Partition fragmented in Windows xp - part where mint is

[verrigan]

Hey first of all, this being my first post... I don't usually post things unless really necessary.
I've used mint4win for mint 7 and i managed to get all working (including ATI drivers which were the biggest pain - this was out of subject ).
So let's get back... my windows has now the part of where mint is installed all fragmented. 15Gb or so representing 34% of the entire partition. I tried with different methods to defragment it, it won't work though.
My win is XP and it runs ok, Mint is running pretty ok too, altho i get sometimes few lags in i.e. music files played. I am asking is this fragmented volume could be causing it, and if there is a way to defragment it? (i've read articles about linux not needing to be defragmented as it will not let files to get fragmented, but I'm rather asking for windows).
Don't be harsh on me, I've searched this and I couldn't find a thread that was addressing my question. Thx

[vincent]

Over time, yes, Windows will get fragmented and defragging on occasion is a good idea. It isn't as strictly necessary as it was back in the pre-NT days, though; NTFS is considerably more resilient to defragmentation than, say, the old FAT filesystems. Linux does not need to be defragmented as long as it resides in a filesystem that is not easily fragmented, i.e. native Linux filesystems like ext3 and ext4. If you used mint4win, you would've installed Mint alongside XP in the same partition, which I guess is probably formatted with NTFS, right? If so, then you do need to defrag once in a while, but only because of the current filesystem your Mint is residing in.

WIndows XP comes with a disk defragmenter utility, but it's sort of buried in the Control Panel if I remember correctly...take a look at this article though, I'm sure it'll point you in the right direction: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314848

[feed3]

defraggler might worth a try.. also mydefrag..
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/defragmentation.shtml

cheers..

[verrigan]

I know how to use the defragmentation utilities of windows (tried also with some different progs such as defraggler etc.), and only the folder where linux mint is "installed" in windows is fragmented, being unable to be defragmented by any means. I was wondering if this occured before and if you know a solution to defragment this part of the partition which is pretty big 34% as I've said.
PS XP uses one partition, while linux mint is other partition.
Thx again

[DrHu]

The only completely un-fragmented hard drive (partition) is a newly formatted one
--this applies to every OS with a file system of any type

That being said, some file systems are less liable to fragmentation over time than others
--then it becomes a matter of how much

Noting, that the user cannot really tell whether or not a fragmented file system is or is not affecting his usability with that OS
--de-fragmenting on rare occasions is possibly necessary, however, in the normal use of an OS, such de-fragmentation will only be done after years of use

OS/2 had the better idea

Format the drive with the system files (io) for the OS in the middle of the drive
--this effectively halves the drive head movement, but won't do anything for the underlying file system fragmentation..

[vincent]

Verrigan, I don't quite understand what you are saying. You're saying that Mint is installed in Windows, while at the same time you say that WIndows and Mint are in two different partitions. A screenshot of your partition table with GParted, or the output of "sudo fdisk -l" would help clear up the confusion, I'd say.