Which to run first CHKDSK or defrag ?

[LunchBox]

Greetings,

This is the second time where I have an issue with running defrag first.
I normally run chkdsk first then defrag.

My reasoning.
If the file structure is messed defrag will make it worse. I once had a pc not boot up after defrag.

I also have seen defrag corrupt many files because the file structure was bad and chkdsk was never run so the files ended up in a bad sector.

However,
I also ran chkdsk first once. It renamed all the files (the file structure and pretty messed up). At that time I did not know that could happned and at my young age I though I was going to have a heart attached because after the reboot the files (all of them) were gone.

Yesterday I had a laptop ran pretty good so I skipped the chkdsk and after defrag it started acting a little slow. I ran chkdsk and after the result it said to run it with /f which I did but it never improve. The next steps would have been /r but the client could not wait so I ended my work.

Do any of you ever come across a situation where defrag makes things worse?
Do any of you as part of maintenance/optimization run chkdsk at any point?

Anything that I can do to prevent the issue I had?

Now I know why some of you do not like home service support. I experienced it yesterday. Although I know why it happened the user was really pissing me off by not believing me. I even should him the windows logs showing him that he already had issues for the past month.

Thank you

 

[iptech]

Always chkdsk before defrag, you're asking for trouble otherwise. Chkdsk in an analyze and repair process, defrag is purely optimization although a badly defragmented drive can lead to errors that subsequently need chkdsk to repair. Never defragment a damaged drive, you'll only compound the problem (pun intended!)

 

[SOHO-NZ]

Chkdsk & defrag have different purposes.

chkdsk is to ensure the reliability and integrity of your file system on the disk.

Defrag optimizes the disk's performance, by re-assembling fragmented files.

If chkdsk appears to cause problems, it is more likely that the problem was just waiting to be discovered anyway. Don't blame chkdsk for repairing problems it finds!

The priority should always be to have an intact file system, so run chkdsk first, then Defrag after.

Problems caused by defrag are pretty rare, and would normally be caused other issues (bad ram, failing hdd etc). If the disk I/O system is not 100% reliable to start with, a defrag will probably make it worse by reading or writing errors.

You have to appear to be confident (but not arrogant) in your work onsite, and in the way you deal with your customer. They are less likely to question you or not believe you. If I had a customer that persistently didn't believe what I was telling them, I would sack the customer. - if they don't believe what you tell them, are they likely to pay their bill?

 

[LunchBox]

Yes, I should go back to chkdsk first then defrag. I used to do it all the time in that order and the day I skp chkdsk is the day it all goes to crap and it happened to be with the type of person who was an ass about everything.

I guess my second lesson is if I advertise in craigslist.org I will have those types of clients. I need to build my funds so I can advertise the right way.

Thank you for the comments

 

[kosmoz]

Do any of you ever come across a situation where defrag makes things worse?
Do any of you as part of maintenance/optimization run chkdsk at any point?

Anything that I can do to prevent the issue I had?

I always run a diskcleanup then chkdsk before defrag. And its good to do this regularly before the drives fill up and run out of free space.
For defrag I have been using Diskeeper for a long time now and I have never had any problems with it. It defrags very efficiently even in the automatic mode. The latest version defrags even under low free space.

 

[CPCR]

Does defrag not inform you that there are problems on the drive and tells you to fix the disk before it continues anyway?

 

[LunchBox]

I never had defrag tell me anything except that space is low.

The way I understand the inner workings of defrag is that it wont know there is a problem until after chkdsk runs. Well at least that is how it was explained to me long ago.