defragmenting my HD

[LochnarITB]

Has anyone tried defragging their hard drive and found that the WoW files wouldn't defrag? I defragged tonight. The drive has about 20 gigs of files on a 28 gig drive. It defragged everything except four files, all from WoW. This is the end of the report.

Code:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments       File Size       Files that cannot be defragmented
21              634 MB          \xxxxxxxx\games\worldofwarcraft\Data\texture.MPQ
31              675 MB          \xxxxxxxx\games\worldofwarcraft\Data\sound.MPQ
93              1.02 GB         \xxxxxxxx\games\worldofwarcraft\Data\terrain.MPQ
198             1.53 GB         \xxxxxxxx\games\worldofwarcraft\Data\patch.MPQ

Any ideas as to what the problem might be? I'm thinking I might need to uninstall WoW, defrag again and reinstall. Not only would that be time consuming, but then I would have to patch as well again. I really would rather not have to go to that extent, but it has gotten very slow to load new areas (like the other continent on the boat) or an instance. I am assuming that is largely because of the fragmentation.

Hmm, another idea. I have my drive backed up on an external drive (it's not a ghost, essentially a straight copy). Would it work to delete the WoW directory (not uninstall), defrag the drive and copy the WoW directory back?

[Legedi]

I've copied files like that before to defrag them and it worked fine. When ever I do things with WOW that might mess it up I just back up the UI folder and WTF folder (maybe one more? similar to the WTF folder maybe.). Worse case is you have to reinstall. But it should work. I don't even think you would need to defrag it again.

[Concillian]

Hmm, another idea.  I have my drive backed up on an external drive (it's not a ghost, essentially a straight copy).  Would it work to delete the WoW directory (not uninstall), defrag the drive and copy the WoW directory back?
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This should work. WoW has no special files or registry entries. You can copy one WoW install directly to another computer. In fact I do just that on a regular basis since I have two computers capable of running WoW. I patch one, install my UI mods etc, then I just delete the WoW directory on the other and copy over the newly patched and updated WoW directory.

[Xanthix]

I would probably just move the MPQ's around and not delete the entire dorectory, but that's just my paranoia.

The MPQ's are basically just giant zip files full of graphics and sound files, UI files, and a few database files. You can move them, replace them, even modify them if you have the right tools.

[LochnarITB]

In fact I do just that on a regular basis since I have two computers capable of running WoW.  I patch one, install my UI mods etc, then I just delete the WoW directory on the other and copy over the newly patched and updated WoW directory.
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Ooh, good tip. I actually have it on a desktop machine that only gets used rarely for brief periods. It would be much easier to just copy over the entire thing than to set it up all over again and patch it there a second time for those times.

[LochnarITB]

Well, I moved the files off, defragged and then moved them back. I somehow ended up with a few small files fragmented, but they are some backup addon files and the big MPQs appear to be contiguous. Now I'll have to see if it actually sped things up as I intended. :unsure: