Defragging FAT32 USB drives

[Brian49]

I keep a lot of data stored on various USB drives, formatted as FAT32 for maximum versatility. When I was running Windows on my hard drive, I would periodically defrag the USB drives - they would get very fragmented, affecting performance. Since migrating to Linux, there seems to be no way even of inspecting the drives for fragmentation, much less of doing anything about it. Windows defrag applications run under Wine (e.g. Defraggler) don't detect the drives. Does anyone know of an application (Linux or Windows) capable of doing this, please? Many thanks.

P.S. I am aware of the debate about whether or not to defrag USB drives. It seems to me that a periodic defrag is a good thing.

[mmesantos1]

I keep a lot of data stored on various USB drives, formatted as FAT32 for maximum versatility. When I was running Windows on my hard drive, I would periodically defrag the USB drives - they would get very fragmented, affecting performance. Since migrating to Linux, there seems to be no way even of inspecting the drives for fragmentation, much less of doing anything about it. Windows defrag applications run under Wine (e.g. Defraggler) don't detect the drives. Does anyone know of an application (Linux or Windows) capable of doing this, please? Many thanks.

P.S. I am aware of the debate about whether or not to defrag USB drives. It seems to me that a periodic defrag is a good thing.

Well since you are familiar with the issue of defraging your USB drives then you are aware this could also shorten the life of the drive, but in any case here are 2 methods of how to do what you are asking from Linux. Hope this helps. Just remeber you do so at your own risk.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6173826_defragm ... linux.html

[Brian49]

Thanks for responding. The reformatting method would be rather heavy going with a nearly-full 250Gb USB drive. Running a defrag tool from a CD is an attractive option, but at the moment I can't get a Partition Logic CD to boot successfully.

[ThePCNut]

If your PC is powerful enough you could run a Windows Install on a VM in something like VirtualBox or Vmware(Better performance) and simpley tell the VM App to connect the drives to the VM and defrag them from there.
I use this on my PC as i have Windows XP Pro running on VMWare in Unity mode so if I need to defrag any external drives I simply connect them to XP Pro and defrag them then reconnect them to the host or Ubuntu/Mint.

VirtualBox is free and can be found by going to Software manager and searching for it however you will need a Windows OS Disk and Key to install on the Vm once you have made it.

VMWare is not free but has far better performance.

[Brian49]

Thanks for the suggestions. Windows running in VirtualBox doesn't recognise the USB ports here; I tried it as a possible way of getting my USB printer to work when it wouldn't do so in Mint 8 or 9. I might give VMWare a whirl if there is a free trial version available.

[deleted]

VMWare Player is free. I use it daily. I connect my USB printer to it, then share it (the printer across the network), and connect Mint to it using the samba settings in the printer setup.
-Hinto

[Brian49]

Hinto - If I may ask, where did you obtain the package, please? On the VMWare site, you have to give all sorts of information about yourself before downloading. Some software portal sites such as Softpedia have the player, but only as an .rpm package. There doesn't appear to be anything in the repositories, nor any PPA. Many thanks.

[viking777]

Thanks for the suggestions. Windows running in VirtualBox doesn't recognise the USB ports here; I tried it as a possible way of getting my USB printer to work when it wouldn't do so in Mint 8 or 9. I might give VMWare a whirl if there is a free trial version available.

There are two ways to get Virtualbox to recognise USB devices, the quickest and easiest is to run it as root (start a root terminal and type VirtuaBox) but if you are going to do that you need to prevent both the host and the guest from connecting to the internet - disconnect your router from the phone line. The second way is to follow the instructions here: http://linux.knightnet.org.uk/2008/07/e ... ports.html. The second method is a bit old now so it may not work any more, I haven't tried it for a while, but the first one definitely will.

BTW you need to use Oracle Virtualbox not Virtualbox-ose.

[deleted]

Hinto - If I may ask, where did you obtain the package, please? On the VMWare site, you have to give all sorts of information about yourself before downloading. Some software portal sites such as Softpedia have the player, but only as an .rpm package. There doesn't appear to be anything in the repositories, nor any PPA. Many thanks.

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

-Hinto

[Brian49]

Hinto - as I mentioned, on the VMWare site you have to give all sorts of information about yourself before downloading. I prefer to avoid that.

[deleted]

No more information that registering with this forum.
Suit yourself. It's a great product I've been using the player for about 3 years. You can search this forum and see my (documented) success with it.
-Hinto

[Brian49]

viking 777 - I followed your helpful recommendations in relation to VirtualBox, but the USB ports still weren't recognised by Windows. So a bit of a dead end there, I'm afraid.

Hinto - perhaps you haven't downloaded from the VMWare site very recently. It now asks you for full personal information, including your home address and phone number as required fields. I got out of there at top speed. Obviously I have nothing to say about the quality of the software.

I would still be glad to learn of a defrag tool that can be run from a CD (one that boots successfully), please.