defrag

What causes disk defrag to "hang up" and restart? Why is defrag so slow? Is there anything that can be done to correct these issues?

 

What OS are you using?

 

win 98se

 

Suggestion:
Click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. You'll see a panel open, and you'll see a Settings button on the panel. Click the Settings button and UNcheck the boxes next to "Check" (that's what Scandisk does for you: you don't want the Defragmenter to do it, too) and "Rearrange." Leave the dot beside "Every." Now run the Disk Defragmenter, and note that it takes a LOT less time than it used to take. If you run it once a week or so, it will probably take less than five minutes to defragment your main drive completely.

If you want to know why that's a better way to run the Win98SE defragger, you might check the Win98 maintenance article at
http://editorsdesktop.com/maintain.html

 

You also need to stop things like the Virus Scanner, Screensaver and scheduled tasks - anything that is likely to write to the disk whilst you are defragmenting. In short, turn off/shutdown anything/everything you can before defragging.

Also, I read here that the default Win 98 defragmenter is poor and the Win ME version (which works on Win 98) is better.

 

I have the same trouble where it keeps restarting after 10% if you start it up in safe mode you wont have any more trouble.

 

Oh, hey, did I forget to mention that along with having your defrag settings right, you're ALSO supposed to run the defragger after you've shut down everything you can shut down? Silly me. I thought you KNEW that. What I thought you probably didn't know is why the Win98 defragger is so awfully slow with the default settings even with everything else off, and why you ought to try changing the default settings.

Oh well, it's always good to get a lot of voices chiming in on the solutions here.

 

How do I get the windows me defragger?

 

JHARG....You can get the WindowsME defragger at surecool.com Don't skimp. Read the "read first" thing on the page. The ME defragger is THE only way to go. Do this experiment before you get the ME defragger............Start your defrag you have now, and click on "show details". Watch how slowly it's chugging along. Then after you put in the ME defragger, check the "show details" again, and see the difference !!! ALSO.........In the defrag settings, "uncheck" the box that says: "check the drive for errors first". I've noticed that some Anti-Virus programs, have a tendency to keep ScanDisk from completeing. It could very well be hanging up due to that. But download the ME defrag anyways. You won't be sorry.

 

Vopt XP is the way I choose to go no matter what the OS is. It has an option to click to shut down all programs (except the necessary ones). Or it will do a defrag on a fresh boot and then restart and fire all your programs back up. Anything worth having is not free though.

 

Well yeah Raider..........But what if he's not a geek ? LOL I have a second computer with 98SE in it, and the ME defrag works super in it. I DO have to disable the "check drive for errors first" though. But not if I shut down the AV program. But with the error checking disabled, it buzzes right thru, WITHOUT shutting down ANY running programs.

 

I resemble that remark!

 

And thats a GOOD thing Raider. Geeks RULE, they are Gods.
End of story.

 

As Maxwell said: shut down any other program before defragmenting!
The other thing is, Windows defragmenters are slooow and inefficient. I recommend the use of Diskeeper which seems to be at least 10 times faster and does better work.

 

Fascinating stuff! Question: Does all the advice also apply to W98 1st Edition? That's what I have.

 

I too have Win98 - so far everything works as stated.

 

Anything is better than the defrag proggies that come with windows.

1. Vopt XP
2. Diskeeper
3. O&O Defrag
4 Norton Speed Disk

In that order!

 

Took 63 minutes to defrag

Win98 1st edition.
1. Did what Wisewiz suggested on settings. Took 63 seconds to defrag in Safe Mode. I do it in Safe Mode because it used to hang up otherwise. Is it Safe Mode that made it take so long?
2. I'd like to try the ME defrag as suggested. Haven't gone to the site listed by JHARG, but thought I'd ask in advance: What if ME defrag is worse, or screws up, or something? Can I get my 98 defrag back?

 

Holy mackeral! I just went to the ME defrag site and read this phrase: "When you double click on the Me_defrag_install.bat file ..." I'm no Geek. How do I do that? Where is it in my computer?

 

Frybo......Don't let all that jargon scare you. Just click on the download link for it, and save it to your desktop. It will be a zip file. You CAN unzip the file after, but no need to. Just right click on it, and choose "explore". Then you'll see the folder contents. All you gotta do then, is double-click the exe file, that says INSTALL. Thats it.......DONE. It will install so fast, you won't even realize it did !!! You will just be faced with a black DOS type box. Just "X" out the box. It's now ready to use. It REPLACES your existing Defrag. So to use the NEW defrag, just click on it from your programs menu, like you always did. You may save the zip file if you wish. (The "uninstall" file is in it ).
Just drop it in your C drive folder, or somewhere you can find it in the future. P.S. The INSTALL file, is the install.bat file they were referring to. I think it was the .bat part that scared you. LOL

 

P.S.S...........YES, it works with ALL versions of Win98. ALSO.......Works with ALL versions of Win95. They don't recommend using it on Win95 if the drive has been "compressed" though. But then again, "compressing" the drive on some versions of 95, pretty much hoses the O/S anyways. LOL

 

The version of the Win ME defrag I downloaded has a README file attached. It states to copy the Win 98 defrag to a backup and replace it with the Win ME one.

 

Max........If you downloaded the defrag from surecool.com, all you have to do, is what I stated previously. The install file renames the existing file to "old", and renames the MEdefrag to "defrag". I've done it that way, on many computers. It works. If you ever want to uninstall it.............the uninstall file included in the package, automaticly puts everything back the way it was. Including the file renaming.

 

I'm no geek, but I downloaded the ME defrag and placed it and the other files that came with it in c:windows. It replaced my win 98 defrag. Seems to be working very well! Thanks to all.
Jim

 

Gee, I love happy endings!

Now where's the party to celebrate jharg's success?

No party? Well, congrats, jharg, anyway.

 

Took 28 minutes this time

Win 98 1st. I sure blew my earlier message about the time it took for me to defrag. It took 63 MINUTES, not 63 seconds. Just completed an ME defrag and it took 28 mins. It did the first 80 percent in four minutes, and the last 20 percent in 24 mins. Does this sound reasonable? (I had done the 63-minute defrag only hours previously.) I don't see how one gets to the "less than five minutes" that Wisewiz spoke of. Anyway, thanks to all who posted, especially Brian C. The download and install worked just as he said it would. You guys are GOOD!

 

I just ran my 3rd win me defrag in 90 seconds.

 

FRYBO.........The next defrag with the ME version should take less time. I think it's because the ME one, arranges the files during the defrag process, differently than the 98 one did. Anotherwords........Now that the ME defragger has everything placed the way it wants it, it won't have to move as much stuff around from now on. ALSO........Don't forget, the larger the hard drive capacity, the longer to defrag. As well as how many things have been "changed" in the computer, since the last defrag.
Glad I could help. Brian

 

To test you defragmenter try running it after a week's work!
I ran my Diskeeper right now (while online and with various programs running). It took him about 75 seconds to defragment my C: drive (3 GB, data: 1.2 GB) and it found 1304 fragments.

 

Okay, one last (?) set of questions: The advice is to turn off everything that might be writing to the disk before defragging--such as virus scanner, etc. I have dial-up modem and am not online when I defrag. In my system tray are: McAfee, Zone Alarm, Popup Ad Filter, IncrediMail, Atomic Clock (for setting my computer clock), WeatherBug, and Webshots (a program for getting screensaver and wallpaper photos). Do I need to shut down all these for defragging with ME defragger? Thanks again.

 

Drive's contents changed...restarting

So, I decided to ME defrag without turning off anything. At 10% done, I got "Drive's contents changed ... restarting." It did this at 17%, 23%, 24%, 25%, 25% again and 26%. Whereupon, I stopped the process. It would chugga-chugga to 10 percent, then go lickety-split until the drive's contents changed message, then restart and do the same thing over and over. What's happening?

 

Yes - stop as many as you can excepting Systray and Explorer. This will leave the bare minimum. Try downloading EndItAll which will stop and kill processes for you - just the thing for installing new software and defragmenting.

Apparently AdAware considers Weatherbug as Spyware - you may want to check this out.

 

WOW, this thread's gettin long !! FRYBO........Did you "uncheck" the check drive for errors box in the defrag options..........AND.....what are your computer specs?? The defragger may be doggin out, if you have a lot of programs running on start-up, and your computer specs are "marginal" to handle it. And if thats the case, you would need to shut down some crap first.

 

For Brian and Max, plus any others

Brian: Yes, I unchecked the check drive for errors ... You have a real uninformed person here who doesn't even know for sure what is included in computer specs. I have W981st, Pentium II 300, 192 mb of RAM and a 5 GB hard drive. What other info would be included in "specs?"
Max: i downloaded EndItAll. I think I understand the basics for its use. BUT, if I close all that stuff except the vitals for defragging, how do I get them open again?--Especially some of those "hidden" files that I didn't even know were there?

 

You will just restart your computer to reopen those programs & files. Where can I find enditall for download?

 

Reboot, ma man, REEEE-boot. Everything that runs all the time will start to run again when you reboot.

All those things you listed in the systray should have right-click-on-the-icon Exit switches. Unplug the cable before you kill your firewall, then remember to plug it back in just a second before you reboot.

Oh, and in the panel where you told defrag not to Check the disk (Scandisk does that, and you should run Scandisk in W98 and fix probs before you defrag), make sure you haven't permitted it to "Rearrange files to start faster." It's all that re-ordering that takes effing forever even if everything is shut down and the drive is small. The gain from re-ordering is miniscule. The time it takes to do it is huge. Why give up an hour to save 20 milliseconds?

Check out that Win98 maintenance page again if you need some explanations.
http://editorsdesktop.com/maintain.html

 

I did a search for endital and found lots of sites. This is the one I used:
http://home.ptd.net/~don5408/toolbox/enditall/
Thanks for all the help.

 

Final Report

All's well that ends well (catchy, eh?). With everybody's help, I finally had a quite pleasing defrag experience. I used enditall to close almost all running stuff, started defrag and went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Wasn't gone two minutes and when I got back to the computer, the defrag was done. Don't know how long it actually took, but two minutes is just fine. Thanks to all.

 

Glad I started all this--my defragging is also now not painful.

 

Long thread, but hey........we got 2 people happier. So it's all good !!