can go trough that situation. It happened to me once when I edited a huge video file.

[Catylyrn]

What really "wears down" hard disk drives the most is the computer powering on/off routine, when the reading head rises into ready state or comes to rest back down.
Even so, regular (with platters) hard drives are good for tens or hundreds thousands of use-cycles, defragging once a week/month doesn't significantly alter their lifetime.
Say, if you light your computer in the morning and extinguish it at night, that's about 1000 cycles over 3 years.

Even a bad sector isn't that much trouble as long as it's properly set aside and unused, and you aren't seeing the beginning of an epidemics of them. Most people I've seen with cases of disks that "died on them because of defragging" actually only thought of defragging because the thing was behaving somewhat wonky already.

[blu chocobo]

My other hard drive died after I decided to defragged it, it was a bit old, several years, and held up to 80 GB. That hard drive started to give me some problems after my computer was reformatted, and gave out right after I restarted the computer (after the defrag). I don't do the defragging often either, and seriously needed it, unfortunately doing what I thought would help it ended up killing it.

My brother said it must be something about the moving around the files that cause it, but since I don't know much about computers I can't provide any technical answers. I'm just scared to defrag my other drive now ^^;; But next time if I really need to, I'll try to take the advice you guys gave in this thread

[CuriousHatter]

Okay, I see. I'm feeling a little more at ease now thanks to you guys. ^0^

Basically, in order for my HDD to have a nice, long life, I should:

1. Defrag less, rather than more often. /Thanks, KarumA! /

2. Keep all my BIG crap on DVDs /I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that anything 500MBs+ is "risky big"/ -thanks, libertypo! -

3. Check out Defraggler /it sounds useful (: /, thanks Munemasa Katagiri!

4. Not worry excessively over it since the HDD will die when it'll die and the defrag probably won't be the cause, but rather the 'drop that spilled the glass'. /Thanks, Catylyrn, for putting my mind at ease about that! /

?5?. If I understood correctly, it's better to leave my PC on all day long than turn it off and on every half an hour when I need it because it's the startup and shut down that stresses the HDD most. did I get that right? o.o'''

Anyway, thanks to everyone who posted! Too bad there can be only ONE best answer. ( ._.)

[Munemasa Katagiri]

I hope you can get along with your HDD now. XD HDD is mean. XD
Well, computers were build to be on all its life, it's not bad for it if you leave it on several days.