Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!ria!uwovax.uwo.ca!7103_2622
From: 7103_2622@uwovax.uwo.ca (Eric Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Defragmentation
Message-ID: <1991Feb16.191746.8627@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Date: 17 Feb 91 00:17:45 GMT
References: <7269@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> <16652@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <0007348@harvee.UUCP>
Lines: 17

In article <0007348@harvee.UUCP>, esj@harvee.UUCP (Eric S Johansson) writes:
> I am also wondering if there are any de-frag algorithms that do
> not require bypassing the file system.  I imagine that one could write
> a defragger by paying attention to the FAT read only while letting
> the file system modify the FAT when copying/moving files to
> contigious disk space.
> 

Indeed, there's a very simple defragmenting algorithm that uses only the
file system: copy all files to a backup medium, zero the partition, and
copy the files back. (Make sure the backup is file-by-file, *not* an
image backup). It's probably a good idea to make two backups before
zeroing the partition, just in case.
-- 
Eric R. Smith                     email:
Dept. of Mathematics            eric.smith@uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario   7103_2622@uwovax.bitnet