Defrag problems W98

[Timothy]

I cannot defrag my father's 98 machine because it always stops, reporting disk errors, no matter how many times I Scandisk it....any thoughts?

W

[rickity]

I have just overcome the same problem, go into safe mode by pressing F8 during boot up, just after the bios bits have done. then run defrag. this runs windows with a limited set of drivers so you shouldn't get interrupts that restart the defrag process. be warned though on a 40G drive it took forever to complete.

good luck

Rick

[bughunta]

TCS

Can you remind me why you need not 'end task' for systray? Thought it was just explorer that I had to leave alone, always 'end task' the lot except explorer before a defrag...

bug

[fobotcso]

If I may but in...

This is a Microsoft recommendation:

Windows 98 Setup.txt (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=179756)

Often repeated but never explained other than:

"this is a part of Windows"

Try running without it and see how far you get. I suspect various things would gradually pack up.

[Ausatco]

G'day, W Collins

Win 98's defrag is very slow. You can use the '98ME version which is much faster and is not as fussy about other running processes. However, screensavers that access the hard disc cause both defrags to re-start. After 10 restarts they both quit, so to be safe you usually need to de-activate your screensaver before defragging.

I can't remember where I got the 98ME defragger from, but I still have it. You could get it from a friend who uses 98ME or I will email it to you - it's quite small, about 76kB. PM me if you want that.

You might find this (http://www.toejumper.net/maintain4/defrag4.htm) interesting.

Cheers

AA

[Timothy]

Thank you all.

I have done a surface scan of the disk and it doesn't help, nor does running it in safe mode.

I am beginning to think that the PC in question has dodgy memory, so I am going to take along a couple of spare SIMMs when I next go and see if that helps.

I may well ask for the 98ME prog, but my experience of ME was that it was the greatest heap of **** that MS have produced since Windows 2.0, so I am a little wary of it!

W

[rickity]

Ouch, sounds like there is something more than meets the eye. Could try putting the disk drive in another machine as a secondary drive and see what turns up with scan disk.

I'm not sure that there is any more chance of it being a memory problem than a processor, motherboard, or any other componant, Although memory is the cheapest and easiest to change.

Rick

[Ausatco]

W Collins,

My friend had 98ME and asked me to help him out quite a bit. I didn't like it at all, so I agree with your reservations. At the time I had a fully updated 98SE and found that very much preferable.

However the 98ME defragger is just fine on 98SE or just '98. If you sort out the suspected underlying probs with the system you're working on, the 98ME defragger is the way to go. I used it on SE for some time - 18 months to two years, maybe, on an old and delicate 233 Meg P2 working to its limit. No problems.

AA

[Ausatco]

WC

As they say, it's in the mail.

AA

[Jinkster]

had the same problem.

run the full scan disk then run the defrag

best of luck

jinkster

[Feline]

Maybe 'tis that time of year when the 98SE defragger decides not to co-operate, maybe a sinister MS time bomb to persuade us reluctant souls to get a life and get an upgrade ...

I have read this thread with interest, having shared many of the tribulations aired here - I am now at my wits end because my computer is running s-l-o-w-e-r and yet s-l-o-w-e-r - to the point where it's almost unusable.

That tells me that it needs defragging - but no matter what I do, it runs for a while and then informs me that there isn't enough memory and suggests I shut down a few programmes and try again --- BUT --- I've already shut down everything except Explorer and Systray --- SO --- I'm about out of options.

It's a 700Mhz Celeron with 112Mb RAM (actually 128Mb RAM but some of the RAM gets grabbed for video memory) and a 40Gb hard drive. It's always coped with defrag before - so why is it balking now -- when I need it?

Any suggestions anyone? (And I've already sent a request to Ausatco for a copy of the ME defragger)

Help! Desperate!

[Bre901]

Two pieces of basic advice :

Try making some room on your HD (defraging requires moving bytes around to be able to create contiguous files). If you have large files, you will need a rather large amount of free space. Try cleaning up the temporary folders and files, and possibly the IE junkyard. :yuk:
If this not enough, and you have a CD burner, backup some files and remove them from your HD

Follow rickity's advice and run in safe mode (no drivers loaded - incl. video - means more available memory)

HTH

[Keef]

Confirm that. Defrag needs around 20% free space on the HD to do the job properly.

Last week I removed all the junk that Windows had stashed away in TEMP and in various alphabet-soup folders - I think it was backups of the configuration every time I switched the machine off. That got me from 92% full to 55% full, and the defrag went like a train after that.

There was one .TMP file in there that was 868MB in size.

Now tinkering with Linux and liking what I see...

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Feline,

First thing is to make sure you have enough room left on your hard drive. (Not having room on your hard drive will slow your computer way down.)

When you run Defrag, also disable your screensaver and antivirus program.

You can use the Run Command to run msconfig to see what processes are loading when you start.

Programs running in the background have been known to stop defrag from running.

Take Care,

Richard

[Feline]

Thanks BRE901, Keef and Richard ...Don't think lack of free disk space is the problem - 13.2Gb free on a 40Gb IDE drive ... Drive has been regularly de-fragged (approx every 7 - 10 days until about three weeks ago) ... Screen Saver and Norton AV both set "Off" and Power Management set to "Always On" ... DISKCLEAN run before attempting defrag as well as SCANDISK ... All running tasks terminated except Explorer and Systray using Ctrl-Alt-Del Have also run MSCONFIG and killed everything that doesn't seem to be necessary in the Start Up Group (although I didn't stop anything in System.ini or Win.ini) ... Doesn't seem to make any difference whether the computer is running full Windows or is started in Safe Mode - it cranks through "Checking Disk Info" until it gets to about 10% and then comes up with an "insufficient memory" message (DEFRAG009 I think) ... Even switched on POST memory check which shows memory OK; And Norton AV updated as of 10 December 03 ...

I am baffled! So --- Any other suggestions? Like can anyone suggest a utility for seeing what processes are using how much memory?

Rather think that a full re-install is going to be the answer (Groan!) -- but this is a production system (like it puts milk in Feline's saucer!) and this is a busy time of the year for me: although I can default to an older backup system, that's not a particularly exciting or viable alternative (very much slower with considerably less disk space).

[rickity]

Another thought based on past experiance, do you have a network card installed, even if its not connected, if its got any drivers going for it, it does like to check its connection every so often which ends up as an interrupt and a restart of your defrag. The way around it is to disable the network card in the control panel - system - devices

what would help is a complete system spec and anything that you have changed between the working and notworking, I think we all guessing in all sorts of directions without the basic info.

Rickity

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Feline,

Safemode should have disabled the LAN when you tried the scan, but give it a shot as Rickity said. It is worth a try.

It does sound like you have a tried everything and I think your ultimate conclusion is going to be it. The Fresh Install.

Take Care,

Richard

[arcniz]

Feline:

It's not free, but is easy and gets you a full backup of your HD.

Buy a Maxtor 40Gb or larger HD... Should be around $50 U.S. these days.. If it is a packaged drive (nice box) it will come with the Maxtor HD format/copying routines. If not, load those from the Maxtor website. Their very intelligent drive copy app ( runs under DRDOS, if I recall) does 1:1 copies, but in the process it reads files and rewrites them contiguously. So you get a bootable new hard disk that is fully defragged.

Good luck.

[stickyb]

Feline, have you read this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;229154&Product=w98

and this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;286263&Product=w98

for some good info?

There is also this from Msoft

The Disk Defragmenter for Windows 98 (DEFRAG.EXE) may start and
not complete its task. If repeated attempts to defragment the drive
are unsuccessful, it may be because an application is writing to the
disk. The Disk Defragmenter cannot share access to a drive with
other tasks.

An application loading automatically at startup may interfere with
DEFRAG. Run DEFRAG before applications load at startup by adding
a value for DEFRAG.EXE /ALL to the RunServicesOnce key in the
registry.

To add a value for DEFRAG.EXE /ALL to the RunServicesOnce key:

1. Select DEFRAG.INF in the \Tools\MTSutil folder
on the Windows 98 Second Edition CD.

2. Right-click DEFRAG.INF
-or-
Hold down the SHIFT key and press F10.

3. Choose INSTALL to add the value for DEFRAG.EXE /ALL.

[Feline]

After several more efforts to defrag my C: drive (all of which proved a waste of time) I applied some lateral thinking -- and came up with the following pragmatic (if somewhat inelegant) solution. Which I report here should anyone else have a similar problem.

Remember firstly that this is a production system - by which I mean that: No system = No income. The ideal solution would be to simply re-install the operating system, but I still have work that needs to be completed this side of Christmas, and my experiences with installing (or re-installing) operating systems if that if you do it in a hurry, you usually create bigger and more time consuming problems.

However, something needed to be done as it was taking anything up to 30 seconds just to open a folder.

Therefore: Since all my working files are stored in "My Documents", and since this is where there is considerable ongoing change to files each and every day, decided to copy "My Documents" off to another disk, and then give defrag another chance. This was not a trivial task - copying 2.8Gb took slightly less than four hours (to the D: drive, a 10Gb drive which was the original C: drive on the system).

Then disabled Power Management/Screen Saver/Norton AV and turning everything else off (by running MSCONFIG and unchecking everything except Explorer in the Start Up Group).

Rebooted system in SAFE mode and cranked up defrag (with all fingers and toes crossed). It hesitated for a l-o-n-g time around the 10% mark (which is when it has previously decided hat it didn't have enough memory and flashed me the two-fingered DEFRAG009 message).

Ten hours later (!) the disk is defragged - and I now have to copy the contents of "My Documents" back to the C: drive (can't easily use the system until I have done that because most applications - including Eudora and Palm Desk Top use directories in "My Documents" and it's too much hassle to reset all the defaults).

I hope that this description of how I got around the problem may help someone else out at some time in the future.

And I think that the lesson for the learning here is defrag is a very necessary evil that needs to be run on a regular basis. My case may be a bit extreme in that I add large numbers of relatively small files on a very regular basis (student tests) but the deterioration of system response went from "acceptable" to totally "unacceptable" over only about three weeks.

As soon as I have finished off current marking of tests, I will be pulling down the system and re-installing the O/S (should I stick with 98SE or go for 2000?). Also arriving soon is an external 40Gb backup drive which plugs into a USB port and should give me an extra level of security (have had a rash of burglaries around here recently so that will give me some peace of mind). Thanks to everyone that has made suggestions - and I hope that my experiences may, in turn, help someone else out there.

Feline purring - somewhat!

P.S. Couldn't get to Pprune for a while (for reasons apparent from above) but will be following up some of the later suggestions - Thanks!

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Feline,

You seem to have a good handle on PCs. I would think of getting 512Mb of RAM for your comp and installing WinXP. Once you go to WinXP, you will not go back to Win9X and you will kick yourself for not upgrading sooner.

There are some good OEM deals out there that almost get it down to the price that would make it a stocking stuffer you could ask Santa for. (Do not forget to ask Santa for the RAM too.) ;)

Take Care,

Richard

[Timothy]

I can confirm that by a combination of changing the memory, switching off everything like Norton and ZoneAlarm, and using the Defrag that Ausatco kindly sent I have now managed to successfully defrag my father's PC, so thank you all, particularly Ausatco, for your help, and Happy Holidays to all our readers!

W