Fragmenting Hard Drive

Mom's HDD seems to be badly fragmented no matter how often I defrag. Using Diskeeper 9.0.532.0. A day after defraging Diskeeper tells me that the drive is severely fragmented again -there's not that much activity on this PC -Mom's on dial up so not a lot of downloading.
Should this HDD be getting so fragmented so often? I would think no.
Any ideas on why she's experiencing this? -or what I can do about it?
Thanks for your time,
fiver22.
Mom's PC specs:
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP3
CPU: Intel P4, 2400 MHz
MOBO: MSI MS-6524G
Chipset: SiS 650
RAM: 512Mb SDRAM
BIOS: Award Modular (10/04/02)
HDD: 40G Western Digital (WDC WD400EB-00CPF0)

 

I use Perfect Disk and JKDefrag on our Systems. Seems I am saying this a lot lately but have you run check disk in a while. From Start, Accessories, Command Prompt, type chkdsk c:/r
Seem to have read you should do this prior to a defrag, although I rarely do. Also wondering how full the disk is, if it drops below 20% some disk defragmenters can't deal with the job. Using TweakUI I also set the system so it will not optimize the hard disk when idle.

 

(1) I am guessing that the low RAM is one reason for this behavior. It may be that the page file is set to a dynamic size, and Windows enlarges it as necessary. This will cause it to fragment, especially if there is insufficient contiguous space on what is a relatively small drive (40GB, which can get filled up pretty quickly). A badly fragmented page file will cause other created/modified files to fragment, again, due to lack of contiguous space. Same goes for the MFT -if it is badly fragmented, then the defragmenter will start complaining. You should check the defrag analysis report that lists the fragmented files.

With Diskeeper 9, run a normal defrag followed by a boot-time defrag to defragment the (possibly fragmented) paging file and/or MFT. In case of insufficient disk space, you'll need to clear up some space. If your Diskeeper 9 is a full (paid) version then it should be capable of boot-time defrag; however, an OEM version may lack that option (IIRC, some manufacturers bundle the free OEM version with laptops/desktops). If you are still unable to fix the fragmentation, get the free trial version of Diskeeper 12 (2008) from the DK website, and run it. It defrags the MFT online itself when in automatic mode. Boot-time defrag will fix the PF. Additionally, this version can defrag even with less than 5% free space. But the trialware runs only for 30 days. http://www.diskeeper.com

(2) Another possibility could be that it is just the browser cache files that are fragmenting. In which case, simply empty the cache, and your problem is solved.