Free Hard Drive Defragmenter and Optimizer - MyDefrag

Many of you are already familiar with excellent free defragmenter JkDefrag, developed by J.C. Kessels. If you have had a chance to experience the computer performance improvement following the defragmentation done with JkDefrag, you would be definitely interested to try a relatively new defragmentation freeware from the same developer, which replaces JkDefrag in the line of the software releases.

MyDefrag Overview

MyDefrag is a disk defragmenter and optimizer (a maintenance utility to make your harddisk faster) for Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, 2008, and for X64. It is freeware, no time limit, fully functional, no advertisements. Fast, low overhead, with many optimization strategies, can handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows. Included are a set of easy to use scripts for end users, a scripting engine for demanding users, a screensaver, and a combined Windows plus command line version that can be scheduled by the Windows task scheduler or for use from administrator scripts.

MyDefrag is extremely solid because it is based on the standard defragmentation API by Microsoft, a system library that is included in Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, and 2008. Most defragmenters are based on this API, including the free defragmenter that comes with Windows and many commercial defragmenters. Basically all MyDefrag does is send "move this file to that location" commands to the API. The API is part of the operating system and can safely move almost any file on the disk, without risk and while the computer is in full use.

Defragmention Process

Imagine a book split into several parts, some pages are over here, other pages in another room on another floor altogether. You will have to walk a lot when you need to read the book. It may sound silly, but this is exactly what happens to files on your harddisk. Defragmentation will put all the parts (fragments) back together, making your computer a lot faster.

Optimization Process

Imagine a big library with lots of books, spread out all over the building and not sorted whatsoever. There is an index telling you exactly where every book is, but you will have to walk a lot when you need several books. This is exactly what happens on your harddisk, the files that belong to an application can be all over the place, anywhere on the harddisk. Optimization will bring all the files together in one place, leaving the rest of the harddisk empty, and will sort the files, for example alphabetically.

Defragmentation and optimization will not only make a harddisk faster, but also lengthen it's life span, because the disk will have less work to do and therefore have less wear and tear. Also, it will refresh and strengthen the magnetic data on the harddisk by simply reading the (weakened) data and writing it afresh. However, defragmenting and optimizing is work, so excessive defragmenting and optimizing can actually cause more wear and tear than it prevents.

• On most harddisks the beginning of the harddisk is considerably faster than the end, sometimes by as much as 200 percent! You can measure this yourself with utilities such as HD Tune. MyDefrag is therefore geared towards moving all files to the beginning of the disk.
• MyDefrag organizes files into zones, such as directories, Windows files, files used while booting, regular files, and rarely used files. The most accessed files are placed at the beginning of the harddisk, and files that are commonly used together are placed in close proximity to each other. That results in a dramatic speed increase, and is in fact more important than defragmentation. The program comes with scripts with a zone organization suitable for most users, power users can customize the zones through scripts.
• Sorting the files on your disk can give you even more speed. There are several sorting strategies to choose from. Most of them will take a lot of data shuffling, taking a lot of time for MyDefrag to complete, and therefore should only be used occasionally.
• A running computer will create and delete temporary files like there is no tomorrow. If the harddisk were completely optimized then the only place for new temporary files would be behind all the other data. Which is rather slow. MyDefrag can maintain free spaces at various locations on the disk to make temporary files faster.
• Windows reserves a percentage on NTFS disks for the MFT (Master File Table), but can place normal files there if the rest of the disk is full. The files will remain there, even when there is enough space again. MyDefrag can look for files in the NTFS reserved areas and move them to normal diskspace, making the reserved areas available again for the MFT.

Why use MyDefrag instead of the standard Windows defragmenter?

• Much faster.
• Totally automatic, extremely easy to use.
• Optimized for daily use.
• Disk optimization, several strategies.
• Directories are moved to the beginning of the disk.
• Reclaims NTFS reserved areas after disk-full.
• Maintains free spaces for temporary files.
• Can defragment very full harddisks.
• Can defragment very large files.
• Can defragment individual directories and files.
• Can be run automatically with the Windows Scheduler.
• Can be used from the command line.
• Can be used as a screen saver.
• Can be run from CD-ROM or memory stick.
• Script language, can be customized.

Developer Website: http://www.mydefrag.com/

Direct Download: http://www.mydefrag.com/Downloads/Download.php?File=MyDefrag-v4.1.1.exe

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Corruption Corrector

Corruption Corrector (CCorr) is a program designed for fixing corrupt files. It is for situations when you have (downloaded) many copies of the same file, but all of the copies are a bit corrupt. If the corruptions are in different parts of the file, it is possible to combine the good bytes from each file and get an uncorrupted copy of the file.

At first CCorr creates checksums from the files at regular intervals (e.g. 16KB) after which the files can be compared to locate the corrupted parts. The user chooses which parts are corrupt and which are good, after which CCorr writes a combination of all the good parts into a new file, and thus fixes the corruptions if possible.

As you see, it is not usual data recovery utility. It requires some preexisting conditions (like multiple similar files) and user interaction to get the things done. However, to the users with relatively slow and unreliable Internet connection that might be a real help. Let's assume that you have a 56kbps modem and you have already downloaded the 100 MB video file several times, but every copy has some sort of damage. Naturally you don't want to waste another 9 hours downloading it, because it is possible to fix the file by combining the corrupt copies that you have.

This is an Open Source utility, which is naturally absolutely free for any use. The software not intended for beginners.

Website: http://ccorr.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://softlayer.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ccorr/CCorr-1.03.zip

Free Hard Drive Monitor from Pulse Solutions

The Free Hard Drive Monitor software is a simple application that generates email alerts for impending hard drive problem due to low hard drive space, hard drive hardware failure, hard drive corruption and a host of other hard drive problems that windows automatically logs.

Hard drive monitoring is crucial for any user or corporation, especially for the servers and critical computers. This application has a very small foot print and can reside on any windows operating system working silently and efficiently in detecting hard drive related problems and emailing them to you automatically.

The Free Hard Drive Monitor was created when Pulse Engineers could not find an off the shelf software that could simply check for basic Hard drive problems and send them an email so they could rectify issues before they become problems. The software is less than 1000 lines of code, it works in a simple and stable fashion doing just what it’s supposed to do, look for hard drive errors periodically and sending out emails with as much detail as possible.

The application has no user interface, it simply emails the alerts as and when they occur. The current version checks for the available space, SMART variables described below and Hard drive errors caught from Windows Event log. This basically includes all accurate ways of predicting server failure due to hard drive problems.

The hard drive monitor has been built with .Net 2.0 for Pulse engineers and is currently monitoring 100s of critical web servers.

The latest version features SMART Hard drive monitoring features as well!

Smart Hard drive variables that the software detects and reports on

• Raw_Read_Error_Rate: Indicates the rate of hardware read errors that occurred when reading data from a disk surface.
• Throughput Performance: Overall (general) throughput performance of a hard disk drive.
• Spin-Up Time: Average time of spindle spin up (from zero RPM to fully operational [millisecs]).
• Start/Stop Count: A tally of spindle start/stop cycles.
• Reallocated Sectors Count: Count of reallocated sectors.
• Seek Error Rate: Rate of seek errors of the magnetic heads.
• Power-On Hours (POH): Count of hours in power-on state.
• Spin-Up Time: Average time of spindle spin up (from zero RPM to fully operational [millisecs]).
• Spin Retry Count: Count of retry of spin start attempts.
• Recalibration Retries: This attribute indicates the number of times recalibration was requested (under the condition that the first attempt was unsuccessful).
• Device Power Cycle Count: This attribute indicates the count of full hard disk power on/off cycles.
• Power-On Hours (POH): Count of hours in power-on state.
• Soft Read Error Rate: Uncorrected read errors reported to the operating system. If the value is non-zero, you should back up your data.
• Spin Retry Count: Count of retry of spin start attempts.
• Temperature Difference from 100: Value is equal to (100 – temp. °C), allowing manufacturer to set a minimum threshold which corresponds to a maximum temperature.
• Load/Unload Cycle: Count of load/unload cycles into head landing zone position.
• Soft Read Error Rate: Uncorrected read errors reported to the operating system. If the value is non-zero, you should back up your data.
• Temperature: Current internal temperature.
• Hardware ECC Recovered: Time between ECC-corrected errors.
• Soft Read Error Rate: Uncorrected read errors reported to the operating system. If the value is non-zero, you should back up your data.
• Reallocation Event Count: Count of remap operations. The raw value of this attribute shows the total number of attempts to transfer data from reallocated sectors to a spare area. Both successful & unsuccessful attempts are counted.
• Current Pending Sector Count: Number of "unstable" sectors (waiting to be remapped). If the unstable sector is subsequently written or read successfully, this value is decreased and the sector is not remapped. Read errors on the sector will not remap the sector, it will only be remapped on a failed write attempt.
• Uncorrectable Sector Count: The total number of uncorrectable errors when reading/writing a sector.
• Soft Read Error Rate: Uncorrected read errors reported to the operating system. If the value is non-zero, you should back up your data.
• UltraDMA CRC Error Count: The number of errors in data transfer via the interface cable as determined by ICRC (Interface Cyclic Redundancy Check).
• Write Error Rate: The total number of errors when writing a sector.
• G-Sense Error Rate: The number of errors resulting from externally-induced shock & vibration.
• Soft Read Error Rate: Uncorrected read errors reported to the operating system. If the value is non-zero, you should back up your data.
• Power-Off Retract Cycle: The number of times the magnetic armature was retracted automatically as a result of cutting power.
• Write Error Rate: The total number of errors when writing a sector.

Website: http://www.pulsesolutions.com/hard-drive-monitor.aspx

Restore Computer Operations with AntiFreeze

AntiFreeze offers a last recourse when you find your computer in a hung state. Because programs consume too much CPU or too much memory or too many programs have been started, your computer has become unresponsive. The mouse still moves but no programs are responding, you cannot switch to other programs or even close them. You have even tried to start the Windows Task Manager even that won’t work because it does not get enough attention from the scheduler to respond to your mouse clicks and keyboard presses. You are ready to press the reset button, instead you can press the hotkey of AntiFreeze. It will put to sleep all running programs except the most critical ones, giving you the opportunity to close down the programs which are causing problems. You may even be able to save or recover your work.

The problem

Everyone who has used a computer regularly has experienced it from time to time. You are running some very intensive tasks, running several programs simultaneously and suddenly you find that your computer does not respond to you anymore. For some reason the computer is so busy that it does not respond to your actions anymore. Your clicks and key presses are handled much later or not at all, giving you no chance to interact with the system. Your system is hanging.

Sometimes it may help waiting until the storm is over. But if after several minutes you are still waiting, and you are an experienced user you are likely to press the key combination ALT+CTRL+DELETE which allows you to fire up the task manager to see which programs are taking up all the CPU time and systems resources. At this point you may be able to recover the system and get it in a responsive state again by terminating the offending processes. If this works, then all fine. But very often the system is so busy that even the task manager will not help you. It just does not get enough processor attention to be able to handle your clicks or key presses. Then you are very likely to give up and press the reset button of your machine for a reboot.

This is where AntiFreeze offers a solution. AntiFreeze is a utility with a very small footprint, sitting in your tray, waiting for you to press the hotkey combination (ALT+CTRL+WIN+HOME by default). You should use it only in emergency situations, consider it an alternative for the reset button.

Emergency Task Manager

As soon as you press the hotkey combination of AntiFreeze, AntiFreeze will suspend most of the running programs so they stop hogging your systems resources. Then it will start a special type of task manager, very much like the standard Windows task manager except that it is designed for the particular task of letting you get the system in a responsive state again. If a program has consumed lots of CPU time it is an indication it may have been responsible for locking up your system. You can terminate the offending program by clicking the 'End Process' button.

The emergency task manager suspends most of the running programs and allows you to close down programs which are locking up your computer.

When will it work?

If your computer is hanging or becomes unresponsive because

* One or more programs are doing very intensive tasks, they consume so much processor cycles that the system becomes unresponsive

* One or more programs consume so much memory that the swapping file is heavily used, overloading the system

* Programs are running with a scheduling priority which is so high that they consume all processor resources

* Too many programs are running at the same time and they all have to compete for attention from the processor then AntiFreeze is likely to help you get your system to respond again.

If your computer is hanging or becomes unresponsive because of a hardware problem or the mouse cursor is not updated when you move it or some piece of kernel software or device driver is busy at an elevated priority level then AntiFreeze is not likely to offer you a solution. There are a few other situations in which AntiFreeze will not be able to help you out and you will still need to press the reset button and reboot to get your computer going again.

OS: Windows Vista/XP/2003 (x86 and x64).

License: Free for Personal use.

Developers’ website: http://www.resplendence.com/antifreeze

Password Cracker - Passwords recovery tool

Password Cracker is a simple lightweight portable freeware utility that was created to ensure, that you can easily recover all your misplacing or forgotten passwords to the programs installed on your computer. It works in any programs, when the password is encrypted under the shown asterisks, including Internet Explorer. So using this application, you will no longer have to panic when you lose any of your passwords.

Interface Languages

English, Russian, German, Nederland’s, Spanish, Portuguese Brazilian), and Ukrainian.

License: Freeware

Installation

Password Cracker runs with Windows NT4/95/98/ME/2000/XP/Vista and does not require any installation. Simply create a new folder and unpack all files from zip-archive.

Website: http://www.amlpages.com/dld_plus.shtml

Download: http://www.amlpages.com/Source/pwdcrack.zip

Auslogics Disk Defrag

Disk Defrag Overview

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a free compact defragmentation tool that supports FAT 16/32, and NTFS (with compressed and encrypted files). For the individual and corporate user Disk Defrag is perfect for maintaining high-level disk performance.

Here you can select from the drop down list of hard disk drives. You can also defragment removable drives such as USB keys, Flash Memory Cards and other removable drives by enabling the "Display removable drives" option in the program settings.

Disk Fragmentation Map

You can watch Disk Defrag optimizing your disk on the disk fragmentation map. The map shows you disk clusters, each cluster being red (still fragmented), blue or green (already optimized), gray (free space) or yellow for clusters occupied by the MFT (Master File Table).

How Disk Defragmentation Works

Files on disk are often split into two or more pieces. In order to read these files, the disk reading heads have to frequently move which slows down disk access and causes wear and tear to the disk drive. Defragmetation consolidates such files to speed up disk access and prolong the disk life.

Defragmentation Results

After the disk defragmentation is complete you will be presented with a summary of the process. You can click the "Display Report" button to open a comprehensive defragmentation report with all defragmented files listed in it.

System Requirements

The following minimal configuration is recommended to run this product.

• 7/Vista/2008/XP/2000/2003 (32-bit and 64-bit supported)

• 64 Mb of RAM 
• 10 Mb of available disk space

Portable Version

The defragmenter can be used without need to be installed on the hard drive as portable utility. To convert the regular version to portable one perform the follows:

• Download the installer and install to the default folder.
• Copy all files (except unins000.exe and unins000.dat) to a folder of your choice.
• Finally, uninstall the program.
• Launch diskdefrag.exe.

Website: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

Smart Freeware Portable Defragmentation Utility - Defraggler

Defraggler is a defragmentation program developed by Piriform Ltd. Defraggler is different from any other similar tools on the market allows users to defragment individual files on their computer system. Defraggler is offered free of charge to anyone, though Piriform accepts donations for the program.

Defraggler can defragment individual files, groups of files, or free space on any FAT32 or NTFS partition. It also displays the location of these files on the specified partition. Defraggler is also a portable program that can be used from a USB flash drive. The current version of Defraggler takes a low amount of disk memory.

Main Features:

1. Piriform Defraggler shows your disk layout in the traditional "large mosaic of colored squares" fashion, and the colors leap and bounce around as various sectors are read from or written to. This offers no improvement in functionality over Windows line graph style, but I find it more interesting to watch.

2. Most defragmentation tools only let you defrag the whole drive. Defraggler gives you the power to select individual files and folders to defrag. So you can get the job done in seconds, rather than waiting for the whole drive to complete. Of course if you want to defrag the whole drive Defraggler will let you do that too.

3. Defraggler was written in the same compact architecture as other award-winning freeware Piriform products (CCleaner and Recuva). This results in a compact single EXE application, which can be copied to a thumbdrive and then used whenever you need it, without a complex installation process. The EXE itself is less than 1MB!

4. Defraggler supports all OSs released since Windows 2000, this includes Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista. 64-bit support has also just been added! Additionally Defraggler supports both NTFS and FAT32 file systems.

5. After analysis Defraggler lists all the fragmented files on the drive. Selecting one or many will highlight their location on the disk. Allowing you to visually see the location of files on the disk.

How to extract: Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch Defraggler.exe.

Developers’ Website: http://www.defraggler.com/

Cain and Abel: Free Passwords Recovery Tool for Windows

Cain & Abel is a freeware password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It allows easy recovery of various kinds of passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, recovering wireless network keys, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols. The program does not exploit any software vulnerabilities or bugs that could not be fixed with little effort. It covers some security aspects/weakness present in protocol’s standards, authentication methods and caching mechanisms; its main purpose is the simplified recovery of passwords and credentials from various sources, however it also ships some “non standard” utilities for Microsoft Windows users.

Cain & Abel has been developed in the hope that it will be useful for network administrators, teachers, security consultants/professionals, forensic staff, security software vendors, professional penetration tester and everyone else that plans to use it for ethical reasons. The author will not help or support any illegal activity done with this program. Be warned that there is the possibility that you will cause damages and/or loss of data using this software and that in no events shall the author be liable for such damages or loss of data. Please carefully read the License Agreement included in the program before using it.

The latest version is faster and contains a lot of new features like APR (Arp Poison Routing) which enables sniffing on switched LANs and Man-in-the-Middle attacks. The sniffer in this version can also analyze encrypted protocols such as SSH-1 and HTTPS, and contains filters to capture credentials from a wide range of authentication mechanisms. The new version also ships routing protocols authentication monitors and routes extractors, dictionary and brute-force crackers for all common hashing algorithms and for several specific authentications, password/hash calculators, cryptanalysis attacks, password decoders and some not so common utilities related to network and system security.

Note: Some antivirus and antispyware programs flag Cain & Abel as being infected/malware, although the application is perfectly safe and does not pose a threat to your system. This is called a ’false positive’. The term false positive is used when antivirus software wrongly classifies an innocuous (inoffensive) file as a virus. The incorrect detection may be due to heuristics or to an incorrect virus signature in a database. [Similar problems can occur with antitrojan or antispyware software.]

Homepage : http://www.oxid.it/cain.html

CCleaner Portable - one of the best free cleaning utilities

CCleaner freeware was included in almost all the popular listing of the best free software for the 2007 and 2008 yearly reviews. CCleaner is short for “Crap Cleaner” - a perfectly appropriate name, with the program doing an excellent job of cleaning out unused and temporary files from the system that are accumulated over time during the normal computer use. This also includes quite accurate cleaning of Internet and PC usage tracks like browser cache, recently used files, web sites visited and more. User is able to select the items that he wants to be cleaned, and also specify the particular cookies that should be preserved on the computer. In addition, the program comes with a registry scanner that scans for invalid references with consecutive automatic fixing.

The program is very small, fast, and effective, allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and freeing for user a good chunk of the hard disk space. There are five or six video manuals for the software proper use on YouTube, so you can just search for them there, if you prefer detailed visualization approach to get familiar with all program features. As usual, I prefer portable software for personal use, if available, as it does not require installation and can be run from the USB external drive or stick. You can download the portable version, kindly offered by the author.

In the future, you can simply run inquiry for the available updates from inside the program, clicking on the link Check for updates in the lower right corner.

CCleaner assists in the uninstallation process by allowing users to uninstall programs from CCleaner itself. In addition, CCleaner also allows the alteration of start-up programs, similar to the Microsoft Windows MSConfig Utility. Users can disable several start-up programs to free up processor speed at start-up.

CCleaner is available in 35 different languages, and encountering over 225 million downloads, this utility is very popular among users.

Developers’ website: http://www.ccleaner.com/