Windows 8 will not defrag or analyze system hard drive

defragmentoptimizewindows 8

I recently bought a new laptop that runs windows 8. It has been about a month and I wanted to clean the system up a bit to keep it running smooth. I tried to defrag the system hard disk drive but when I click "analyze" or "optimize" the optimize drives window disappears for a millisecond then reappears and states the system still "needs optimization". It doesn't matter how many times I click on "optimize" It simply repeats the previous event. I can clean my removable disk and recovery hard drive without a problem.

Why won't it let me clean the system hard drive?

Best Answer

Try running a manual check and defrag using the command line defrag tool. You will need privileged command line, to access it:

  • Open Start screen and type cmd
  • One item should appear, right-click on it
  • Choose Run as Administrator and confirm.

Then type the command you want and confirm it with Enter.

To analyze drive:

defrag c: /a /u /v

This will provide a verbose report of the fragmentation of the drive.

To force a defrag:

defrag c: /d /v /x

This will defrag C: plus consolidate free space and provide a verbose report.

I would recommend a backup and a chkdsk before the defrag simply because you have unusual behavior from the GUI based defrag option. The latter can be run from privileged command line by executing chkdsk c: /r

Once this is complete, reboot your system and then check with the GUI options to see if you have the same behavior. Just keep in mind that it may take a long time to complete the defrag depending on the current state. You may want to run it overnight and check the following day.

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