Defragging

Brakiss · Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:06 pm Post subject: Defragging

I'm at my wits end trying to defrag my computer. I've done it hundreds of times but now I cannot get past 10% before it says 'drive's contents changed, restarting'. I've disabled and closed out all programs minus explorer and still get the same message all the while my computer's performance suffers. Previously, I never had to close out any running programs; I'd just disable cacheman and antivirus and defrag worked just fine. Also ran ad aware to remove any spyware to no avail. Any ideas please?
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 11:58 am Post subject:

Firstly, I take defrag with a grain of salt. It's quickly become a heated issue on hard disk enthusiast forums. Most modern systems would have years worth of installataion, uninstallation, downloading, and document editing before fragmentation would be an issue that would cause system performance degredation. Defrag is hard drive spin-hour intensive. You're going to move a bunch of data around using up valuable lifespan on your disk to reorganize the data in a way that Microsoft 'thinks' it'd be best for you.

I don't think it's worth messing with. As a rule, I format any PC I use daily about every 6 months to 1 year. Windows never shows my fragmentation over 12% or so in that timeframe, and I move files around worse than most average users.

If you really want to proceed with a defrag, the quickest way to make sure you don't have anything else running that would inhibit the process is to follow this procedure:

Windows 2000, XP:
1. Start > Run > msconfig
2. Go to the last tab (Startup)
3. Click Disable All, and exit the program. It will ask you restart, do it.

Windows 98:
1. Start > Run > msconfig
2. Go to the last tab (Startup)
3. Uncheck everything except for "Scan Registry" and "systray."

Heelar · Member Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 237

Also be absolutly sure you're not connected to a netowrk and sharing any of your files, and one thing most people don't realise. DISABLE YOUR SCREENSAVER. Every time your screensaver kicks in, you'lll get the drive contents changed message.
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Brakiss · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 7:18 pm Post subject:

Yeah, I did all that and appreciate the help but it still did not work. Defrag is important to me 'cos I overload and abuse the hell out of my crappy computer: win 98se, 500mhz amd athlon processor (yes, 500, not a typo lol) 18 out of 19.1 gigs used in my hard drive and a measly 352 mb of ram. So when I am constantly installing/uninstalling junk on it it's very noticeable when it doesn't function quite up to par hehe
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 9:31 pm Post subject:

Wow, err...

I don't know how well you stand as far as budgetting goes, but it'd probably be to your advantage to get a bigger HD. Even with the Athlon 500 and 300+ megs of RAM, that's decent enough that a hard drive upgrade wouldn't hurt you at all.

Try hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del and do 'End Task' on everything running except for Explorer. If you get everything disabled except for explorer and the defrag fails, you've probably got a virus or some other TSR program that is hosing up the process. I would suggest a format if that fails, if your Virus Scanner won't pick anything up and you're using up-to-date definitions, that's going to be the quickest way for you to get it back up to par.

Mildane · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 11:46 pm Post subject:

And make sure you dont have a screensaver on.
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Mildane · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject:

I should probably start reading every post before I reply, I know.
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Varthon · Member Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 269 Location: Idaho

Also, run scandisk. There may be a data problem that is bogging up the defrag. I had the same exact problem some time ago. I did pretty much as suggested, turned off screen saver, unloaded my desktop wallpaper, unloaded all the tsr's I possibly could, made sure power management was off, turned of virus scan, ran scandisk, then finally got the defrag going properly. I tell ya, it's things like this that make ya want to find Bill Gates, shove a copy of Windows down his throat, then kick him in the freakin neck as hard as ya can.

BlueMan · Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:12 pm Post subject:

Normally I just go to the msconfig and uncheck startup on first window. As far as defrag goes, I never do it. I do however reformat my pc once a year wether it needs it or not. I hate messing with quarentined files and such, Lol.

retraction, I dont believe the startup box is available on win98 any edition. I may be wrong, tis been awhile. Wow, unchecking everything, those were the days. /em thinks do i need this one..... NAH!!!
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