DEFRAG - specifying file order on disk?

External Since: Mar 01, 2007 Posts: 14

I'm trying to burn a DVD for a slide show. I want the display sequence to
follow the alphabetic sort-order of image names. Unfortunately, the program
I'm using (Adaptec/Roxio) puts the files on the DVD in the order in which
the file names appear in the folder's hard-drive directory (ie, file
creation order).

So I was trying to think of a way to rearrange the files on the hard drive
so that they are in alphabetic order. I've seen references to using DEFRAG
in MS-DOS mode with an optional key/flag that specifies that the final file
order on the hard drive should be in alpahbetic name order. Can DEFRAG be
successfully invoked this way on a Windows ME system?

Thanks for any help.

Jean

External Since: Jun 26, 2004 Posts: 2370

Jean,

I think that you will find the order in which you display the files on the
hard drive in Explorer has little to so with the order in which the files
are burned to the DVD. Files are customarily burned in alphanumeric order
and you can check this for yourself using an application such as ISOBuster
which will tell you which specific blocks on the DVD are used for which
file, or rather the starting block of each file.

Incidentally when using Explorer and displaying files in file creation
order this rarely means that that is the order they are stored on the hard
drive unless the drive was completely empty before any files were added
and no files have ever been deleted.

I would suggest that you use a numbering scheme if you wish to have your
files in a specific order on the DVD such as
nnn fileB
nnn fileA
nnn fileZ
nnn fileQ
where nnn are digits starting at 001. Don't use 1-9 if more than ten
files or 1-99 if more than 100 files but rather 01-99 or 001-999 otherwise
you might find that one some players the order appears as
1
10
100
2
3
etc.

I would advise you not to waste your time with DEFRAG as I feel it is
irrelevant to solving your problem.
--
Mike Maltby
mike.maltby.DeleteThis@gmail.com

Jean <Jean.DeleteThis@spam.not> wrote:

> I'm trying to burn a DVD for a slide show. I want the display
> sequence to follow the alphabetic sort-order of image names.
> Unfortunately, the program I'm using (Adaptec/Roxio) puts the files
> on the DVD in the order in which the file names appear in the
> folder's hard-drive directory (ie, file creation order).
>
> So I was trying to think of a way to rearrange the files on the hard
> drive so that they are in alphabetic order. I've seen references to
> using DEFRAG in MS-DOS mode with an optional key/flag that specifies
> that the final file order on the hard drive should be in alpahbetic
> name order. Can DEFRAG be successfully invoked this way on a Windows
> ME system?
>
> Thanks for any help.