I have a Western Digital 60Gb external that I have used for about a year. It shows less and less total space as time goes on, so I assume, since it is fat 32 and was used with XP for a while before I switched to Ubuntu, that it needs to be defragged. If my assumption is correct, is there a linux tool that will let me defrag it, or do I need to give it to my downstairs neighbor to defrag on his dual boot machine (XP and Ubuntu)? I know that I can reformat it to Ext3, but I am looking for a quick fix until I can do a bit more studying on the reformat process.

As far as I am aware, no such tool exists. Fragmentation is not really an issue for Unix filesystems, and FAT32 support is only provided as an artillery filesystem, so you don't have too many tools for it.

You should really just reformat it to a proper Unix system, FAT 32 is quite terrible for a storage drive. Formatting is extremely simple, you just need to get the data off of it first, and then put it back on after the format (there is no way to convert from FAT 32 to anything else, so no matter what you do you need to get the data off first).

If I could get all my friends to switch to Linux, I would make it Ext3 in a heartbeat, but I would be unable to carry anything to them when I visit. I'll just let my buddy take it home and defrag it on XP. Thanks for verifying what I was afraid was the case.