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 Can't defragment system drive...
 
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Gulliver


Location: Estonia


Posts: 442


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 3:07 am 

Recentley I tried (again!) to defragment my C drive and got the same results as a few month earlier. When the dialog box showed that 10% is done suddenly the line "Disc content's changed, restarting..." (or something similar) appeared and defragmentation started from the beginning. It seems that Windows encountered some problem and couldn't pass through that. I even used Norton System Works but after testing and repairing some problem files
Windows still was unable to pass through those freaking 10%. What should I do? Re-insatall
the whole Win'98 (SE)? THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR ANY ADVICE!
Vlad
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jester700





Posts: 546


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 4:47 am 

Try Speed Disk in the Norton package. It's the defragger I use. Faster than Windows' version, too...
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VoodooRadio


Location: USA


Posts: 3971


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 6:20 am 

Hi Gulliver,
I used to have the same problem and found that too many things were running (by default) in the background. Everytime that one of those things would try to start, it would re-start the scan disk or defrag. Before you start defragging, use Ctrl-Alt-Delete and when the windown comes up, highlight and end task all the things not needed. Now... as to what is and is not needed, I'm not absolutely positive...... I can say that personally, I shut off everything but Explorer and Systray. It fixed the problem and now my system will run defrag uninterrupted. BTW, when you reboot your computer after the defrag, Windows will automatically turn all those things you turned off.... back on. Good Luck Voodoo

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Voodoo
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ozpeter


Location: Australia


Posts: 3200


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 7:20 am 

To close running processes, you can use 'End It All' utility instead of multiple Ctrl/Alt/Del's - it was referred to very recently in another thread.
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NickAltenbernd


Location: USA


Posts: 39


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 7:26 am 

This sounds like things running in the background. The defragger in 98SE is not very good. It takes forever and sounds like it's going to knock the disk out of the case and doesn't let you look at the finished map of the disk. I hate to think what all that back and forth is doing to the head alignment. When things like Real Player (that can be one problem program) scan the system regularly to see if they should barge in and start doing something, that crummy defragger sees a change of contents and starts over.

I think you should get a decent defrag utility and give the 98SE one the heave-ho. I managed to pick up a copy of Diskeeper for a mere $10 at a game store one morning (the next release had just come out...) although the retail is about $50-60. It is worth every penny of it. Even Microsoft knows this: it has taken on a litened version of Diskeeper for its subsequent operating systems' defraggers.

And don't run both! They disagree, and the 98SE defragger shuffles things around again some other way. Then Diskeeper reunshuffles them...and so on. This would probably be the case with any other defragger as well. Get one good one, and use it.
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NickAltenbernd


Location: USA


Posts: 39


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 7:30 am 

Diskeeper can be set to run in the background - i.e., it is not befuddled by other processes running at the same time. you shouldn't let this go on while you're doing audio work, because it does slow things down a bit and makes some responses erratic; but other things going on don't fool the defragger. It seems to leave any files in use undefragged, but it will pick them up next time it's running and they're free.

Simply defrag manually, not on a set schedule; and don't do anything else at the same time; and do it often.
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AndyH





Posts: 1425


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 1:09 pm 

You can always start up in "Safe Mode" to run the defragmentation and/or scandisk without interference.
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FrankG





Posts: 7


Post Posted - Fri May 31, 2002 2:02 pm 

Gulliver,go to the ms websight and look for the support page that will answer your problem. I had the same problem as you and rather than d/l all these other defrag programs,I just went there and it works fine.http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q186/9/78.ASP look for your OS and follow what it says. Regards,FrankG.
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fumar


Location: USA


Posts: 51


Post Posted - Wed Jun 05, 2002 12:48 pm 

AndyH has the best advice so far. Reboot into safe mode. Scandisk. Defrag. Reboot. Done deal.

-John
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Graeme

Member
Location: Spain


Posts: 4663


Post Posted - Wed Jun 05, 2002 1:04 pm 

Quote:
AndyH has the best advice so far. Reboot into safe mode. Scandisk. Defrag. Reboot. Done deal.

-John


But..... if you boot into safe mode, but normally run a higher resolution, anything on the desktop is shuffled around. Then you have to spend ages moving things back to where they should be!

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Graeme

Don't forget to join the new CEP forum at audiomastersforum
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AndyH





Posts: 1425


Post Posted - Wed Jun 05, 2002 1:41 pm 

I don't know what makes things different for me. Perhaps it is because I only use the desktop for tempory storage and thus everything is simply lined up in an array, but nothing ever changes when I go to safe mode and back. Every bit of my long term structuring is done via folders, menus, and toolbars.
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Gulliver


Location: Estonia


Posts: 442


Post Posted - Thu Jun 06, 2002 12:57 am 

Quote:
... But..... if you boot into safe mode, but normally run a higher resolution, anything on the desktop is shuffled around. Then you have to spend ages moving things back to where they should be!


Yeah, I experience the same things after the "safe mode".
But anyway, thank you guys for the input!
What worked for me - was the method suggested by VoodooRadio
(old'n'good Ctrl-Alt-Delete) for removing unnecessary programs running in the background.
I also wanted to check what's going on there... BTW, I found some strange things like: OSA (what the hell is that?) and something else (can't see it at the moment because I'm at my working place right now). Anyway, I removed everything except Systray, Awtray, Awdrive (or something like that which might be the driver for my Audiowerk 8 sound card) and Explorer and finally did that defragmentation! :-)



Edited by - Gulliver on 06/06/2002 01:00:38 AM
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