defrag question (per notfred's thread)

[Platypus]

Is it safe to defrag a drive that has a linux partition as well as a windows partition on it? Techincally windows doesn't recognize the linux partition, but something tells me I could be tempting fate here...

 

[wyvrn]

Those should be two separate partitions. You can defrag the windows part without worrying about the linux part, windows thinks the linux part is unformatted space.

 

[notfred]

yeah, you can defrag the windows partition and ignore the linux partition.

 

[Platypus]

I am using a third party defrag program (o and o). It sees the drive as NTFS.. so I assume it's ok to try?

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: notfred
yeah, you can defrag the windows partition and ignore the linux partition.

It doesn't recognize it in the program, it just says "NTFS" and shows up next to the C drive.

 

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation
I am using a third party defrag program (o and o). It sees the drive as NTFS.. so I assume it's ok to try?

im not sure...but here is a wild guess. Seeing as Windows and linux are two different OS's, each with a seperate kind of file system, I would say no. Linux knows where its stuff is, but if you let windows start to reagrange it, more than likely something will screw up. Of course, I am no linux guru.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: FallenHero

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation
I am using a third party defrag program (o and o). It sees the drive as NTFS.. so I assume it's ok to try?

im not sure...but here is a wild guess. Seeing as Windows and linux are two different OS's, each with a seperate kind of file system, I would say no. Linux knows where its stuff is, but if you let windows start to reagrange it, more than likely something will screw up. Of course, I am no linux guru.

That's exactly my reservation... anyone else ?

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred
yeah, you can defrag the windows partition and ignore the linux partition.

It doesn't recognize it in the program, it just says "NTFS" and shows up next to the C drive.

If the C drive has windows installed on it, and is formatted with NTFS, go ahead and defragment it. If it's mistekenly identifying your ext2 or ext3 partition as NTFS, don't defragment it.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred
yeah, you can defrag the windows partition and ignore the linux partition.

It doesn't recognize it in the program, it just says "NTFS" and shows up next to the C drive.

If the C drive has windows installed on it, and is formatted with NTFS, go ahead and defragment it. If it's mistekenly identifying your ext2 or ext3 partition as NTFS, don't defragment it.

Well all I see in the window are two drives. C and D. My hard drives. It doesn't show partitions at all



Edit: I notice that the total size of the drive is only as big as my windows partition, so I would assume it's just ignoring the other 10 gig of the drive?

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred
yeah, you can defrag the windows partition and ignore the linux partition.

It doesn't recognize it in the program, it just says "NTFS" and shows up next to the C drive.

If the C drive has windows installed on it, and is formatted with NTFS, go ahead and defragment it. If it's mistekenly identifying your ext2 or ext3 partition as NTFS, don't defragment it.

Well all I see in the window are two drives. C and D. My hard drives. It doesn't show partitions at all

Well, I don't know who's defragmenter you're using, but that seems odd. Try using the one that comes with windows.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred
yeah, you can defrag the windows partition and ignore the linux partition.

It doesn't recognize it in the program, it just says "NTFS" and shows up next to the C drive.

If the C drive has windows installed on it, and is formatted with NTFS, go ahead and defragment it. If it's mistekenly identifying your ext2 or ext3 partition as NTFS, don't defragment it.

Well all I see in the window are two drives. C and D. My hard drives. It doesn't show partitions at all

Well, I don't know who's defragmenter you're using, but that seems odd. Try using the one that comes with windows.

Why is that odd? It just shows two drives. The C drive has 3 partitions on it, and the defrag program (looked in windows defrag too) only shows C as being the size of the windows partition

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreationWhy is that odd? It just shows two drives. The C drive has 3 partitions on it, and the defrag program (looked in windows defrag too) only shows C as being the size of the windows partition

The C drive is a partition, not a physical drive. C is a fat32 or NTFS partition. The entire drive is not C unless you only have one large partition on it.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreationWhy is that odd? It just shows two drives. The C drive has 3 partitions on it, and the defrag program (looked in windows defrag too) only shows C as being the size of the windows partition

The C drive is a partition, not a physical drive. C is a fat32 or NTFS partition. The entire drive is not C unless you only have one large partition on it.

Right... so is it safe to try?

 

[notfred]

Yes, you can defragment the partition that is labeled C by windows.
You can not defragment your ext2 and ext3 linux partitions.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: notfred
Yes, you can defragment the partition that is labeled C by windows.
You can not defragment your ext2 and ext3 linux partitions.

Yes, thank you. I realize that. The ext2 partitions don't show up in the program, that was why I posted this thread to begin with. If it says NTFS though, I assume it's ok to partition.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred
Yes, you can defragment the partition that is labeled C by windows.
You can not defragment your ext2 and ext3 linux partitions.

Yes, thank you. I realize that. The ext2 partitions don't show up in the program, that was why I posted this thread to begin with. If it says NTFS though, I assume it's ok to partition.

I have seen ext2 partitions misidentified as NTFS before. If you don't know which partition it's working on, don't do it. If you know for sure that it's worknig on the windows partition, it will be fine. I have no idea what defrag tool you're using, and therefore can't tell you whether it's misidentifying a partition. You may be able to tell by looknig at the sizes of the partitions.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: notfred
Yes, you can defragment the partition that is labeled C by windows.
You can not defragment your ext2 and ext3 linux partitions.

Yes, thank you. I realize that. The ext2 partitions don't show up in the program, that was why I posted this thread to begin with. If it says NTFS though, I assume it's ok to partition.

I have seen ext2 partitions misidentified as NTFS before. If you don't know which partition it's working on, don't do it. If you know for sure that it's worknig on the windows partition, it will be fine. I have no idea what defrag tool you're using, and therefore can't tell you whether it's misidentifying a partition. You may be able to tell by looknig at the sizes of the partitions.

Right, thank you

 

[Platypus]

Will the defrag mess up the MBR at all, IE messing up lilo?

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation
Will the defrag mess up the MBR at all, IE messing up lilo?

The MBR won't be affected by defragging.

 

[Iron Woode]

O&O now has a Linux defragmenter.

 

[wyvrn]

Well since most versions of *nix that I know of have active defragmentation built into the file system, I would imagine that software is useless.

Originally posted by: Iron Woode
O&O now has a Linux defragmenter.

 

[ATLien247]

Why not make a backup image of the entire physical drive, then try the defrag?

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: ATLien247
Why not make a backup image of the entire physical drive, then try the defrag?

Do you have 100 gigs lying around?

 

[onza]

i do have 100 gigs hehehee

umm so ya how long should 160gb drive take to defrag.. so long its been 10hours 0_o