HD constantly writing data to itself

[mtnagel]

I was trying to speed up my mom's computer a bit and I was going to run Scan Disk and Defrag, but when I run Scan Disk, I keep getting the error that the disk is in use and that it had to restart. I can hear the disk constantly writing something. I even used msconfig.exe to disable all the startup items from loading (thinking something that was loading was writing to the disk), but that didn't help and I booted in safe mode and I still got the error. Any suggestions?

I would love to just format and just go back to win 98 for here, but she has so much crap, that it would be a nightmare (and I live 450 miles away).

Thanks
Matt

 

[Ryoga]

Scandisk can run in DOS mode. Boot to the command prompt and run scandisk.

Defrag, on the other hand, is a different monster. Win9x defrag doesn't work that well (although ME has the best of them). I suggest a freeware defragger like Diskeeper Lite.

 

[mtnagel]

Thanks Ryoga. I would try running Scan disk in DOS mode, but now I'm not at my parents house and I don't feel like talking my mom through that

 

[Fern]

Maybe it's some process running in the background. Maybe have her hit control-alt-del and tell you what's going on. By shutting unneccessary stuff you might get the maintenance proggie's running.

 

[mtnagel]

Originally posted by: Fern
Maybe it's some process running in the background. Maybe have her hit control-alt-del and tell you what's going on. By shutting unneccessary stuff you might get the maintenance proggie's running.

I tried that, but there were some entries that I didn't know what they were and I didn't want to end them if they were Windows processes. I figured disabling startup items (in msconfig.exe) or booting into safe mode would stop them from ever starting.

 

[idcandy]

you can (at least in Windows 95/98) safely force everything except explorer and systray to quit. I'd assume it's the same in WinME. I had a similar issue in Win98. Some background process logging stuff to the HDD. I forced everythign except explorer and systray to quit and scandisk and defrag ran without any problems.

 

[mtnagel]

Originally posted by: idcandy
you can (at least in Windows 95/98) safely force everything except explorer and systray to quit. I'd assume it's the same in WinME. I had a similar issue in Win98. Some background process logging stuff to the HDD. I forced everythign except explorer and systray to quit and scandisk and defrag ran without any problems.

Cool. Will have to try that.

Matt