Dude's!! Has anyone tried this?

[ElGato]

I was searching around another site when i found this..
"I got a copy of DiskWarrior the other day and decided I'd see what would happen if I ran it on my iPod.

For those of you unfamiliar with the program, it rebuilds hard drives (like defragging) by putting files in a more uniform order, thus improving the time it takes for your computer to access files. The really cool thing is you can have the app graph out your drives to see just how out of order they are. It gives you a visual representation and also tells you the percentage of out-of-order files.

So anyway, when I graphed my iPod''s wee drive, it was something like 35% out of whack. After fixing a few botched files, rebuilding its drive (nothing is erased, by the way. all data remains intact) and optimizing it, I found it loads songs startlingly faster, and even moves from menu to menu more quickly. Cool! My brother did the same thing with his iPod and it worked really well for him, too. "

Has anyone tried this with windows 2000? From the coments posted below it it sounded like this really does make your menu/ song selection time faster...

[Calculus]

Sounds like a good idea, but I'm a little reluctant to risk my baby...

:eek:

Can you reassure me?

[the who]

Your not supossed to defrag the drive. The iPod puts the songs in special orders. If you defrag it and then add more songs it will mess it up and put songs in different places causing the hard drive to have to seek longer and waste more batt life.

[meli]

I've done it a few times. It definitely seems faster, and I imagine it slightly decreases the battery drain. Don't worry about screwing anything up, (unless you don't have your music on your computer also).

BTW: I recently erased and reinstalled the software on my iPod. Then did a fresh transfer of all my songs from iTunes to my iPod. I then immediately ran DiskWarrior's graphing function which showed that things were 70% out of order.

[ElGato]

Sweet! Although I am a bit concernerned about what "The Who" Wrote..
Does anyone know about how it goes if you use win 2000 on an IBM formated iPod that is also used on a mac???

[JBF]

It won't hurt your iPod at all. In fact, it doesn't change any order or directory in when data is stored. It simply physically rearranges data. Whereas the iPod looks at where the data is virtually stored. The virtual directory, etc is never changed during defragging.

I've heard of multiple people doing this. It's perfectly safe.

[dLev]

If anyone can get/find an official apple tech support response about this, it might be a really useful trick.

[MusicManiac]

Yes, if it works, then I'll do it too. Can you use a Norton Disk Defragmenter?

[hitkaiser]

Defragmenting ur mp3 player.. *sigh* what next, running a spyware check on the ipod in case you get pop-up ads on ur screen?

[meli]

DiskWarrior doesn't actually defragment the hard drive. It builds an optimized replacement directory.

I'd do a little research before using Norton; I've never read about anyone using it with an iPod. But DiskWarrior has been used multiple times on my iPod.

[ElGato]

Originally posted by hitkaiser
Defragmenting ur mp3 player.. *sigh* what next, running a spyware check on the ipod in case you get pop-up ads on ur screen? Your iPod has a Hard drive in it.. it just makes sence to keep it well organised as you would any other HD. as good as an iPod is it does not forsee every time you add a new song or delete a song...

[teg296]

I remember that the mac OS X automatically defrags your HDD upon new installs and the architecture is generally that files are optimally placed on the physical HD.
Thus, it makes Defrag-programs redundant.

Of course if you're under windows, you have to deal with a whole lot more :D

[tonicboy]

Originally posted by teg296
I remember that the mac OS X automatically defrags your HDD upon new installs and the architecture is generally that files are optimally placed on the physical HD.
Thus, it makes Defrag-programs redundant.

Of course if you're under windows, you have to deal with a whole lot more :D The nature of fragmentation is that it is a problem which increases as you use a drive. By definition, all drives are defragmented when they are new or freshly formatted, Windows included. And there is no way for any program or operating system to prevent fragmentation over time, Mac or iTunes included.

[meli]

Originally posted by teg296
Thus, it makes Defrag-programs redundant.
Right, OS X defrags files under 20 megs. I don't know if that applies to the iPod, though.

Regardless, DiskWarrior is not a defrag program. See my post above.

[Prudence]

So let me see if I got this right (am windows user). You ran a Mac-only program that is very similar to a defrag and it sped activities on the iPod up. Nice!

I think I may have to give this a try!

[ElGato]

Originally posted by Prudence
So let me see if I got this right (am windows user). You ran a Mac-only program that is very similar to a defrag and it sped activities on the iPod up. Nice!

I think I may have to give this a try!
I only got this from another site.. But from what i can gather if you run the equivalent defrag program on your ipod its supposed to work..
I am curious if anyone has seen some side affects of this on an ipod that is being used on boath types of formats mac/ibm... my concern is that the ibm defrag program might delete needed sys x files!

[meli]

If something goes wrong, you should be able to Restore the iPod system software.

Like I said before, I've run DiskWarrior on my iPod a few times. It makes the iPod more responsive. But the difference is slight; we're talking a fraction of a second. I would not spend any money for a program if this is the only use you have for it.

[ElGato]

tanks : ) I will post the results. when i get it going..

[PoPo]

is there any windows equivilant to this program because it sounds useful. Thanks for all the info.

[MetalMike]

Originally posted by teg296
.Of course if you're under windows, you have to deal with a whole lot more :D FAT32 suxors.

[lizzardfire]

I have used Norton Speed Disk with my iPod multiple times, it does speed up the menu loading :)

[JBF]

Even the standard windows defrag utility will work.

[hitkaiser]

Like someone mentioned before, the difference is only a fraction of a second, fragmentation played a big downturn a couple of years ago, but nowdays the current HDD's are fast enuf to overcome that, also, with such small files (mp3s), the effect is hardly noticed, maybe defrag'gging may help every 6months or so..

[W9FIF]

Small files? I'm listening to a book right now that is 150 megs per chapter. I DO understand what you mean tho.

[Snowmonkey]

I've decided i'm going to defrag my ipod using Windows XP Disk Defragmenter. I've backed up the iPod_Control file to my computer, but should I remove all the songs from my iPod as well?

[ElGato]

I would imagine that adding songs into your ipod is what causes the Fragmentation, imagine a pack of cereal every little piece takes up its bit of extra space, a De fragment program just takes out the spaces, like squashing it all together and making it easier and faster for your iPod to read.

if you want to protect your songs just make sure you have a separate copy of them somewhere other than your iPod.
I must stress that ive only seen this article and whilst it worked well on my third Gen iPod im not sure what it will do in any other environment such as XP or a newer or older iPod.
Im not sure if this is even covered by warranty!
In short do it at your own risk.

[kevling51]

Originally posted by Snowmonkey
I've decided i'm going to defrag my ipod using Windows XP Disk Defragmenter. I've backed up the iPod_Control file to my computer, but should I remove all the songs from my iPod as well?

any luck yet?? its kinda dangerous..i think

[Snowmonkey]

Not much luck. It was taking too damn long to defrag, so I just factory restored it.