Defrag System Reserved Partition Revisited

Sure it's only a 100 MB partition. Sure Everybody and their mother says don't fool with it. I'm not interested in the opinions of everyone and their mother, I want my 79 % system reserved partition derfragged.

Help me make this happen. Be part of history and eradicate the very silly notion that the system reserved partition cannot be defragged LOL

I figure, heck it's just data on a normal partition which happens to be currently locked down somehow (O&O boot time defrag didn't defrag anything.. as if the whole partition was off limits) and of course files in use cannot be defragged anyway. We need to solve these problems.

A side note -

I think it's silly and irresponsible to tell people to leave the system reserved partition alone. Sure it's small and this means the arm of the drive doesn't have to work too much extra to find the files But you still have loss of efficiency and you take the risk the fragmented partition (this is read as: Damaged partition, because that's what fragmentation is.. hard drive surface damage) will become so damaged your precious system files could be corrupted beyond repair < -- !!! ( the system files in the System Reserved partition are boot files for your pc and tools that allow bit locker encryption to work, so if these get corrupted you may not be able to boot windows.)

Er.. how come no one ever mentions this? Simple.. it's not encouraged by microsoft. They know if you corrupt your system files you may wind up buying another microsoft product to fix the problem. Yep.. I'm saying they time limit break your system on purpose to make extra sales - everyone does it so don't look shocked that I'm making that claim. Did you know Edison has a light bulb in the Smithsonian that still burns like new? If Edison can do that.. why do light bulbs fail? They are designed to fail on purpose - this is how light bulb companies more money.

So before my fragmentation gets to 100 % and even more greatly increases the chances of system file corruption I am going to attempt to find a way to defrag this partition. As O&O was a no show, i decided to google the problem and found this, my next method:

Posted by Loukik Kulkarni at Microsoft Anserrs here: Can System Reserved be defragmented? - Microsoft Community

I will tell you what I tried to defragment the system reserved area.
1. Make the system reserved area an active partition by assigning it a letter like other drives (Make it visible on My Computer).
2. After doing this format this newly created partition. If you explore it you will find nothing in it. But the System will show that some part is occupied. Proceed with the formatting.
3. Even after formatting the drive will be displayed as partially occupied. It may happen that some more space is freed.
4. Now if you run the analyzer it will show 0% fragmented.(It happened for me atleast).
5. Now remove the letter assigned to the partition and make it invisible.
Although it works, try this at your own risk.
I found this method just while fiddling around with the OS.
As mentioned above it does not show significant improvement in the performance.

.. and a lil more info:

If you have problem in creating partition or changing partition here are the steps:
1. Go to Control Panel(View by: category) -->System n security option.-->Administrative Tools-->Create and format hard disk partitions(Here you can change partition size which is usually done during installation of the OS,changing harddisk partition now may lead to
formatting the entire partition(s) so be careful)
2. Disk Management window will open.
3. Here you will see all the partitions in a tabular as well as block diagram format.
4. Right click on System reserve option(any where in table or in the block)
5. You will see a pop up-->select Change Drive letter and paths....
6. Click on add-->Assign the following letter drive-->select letter of ur choice from drop down list.-->OK
7. Check My Computer for newly created partition.
8. Format it as any other drive.(As I said earlier even though the drive is empty, System will show it as partially occupied. Even after formatting it will show as partially occupied.)
9. Now try defragmenting. It may show you 0% fragmented.
10. This system reserved space provides limited rights for any common user so its of no use to us and its better for us to keep it empty and idle.
11.So follow the same steps as above to remove the letter given to the drive.
12.Step 5-->Only instead of add, click on remove.
13. Now in the System Res block will be shade with hash lines(Indicates it is idle).

Click to expand...

Before I try this.. can you guys see anything dreadfully wrong with this method.. why it won't work or other thoughts on this or other methods?

Thanks.

What about using a Linux disk or other non microsoft/windows app to defrag the partition at boot time? There HAS to be a way to do this.

If all else fails there is a way to delete the System Reserved partition here: TeraByte Unlimited Knowledge Base

It involves moving the boot files to the Windows directory, then removing the partition. I may do this if I have to but i'd rather solve this silly problem instead.

BTW, if you don't use BitLocker, such as if you only have Windows 8 Core ( cant use Bitlocker with that version at all) you can safely remove the System Reserved partition, provided you do it properly.

You say, " Not a lot of point in defragging such a small amount of data that only gets used at boot time." - again.. I disagree.. that is INSANE talk.

Think about what you are saying.. This is what you are saying - " We have a tiny bit of critical data that is 79 % fragmented and has the potential to become corrupt and cripple the system - but since this area is so small in size ( nevermind that it's critical data) .. we wont worry about it!

That makes Absolutely NO sense at all. In this case, size, does Not matter. This is like an ostrich sticking his head in the sand to wait the coming disaster. Why do none of you "leave the partition alone" proponents have no thought to Protecting this data? Seems if Anything.. THIS partition is the one you need defragged The Most.

Not all fragmentation is bad. Some types of programs ( i suspect windows too) are reserving parts of space after certain files so they can expand the file with minimum of shuffling (very common in Unix) so it may appear fragmented. There's also the case when some files have to be at certain addresses and can not or should not be moved for the sake of speed and stability. Heck of more is going on in OS, more than you can see by naked eye.

It is not at all a size consideration, but I like to know that everything on my computer is easily accessible by me. So, on installation or, if needed when I help acquaintances, I remove it and merge the boot files with my main OS partition (Windows 8.1?) I can then make a more useful Image for re installation, should it be needed. I do realise this leaes the boot files more accessible for damage, but it is not a consideration, - for me, anyway!.

you still have loss of efficiency and you take the risk the fragmented partition (this is read as: Damaged partition, because that's what fragmentation is.. hard drive surface damage)

Click to expand...

No fragmentation has nothing to do with physical properties of HDD (hard drive surface damage). What is funny is that according to your post defragmenting reverses "hard drive surface damage" - sounds like miracle. I would be very interested to read white paper about this reversible surface damage.

Fragmentation is only a problem for spinning disks. Now if you think about this: what impact on system performance will have fragmentation close to the center of the disk and what impact would have file fragmentation far from the center of the disk then you will know why defragmenting first 100MB of large disk has no impact on anything.

So if you defragment first 100MB or not really does not matter