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I cloned an SSD to an HDD.

Under the optimization tool in Windows 8.1, my partition's media type is still shown as a Solid State Drive, and optimization is unavailable because of this.

Optimize Drives

The affected partitions are C, D, and E.

I have disabled TRIM, but that didn't help. My filesystem is NTFS.

What open source/free software can I use to defragment the HDD?

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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I love using Defraggler to defragment my computer. It's made by Piriform, the same company that makes CCleaner and other such software. This is what it looks like: Defraggler screeenshot

Pros:

  • It's free!
  • Lets you look at SMART information (the health of the hard drive)
  • Gives you a visual of what parts of the hard drive are fragmented
  • Lets you choose individual files to defragment, and breaks them down by size, name, and other information
  • Supports scheduling defragmenting times, such as after bootup, or at a pre-set time.
  • Supports excluding certain files from defragmenting
  • Also supports choosing only files matching a specific filter for a "quick defrag"

Cons:

  • Takes a while to defragment

All in all, you should be able to use it, even if it recognizes your drive as an SSD. This is because there's a setting for it:

Show SSD Drives setting

This is also an amazing piece of software, and even works better than the standard Windows Defragmenting tool in my experience!

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3

When I used Windows nothing was better than MyDefrag, which was the remake of JkDefrag.

Among their pros includes:

  • Several scripts installed by default and ready to use for most cases you can find, from floppies to SSD's, ordered by monthly, weekly and daily use to desfragment and optimize the order of files.
  • Based in the MS defragmentation API, so it works with any version of Windows based in the NT kernel from 4.0 (Windows 2000).
  • Supports any filesystem that looks like one to Windows.
  • Community developed scripts for most situations
  • Possibility to develop your own defragmentation schemes.
  • Highly portable, can be run from a boot CD and as standalone executable.
  • Most of the scripts includes optimization routines, that not only defragment the files, but also arrange them by usage.
  • Can work with almost full filesystems.
  • Since the scripts are customizable, you can defragment directories, files or set of them, and place them whenever you like on the disk.
  • Includes a command-line tool, screensaver (only for those that disable UAC) and it's programmable from the run parameter.
  • Free, without ads, nor hidden cost.

Note:

Through it hasn't been a new version since 2010, the software is considered robust and complete with only one well known bug with a workaround.

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2

You can ask Windows to re-detect the drive type by running "winsat features" and it should enable/disable the Windows' built-in defragmenter based on what you are currently using.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742091.aspx

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Thanks for pointing us in the right direction.

Sadly, the "winsat features" (from an admin elevated command prompt) didn't fix it. It just enumerated some of the system specs to the command console, but excluded the hard disk drive in that list.

However, following the link you provided for winsat, had another link

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770542.aspx

At this link, there is a "Winsat disk" option, and that did do the trick - when used in a elevated command prompt. So thanks for the help.

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