Jorge,
Why is it that when you defrag a drive, everything can be defragged except the "System Volume Information" containing restore points?

It just seems that if it's a real directory, it should be able to be defragged(unless they save the restore point at a given disk address).

Just curious,
Grouch

I'm not Jorge but I got a theory:
You know that the files on the HDD are stored in a sequential manner and that some files are placed in the gaps of other files? I guess that M$ thinks that the restore point sizes are fairly constant and that you don't need to move the files to optimize the free space anymore.

That being said, M$ makes rules/guidelines and then continues to break them.

I also don't know the exact reason why Restore Points cannot be defragged, but, by definition, system files cannot be moved, for a variety of reasons: some, because they are in use while the OS is running, others because hidden system files mark sectors on the disk holding copy protection data for games and utilities (thus copying the disk would invalidade the data), etc...

Some utilities allow you to do a boot time defrag which allows you to defrag stuff such as the PageFile, etc...

I've tried a boot-time defragger(Puran Defrag) and it does take care of the pagefile but not restore points. Actually the old pagefile just goes away on reboot and a new pagefile is started.

It makes sense not to move the pagefile since it is in use, but the restore point isn't in use.

I just thought there might be a good reason.

Thanks for the input,
Grouch

I did a quick look around on the search engines and it seems that it may
be a permissions thing. Reason why you can't even 'dir' or 'cd' into the
directory.
Ownership is Administrators though the System Restore Point service is Local System.
Haven't tried to see what happens if I log in as Administrator and defrag the
drive (one tip I read is where someone used SysInternals' psexec command to
run their defrag program which then defragged the System Volume Information
files).
Anyhind, best bet is to just turn off System Restore, defrag, then turn it
back on. That should work. I think. Maybe.

Marc