Disk Defragmenter

I have recieved a lot of different opinions on this so i would really like some clarification. In Windows 7 i open Disk Defragmenter and ALL drives are selected by default, including Recovery Partition & System Reserved. Now, some people have told me that you should never defragment these partitions. If that is the case why has Windows checked these drives to defragment on schedule?

Please note. i am NOT talking about defragmenting these drives manually i simply mean leave them checked and allow Windows to defrag them as and when, if ever needed.

Please see screen shots attached.

Just uncheck the boxes for the drives you don't want as part of the defrag schedule. Your 2nd attachment shows all the boxes checked.

It's really not that hard.

As to wether or not to defrag those particular partions; I can just give you my opinion. Yes, for the simple fact that they can get corrupted as well. I defrag and virus, malware check all my drives.

Read my question again. I was not asking how to remove these from the defrag schedule i think that is pretty obvious and i do know how to check/uncheck boxes!

My question was if these partitions should not be defragmented why does Windows check them by default?

@bassfisher6522, Thanks for your advice

Because Windows is not a perfect OS, as none are. Don't worry about it and just uncheck the boxes if you wan to.

I wouldn't advise relying on Windows Defragmenter solely. It's not that good, very slow and incomplete defrag.

Thanks Am i correct in saying that leaving them checked will not cause any harm?

I agree with Nib's, windows defragmenters are substandered. There are some better free one's out there. Auslogics is good and is what I use.

But is leaving them checked ok?

You know how computers are. An application works great for two years and then all of a sudden it is acting screwy. The more you tamper with files the faster they start to act up. This is why its best not to tamper with the recovery partition. Everything maybe fine for two years and then fail to work correctly. As for whether its safe to leave the boxes checked, the answer is yes but then you are gambling on how long your recovery partition will work. It is always safe to use the computer but then things start to go wrong. Who knows when that will be.

I get your point. Ok, well i think i will leave them checked for the simple reason that if they were not meant to be i am sure Windows would be set up not to include them (Recovery Partition & System Reserved) in the list and definitely not have them pre-checked. Also, as they are hardly ever used i cannot imagine they will even get fragmented so when it comes to the schedule Windows should see they are 0% fragmented and just leave them alone. Should for whatever reason they ever become fragmented, and again i cannot see how, Windows will do what is needed and defragment them.

I always had them checked in the past and whenever i had to recover my system the Recovery Partition always worked fine.