C drive Defrag Failure

[Conan the Librarian]

Morning all,

Tired right now and could use some advice to puncture this problem. I need to clean up the C drive, as it will not defrag and is reporting 16% free space. All Internet temp files are already on another drive and there does not seem much that I can shift in the way of programs.

I know that I am missing the obvious, but I am whacked. It seems that the partition is full of MS updates and Hotfixes. Can anyone think of something creative while I keep my eyes open? (No - Not format C: thank you )

Mucho Gracias,

Conan

[seacue]

In Spanish, a plural adjective is used with a plural noun. Thus muchos gracias.

Can you find a different defrag program that might not give up as easily as Microsoft's? One place to look is in an antivirus _suite_ such as Symantec / Norton. A Google search finds others.

[Conan the Librarian]

Thanks SeaCue. Told you I was tired... Just got a PM from TheSailor who has sent me a link to Diskeeper and am downloading that as I type :-)

Muchos Gracias,

Conan

[Loose rivets]

Does the defrag prog bar at the bottom show the process starting then reseting over and over?

ie preparing to defrag then not really starting.

[vapilot2004]

Restart in safe mode (upon computer power up - keep tapping the F8 key and select safe mode from listing with arrow keys - hit enter 2x) and then run defrag.

Warning:
If you have a large desktop (over 800x600) with icons all over the place, you may have to re-arrange them upon rebooting in normal mode - minor inconvenience.

If you are looking for superfluous files, try x:documents and settings\your logon name\local settings\temp and x:windows\temp and delete all you find here - where X is the letter of the Windows drive and 'your logon name' is what appears at the top of the Start Menu.

Good Luck !

[Conan the Librarian]

You know VA, I was just staring at those very temp files and pondering their use. The magic extension tmp had me all excited, for here, there was space to be recovered and it is that which is the PIA.

The page file is large, as there are 2GB of RAM and the MFT is a bit on the big side as well, but the machine is tracking a lot of stuff over a lot of drives. If anyone else has any ideas of what to dump overboard, then please shout up.

Diskeeper 10 is appearing to do a brilliant job and is now up to drive S and seemingly loving the task it has been set. The PC hasn't gone so fast in ages, though I do worry about the flames though...

Back shortly and thanks to all for unbluting my brain


Conan

Edit - 2.47GB gone there VA. Things are looking up

[jetcollie]

If you want a good clearout of 'crap' then I'd highly recommend ccleaner:

http://www.ccleaner.com/download/

[BOAC]

Seems you have it sorted? Worth noting, however, as VAP says, if you are trying to defrag the system disk or a drive which has 'calls' to it like screensaver, email checks, etc, it will continually 'restart' the defrag and take for ever. Hence 'Safe' mode.

For the experts - I thought that MS 'hotfixes' and updates could be moved once installed?? Is that correct?

[Conan the Librarian]

It was just choked with files and it needed to get a bit lighter in this respect. I was wondering about the movement of the Hotfixes and updates too. Amazing where 20GB can go, especially when being aware of it, I tried to keep the C drive light and install most things to other drives. The amount and size of auto updates to both OS and from Norton over 18 months or so, is quite incredible. No wonder they prefer you to be asleep when they deliver it. I think it is time to do an audit and see just how many progs are updating and bloating the system.

The good news appears to be Diskeeper, for which I once more thank The Sailor. It is making me deeply impressed with what it is doing and it has a much more vigorous approach than MS, which has even now, left me with a much quicker machine, even though the Bog Standard Defrag was done weekly across all drives. Lots of reporting back as well, so that you know exactly what, where and when it is doing things. So far I would give it a very punchy "Thumbs up"


Conan

Edit for JetCollie - CrapCleaner was the first elctronic laxative to be applied. It is a great and free piece of software. That cleared out the best part of 1GB. I use it maybe once a month but will now be upping the dose :-)

[chandlers dad]

Originally Posted by BOAC

Seems you have it sorted? Worth noting, however, as VAP says, if you are trying to defrag the system disk or a drive which has 'calls' to it like screensaver, email checks, etc, it will continually 'restart' the defrag and take for ever. Hence 'Safe' mode.

For the experts - I thought that MS 'hotfixes' and updates could be moved once installed?? Is that correct?

Correct and another help is to hit "ctrl, alt, del" and go into the task manager and stop anything running in the background that is not needed. If there are programs running in the background that access the disk, it will indeed keep starting over as the disk contents have changed.