Data Recovery FAQ
Hard Disk Defragmentation

Question:

Hard Disk Defragmentation - Does it improve the recovery yield?

Answer:

In FAT file system, if the File Allocation Table is lost, one has to hunt for the lost data all over the disk and in this case, defragmentation will indeed help to improve the recovery yield.

In NTFS file system, the file allocation pointers are part of the MFT entry so if the MFT entries are intact, it does not matter if the disk has been defragmented or not.

It is not a good idea to defragment your disk when you are in a data loss situation. In fact, in such situation, one should attempt to recover the data before performing any hard disk defragmentation.

If you have no idea on what's going on with the hard disk, please do not defragment it. Any improper action leads to further data loss and possibly media damage.

| Previous | FAQ List | Next |