booting impossible when SheepShaver disk too fragmented

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aktsi
Space Cadet
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 12:48 pm

booting impossible when SheepShaver disk too fragmented

Post by aktsi »

Hi,
my SheepShaver installation with a SheepShaver disk of 800 Mb worked well under Windows XP and Windows 8 for some days. Then I created another virtual disk for OS 9.0.4, its size being 2 Gb.
When I duplicated the files from the old (smaller) to the new (bigger) disk that took a lot of time. I did n't bother, though.
But when I tried to start from the big disk for the first time, nothing happened (so it seemed) - no Mac OS greeting etc. I even could not exit SheepShaver by normal means, I had to kill it with the Windows task manager.
After several frustated tries I found the reason and with it the solution:
The 2 Gb SheepSaver disk had been fragmented to more than 1000 pieces (even when the partition had about another 100 Gb of free space).
So it tried to defragment the drive.
However, Windows own defrag utility and even DisKeeper could not consolidate the more than 1000 pieces to one continuous 2 Gb file.
That task, however, was accomplished very well & swift by WinContig (a small Italian stand-alone program).
After consolidating the SheepShaver disk all went well.

Edit 2013-03-30:
WinContig which previously I appraised so much is cheating in some cases: Even when it reports after defragmenting a file that it now consists of "1 fragment" (meaning no fragmentation at all) that is not always true. In those cases a following analysis by WinContig itself reveals that WinContig had reduced the number of fragments a lot, but not to "1 fragment" in all cases in which it pretends it. This remaining fragmentation is approved by Defraggler (Piriform). However, WinContig is good for a first defrag of big files in cases where Windows, Diskeeper or Defraggler are failing to start. I've learned that in some cases it is a good strategy to first analyse the whole partition by Defraggler, then to defrag the biggest fragmented files by WinContig, and finally to use Defraggler to consolidate the remaining fragments. Both WinContig and Defraggler can defrag files even when the partition is marked by Windows as to be checked by CheckDisk, in which case both Windows and DisKeeper (which uses the defrag engine of Windows) refuse to start any defragmentation.
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