Can you Defrag a Win XP and Ubuntu dual boot hard drive?

[zeekstern]

I would like to defrag my hard drive but am concerned that it will destroy my Ubuntu installation. Does anyone know if it is possible to defrag a dual boot system?

Thanks,
Zeek

 

[KGIII]

Assuming they're each on their own partition, it should be fine.

 

[Brickwizard]

if you go to my computer [usualy desktop icon] and open it you should find your drive listed as two smaller drives one for windows and one for linux as you need to boot into windows to do the maintenance it should only clean up the windows "C" drive as it will only see that one

 

[KGIII]

Also, do you still need to manually defrag Windows? It's 2021!

 

[Brickwizard]

still need to manually defrag Windows? It's 2021!

when I have to work on a microcrap machine

yes I always run the clean up programs manually [but i don't use the inbuilt windows de-frag, I use www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/ its much quicker

Bwiz

 

[KGIII]

IIRC, you can technically defrag an EXT* filesystem. I've never done it, but I guess you can.

 

[zeekstern]

Also, do you still need to manually defrag Windows? It's 2021!

Yes, especially Xp, but as I understand it, SSD drives should not be defragged.

 

[zeekstern]

when I have to work on a microcrap machineView attachment 10556 yes I always run the clean up programs manually [but i don't use the inbuilt windows de-frag, I use www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/ its much quicker

Bwiz

Thanks. It does not support XP. Looks good though.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Yes, especially Xp, but as I understand it, SSD drives should not be defragged.

Windows XP End of Life was 2008(13 years ago) you shouldn't be running it on anything with an internet connection.

 

[zeekstern]

if you go to my computer [usualy desktop icon] and open it you should find your drive listed as two smaller drives one for windows and one for linux as you need to boot into windows to do the maintenance it should only clean up the windows "C" drive as it will only see that one

Unfortunately it recognizes the other partition as Free Space. I'm afraid it will use some of that space for large files (movies) and mess up Ubuntu. Guess I'll just forget defragging.

 

[Brickwizard]

sorry about that

 

[zeekstern]

Windows XP End of Life was 2008(13 years ago) you shouldn't be running it on anything with an internet connection.

I've been running XP on this PC since 2002. Other then replacing the CMOS battery, I haven't done a thing to the PC and have not needed to reinstall the OS due to Microsoft Updates. How many thousands of Win 10 PCs have had the OS reinstalled due to the updates? )

 

[Fanboi]

IIRC, you can technically defrag an EXT* filesystem. I've never done it, but I guess you can.

AFAIK, you shouldn't need to coz the FS allocates storage for files to grow in, so you don't end up like this:
Shite FS --- (Shite NTFS) ---> ShNT tiFSe
Nice___ EXT4___ FS___ --- (Nice EXT4 Filesystem) ---> Nice___ EXT4___ Filesystem_

Unfortunately it recognizes the other partition as Free Space. I'm afraid it will use some of that space for large files (movies) and mess up Ubuntu. Guess I'll just forget defragging.

1) IIRC, you defrag by partition, so only defrag the C: one. Defragging simply moves pieces of files together as much as possible for contiguous reads coz HDDs are like vynyl records. This is why defragging an SSD (any solid state memory) is pointless.
2) If you're using NTFS for a shared Linux and Windows storage partition, defragging it will not harm your actual data that you put there from Linux. I would not recommend (IDK the outcome) it if you installed your Linux OS on an NTFS partition, but if you installed Linux on such, you'd be doing it wrong, lol.
3) TL;DR: It's safe to defrag only the NTFS partition and leave the other partitions, disk label, partition scheme/table et al alone

Hope that clears it up.

 

[dos2unix]

Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting

If you’re a Linux user, you’ve probably heard that you don’t need to defragment your Linux file systems. You’ll also notice that Linux distributions don’t come with disk-defragmenting utilities. But why is that?

www.howtogeek.com

 

[f33dm3bits]

I've been running XP on this PC since 2002. Other then replacing the CMOS battery, I haven't done a thing to the PC and have not needed to reinstall the OS due to Microsoft Updates. How many thousands of Win 10 PCs have had the OS reinstalled due to the updates? )

I haven't run Windows on bare metal in a long time but I do have it running in a virtual machine(vm) and my Windows 10 vm has never broken because of updates. It's not about that it doesn't work, it's about that security vulnerabilities don't get patched anymore on end of life OS's such as Windows XP. So if a system with unpatched vulnerabilities is connected to the internet that system can get taken over and abused by people with bad intentions.

Updating your Operating System – the Risks of Staying Out of Date

We’re all guilty of it – the pop-up window interrupts our work flow or online shopping telling us our system is out of date, asking if we’d like to restart our computer or laptop. It’s never a convenient time, so we click through and plan on doing it later. That’s if we remember. But there’s a...

home.sophos.com

 

[KGIII]

AFAIK, you shouldn't need to coz the FS allocates storage for files to grow in, so you don't end up like this:

I think the easiest way to describe (according to my understanding) it is that the kernel places files intelligently, resulting in little fragmentation. I haven't dug into it since like my earliest Linux days, when I learned it wasn't needed - but was available - and opted to just not bother, much like I don't bother with AV.