Problem running Scan disk and defragmenting

[mztykal]

I left my computer on last night, over night running maintanence wizard. When I went to sleep it was running Scan Disk. When I woke up this morning it was still defragmenting my C: drive. This is like 9 hours later. What's wrong with my comp. How come I can't defrag my hard drive? I'm running Win98se. Thanks in advance.



-MzTyKaL

 

[woodie1]

You probably have too many programs running in the background. Do Ctrl+Alt+Del and shut down the extra crap.

 

[mztykal]

Sorry, but which progs do I need running? Thanks!

 

[Beta25]

I've had the same problem with Win 98SE. I'd leave the comp on overnight and the next morning defrag will only be at 10%
complete. That's with everything turned off, no screensaver, no virus protector, etc. It could be a hardware compatibility
problem. (I have a SCSI hard drive that has problems working with my SCSI card. Also have a standard IDE hd.) I recently
upgraded to WinME, same problem at first but hasn't done it since.

This probably wasn't of any help, but all the same make sure you have the latest drivers for your hardware. Maybe that'll clear
things up.

 

[Kappo]

you only need systray and explorer running...thats it!

 

[mztykal]

If I upgrade to Win2k will I still have this problem? Any info will help. I'd be more than willing to switch to Win2k if this will make the problem go away. Thanks for all the help.

 

[MulLa]

With the machine at work the same thing happens. It simply takes AGES to defrag the HDD mainly because there are some programs running on the background and the defrag kept saying "Restarting due to disk activity" or something in that order.

 

[Wallysaurus]

mztykal,
Try sarting your computer in Safe Mode and then running defrag. This should help.

 

[Wuming]

i think having the power management on would also interrupt the defragging/scanning process, no? i have given up doing scandisk in windows. always boots to dos to do it. but can't do the same for defragging though

 

[The Wildcard]

Haha, the most important information you left out is...HOW BIG IS YOUR HARD DRIVE??

If you got a 40gig on one single partition, and you have all sorts of stuff on it, such as mp3's, games, os and other apps, then yeah, it's gonna take a while.

But 9 hours is long, lol.

 

[1sikbITCH]

When I had Win98 I had the same problem. After shutting down absolutely everything besides explorer and systray it still would not scan or defrag. So I ran Norton and that worked fine. However, after my wife got her own computer and I was able to delete her profile and clean up the C drive both scandisk and defrag worked fine. It seems Win98 does not like multiple profiles.

 

[jeans2nd]

Screen savers do this! Everytime the screen saver kicks in, the windows swap file changes which which creates a change on the hard drive which causes ScanDisk to restart. Have nothing running except Explorer and Systray, and turn off your screen saver.

 

[Beta25]

Hi,

Just wanted to post you an update. Had the same problem with WinME again last night, and that was with my SCSI hd
disconnected. Oh well, guess i'll try some of these other suggestions.

 

[Beta25]

Yes the problem still persists even after i turn all that crap off. Screensave, power management, virus protector. My hd's aren't
huge at all (2 gigs and less than half in use) I constantly get that same message "media changed restarting " but i can'e figure what
the hell it could be. I'll give Wallysaurus's idea a try, thanks.

 

[mztykal]

I finally got it to work last night. I shut everything thing off except for "systray" and "explorer" and it worked. Scandisk took awhile on my C drive, and my D drive went by quick. Defragged my C in less than a hour and my D in about four hours I think. If you're wondering my partitions are as follows.

C: 5.06 gigs
D: 13.9 gigs

It's a 20 gig drive. The D is partitioned out for only mp3's. My OS and other things are on the C drive. Thanks for all the help.



-MzTyKaL

 

[johnlog]

>>>I finally got it to work last night. I shut everything thing off except for "systray" and "explorer" and it worked. Scandisk took awhile on my C drive, and my D drive went by quick. Defragged my C in less than a hour and my D in about four hours I think. If you're wondering my partitions are as follows.

C: 5.06 gigs
D: 13.9 gigs <<<

That is still way to long for defragging. What you really need is Norton Utilities 2000 or Norton System Works 2000. It has a far superior DiskDoctor and defrag (SpeedDisk) program and they run about ten times faster than scandisk and Disk Degragmentor does.

For Windows ME Norton System Works 2001 is the better choice. You should defrag about once a week. At the most every two weeks. Depends on how much you do with saving and installing or deleting files and programs.

I defrag a ten gig HD with NSW 2000 in Win98 SE and it only takes a few minutes.

Norton WinDoctor is an excellent program for cleaning and maintaining your Windows Registry. After running WinDoctor for the first time and it finds so many problems in your Registry you will wonder how in the world your computer was even running. When finished tell WinDoctor to auto repair the Registry problems it found.

JL