Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
When defragging a hard disk, some files in use by Windows can't be moved; in the defragging tool, they appear as green bars. But don't worry - they're not viruses.
My local advisor tells me I have a virus in my BIOS, which cannot be removed; at least, not by Norton. Proof of the virus, he insists, is that I have two green columns in the dialog box of my disc defragmenter. He further insists that the green will continue to expand until my PC fails completely. A second advisor insisted the second green column could be eliminated by going to Systems, Performance, Virtual Memory and clicking "No page file". I tried several times. As soon as I restore the page file, the second green column reappears. Then, he suggested Page Dfrag.zip. It also failed to eliminate the second green column. At that point, his confidence failed and he too leaned to the virus as the most probable explanation. Is this a situation which should worry me? My PC is five years old and is running fine. I have Norton 360 v4 on Windows XP. My C: drive has 290 GB cap and 280 GB free space at present.
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I think it's time to find new advisors.
Those green bars are normal and expected. They don't indicate a virus at all, BIOS or otherwise. And the advisor who suggested that they do is just plain wrong.
I'll show you what they do indicate.
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Green Bars
To make sure that we're all talking about the same thing, here's an example of green bars in the Windows XP defragging program:
This happens to show one large bar, but, in fact, it could be several green bars or lines throughout the display.
Green lines do not indicate a virus.
Period.
As the legend at the bottom of that very window tells you, the green bars indicate "Unmovable files"; nothing more, nothing less.
Unmovable Files
So, what's an unmovable file?
Well, your second advisor was at least on the right track. Unmovable files include things like the system paging or virtual memory file, the registry and other files that Windows has locked for exclusive use while it's running. If Windows has them locked, then the defragging utility can't defrag them.
Sure, removing your paging file may well make some of the green bars go away. By not having a paging file at all, there's nothing for Windows to lock. But that's rarely the correct solution. Most machines need a paging file configured to run properly.
Besides, getting rid of green bars isn't really a useful goal. As I said, they just represent a few files which the defragger can't move.
That's OK.
Page Defrag
Running Page Defrag could certainly reduce the number of green bars. It does so by defragging the paging file and other files before Windows actually runs.
Remember that defragging is all about taking the various parts of a file that might be scattered all over your hard disk and moving those parts so that they are all right next to each other. This helps speed up disk access.
Defragging the paging file might move two or more of those green bars next to each other so that they then appear as a slightly larger single green bar.
That's all.
What about a BIOS Virus?
A BIOS virus is highly unlikely.
BIOS viruses exist, but they're very rare. They're not of great value to hackers who can typically infect many more machines with much less work using a more traditional virus.
At this point, I'm afraid that I can't trust the judgment of your first advisor who seemed to think you have a virus simply because the defragger showed some unmovable files.
As I've said, they're completely unrelated.
Article C4741 - February 13, 2011 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
February 16, 2011 9:47 AM
I'm really glad that this article came up; it reminded me that I hadn't defragged my XP machine for a while. When I started, there were three of the "green bars", of varying widths, showing up on the display. Running it 'got the red out' but the three bars remained, unmoved and unchanged, as expected.
Just for hoots, I went into my pagefile settings and reduced the memory allocation to "0", rebooted and opened defrag again. The display was just as I left it, with the three bars showing. I re-ran defrag and this time, after it was over, there was a single green one left; it was slightly smaller than the smallest previous bar had been. After that, I reset the memory allocation to the default setting, and rebooted. I didn't notice any real performance change (my drive was 85% free to start with) but I suspect that I had freed up some usable storage space.
Bill
February 16, 2011 12:58 PM
I use Ashampoo magical defragmenter, which was free when I downloaded it although I believe it isn't anymore. Anyway it defrags in the background, so I never have to worry about my machine getting fragmented. It works.
February 17, 2011 8:39 PM
I use Iobit Smart Defrag, which has a deep optimize function, that I like, to optimize plus defrag.
February 25, 2011 4:25 AM
I kept having too many problems with incomplete defrags and when I needed to defrag once under low free space, tried out the demo of Diskeeper. Upgraded soon after as it did a fab job not leavin out any fragmentation.
July 4, 2011 12:45 PM
Windows defragger is the best utility for defragmentation of local files simply because Microsoft wrote it specifically for the Windows operating system. For people who go off buying third party defrag software, don't! Yes in later versions of Windows (Vista+) the visual defrag has lost some functionality but there is a better alternative and one that has always been there, command line defrag! Open a run window and type "cmd". A dos window will appear, next type "defrag" and all the options for defragmentation will appear which include a full defragmentation for hard disks and providing a verbose analysis for pre and post defragmentation statistics.
Steven Bell
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