Computer question - defrag hard drive

[peeler_feeler]

I have a Dell PentiumIII-600Mghz running on Windows 98 with a 10Gig drive with approx 4gig of free space. Last night I tried to defragment the harddrive by running "Disk Defragmenter" from the system tools and it kept running into the following message - "Drive contents changed restarting". So I let the process run overnight and kept seeing this message. The message kept coming up at around 10% to 15% of the process completion. So I cancelled the process as it seemed to be stuck. It ran all night without success.

I haven't defragmented the drive for over 8 months and was wondering if this was the reason for the problem.

Any suggestions?

 

[Dacor]

Defrag

Don't forget to disable your screensaver. Also, it's a good idea to make sure your computer is free of those little programs that are running "behind the scenes" by downloading Ad-Aware from www.lavasoftusa.com. IMO, it's the best program on the net.

Dacor

 

[Diesil]

re

And change the power management seetings, so that the computer does not shut down the hard drive or anything else while Defrag is running.

 

[zoickss]

The best way to get around this is too boot up into safe mode and run defragmenter there (Tap F8 Keyduring boot up till you get the boot menu) then select Safe mode.

 

[smitherz]

yeah that's aknown issue with win98.. you have to run defrag in safe mode.

 

[rr_bill]

Safe mode is not a necessity for defrag -

yeah that's aknown issue with win98.. you have to run defrag in safe mode.

I am running W98se and have no problem running defrag at any time. The only preparation I do is to:

1. - set Screen Saver delay to one hour [disabling might be a better option for you, since after 8 months it might take more than an hour to complete the proces.]

2. - set Power Management to delay shutdown to 1 or 2 hours during defrag.

Sometimes I also defrag using Norton SpeedDisk with the same preparation as above. I have found that the ScreenSaver is the biggest problem.

Could it be that your screensaver is set to activate at 10 or 15 minutes?

While I'm running Defrag., I leave Norton System Works [System Doctor, Anti-Virus and Internet Securty], Pop-Up Stopper and some other prog's all running normally.

Safe Mode causes more problems for me because I have to spend 5 minutes re-arranging my desktop after switching back to Normal start-up.

 

[smitherz]

no i don't have a screen saver, although you're right usually the screen saver is the culprit. Safe mode is recommended by MS, you can look up Microsoft's Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/ .. there's alot of issues with win98, like bootup speed, multitasking performance, etc. i've been using it for 4 years and i think it's about time to switch to Xp...

 

[pool]

in windoze 98

I usually do the following before scan/defrag

start/run/msconfig/System Configuration Utility/general and then disabled all da boxs under selective startup.

I suppose using safe mode gives pretty much the same effect.

 

[peeler_feeler]

Success!

Thanks everyone for your help. I was successful in degramenting the drive.

I ran adaware as suggested and then closed down all background programs including sympatico access manager. I then removed screen saver.

Defragmenting took less than 30 minutes and did not have to run in safe mode.

Thanks again for the help!!!

Five lap dances or equivalent value towards massage for AnOnYmOuS or Dacor for their help -- first one to email me at peeler_feeler@hotmail.com can claim their prize.