Defrag for 98?

[Cameronian]

I am looking for a good, quick and cheap (free?!!) defragmenter for use in Windows 98. The two listed in the free software sticky don't work in 98 and the one which comes with 98 doesn't seem to work either - it counts up from 0% to 4% and then jumps back to 0% to repeat the exercise. That wouldn't be too bad but it kept it up until I got bored 32 hours later!!

Not having defragged since 1998, I can only imagine that it would be a good idea to do it now!

Thanks in advance for any help, links or even suggestions - apart from the obvious one of replacing this dinosaur!

[DG101]

I seem to remember the trick with the W98 built in defrag tool was to ensure there eas nothing else running that could write to the disk. So, disconnect from the internet, disable the auto dialer and stop all processes that may access the disk.

Cannot think of all the likely candidates right now, as I haven't used W9x for a while.

[Cameronian]

Thanks for that - I'll give it a try. The last time the only thing which wasn't turned off was the router so I'll turn it off later today when I can do without it and will post the result here!

[Tarq57]

Try here.
My first "fix" or "tweak" ever. Made a huge difference to defrag times.
When the homepage opens, click on "troubleshooting" then "windows 98 defrag problems".
The man also helped me with several other problems when I had '98, shame the forums aren't still a going affair.
[Edit] PS, would pay to run a disk cleanup first, if you haven't already.
PSS, all sorts of goodies for '98, here, too. You'll have it running like new in no time. Of course, some of the freeware programs linked to might not be supported any more...

[frostbite]

Do a google for Auslogics Defrag - it's much faster than the Windoze supplied version (what isn't?) and it's free!

[Tarq57]

Auslogics would be excellent, if it worked in '98.
info

[BOAC]

The cure always used to be to run in Safe mode.

[gofer]

for fixes

run a google search on defrag windows 98 and research the proposed solutions -

Also look here

[Cameronian]

You're all stars! Thank you! I'll get to work on your suggestions over the weekend when I can do without the old thing for some of the time and I'll report back on my success.

[IcePaq]

Turn off the screen saver.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

(1) Turn off whatever it is that runs each time you get to 3%.

(2) Or simply don't bother. I have never seen any reliable evidence that it makes any difference that's noticeable in real life. (Yes I'm sure someone has run some "scientific" tests that show that something-or-other is several milliseconds faster after defragging, but ... er, so what.)

[frostbite]

That's possibly a very valid point, GtW !

Certainly not worth wearing out the HDD with "That wouldn't be too bad but it kept it up until I got bored 32 hours later!!"

After all this time, there's going to be loads of tmp, chk etc. clagging it up so get rid of all that, then possibly defrag - no point in having defrag move all that into neat little sections!

[Cameronian]

Well, markjoy, I went to the 98 site and downloaded his defrag program. I have no screensaver and no pretty picture either so had nothing to stop there. I turned off my router but didn't go into dos or safe mode. There was nothing open except the new defrag.

I ran it for five hours showing details so I would be entertained at least a little. It never got beyond "check for errors", counting up exactly as before from 0% until 4% before dropping back to 0% again. Each cycle took exactly 45 seconds which amounted to 400 cycles - and that was all that happened! It never got to defragging, only checking for errors on 4% of the disc 400 times!

Gloom!

Where do I put the bullet?

[Tarq57]

Depends how determined you are to get it working, I guess. Since you watched it for 5 hours, I'm guessing your fairly determined.

Linked from the Mesich page were some advisories, (MS KB's) re defrag problems. Included was advice to turn all other programs off, eg AV, Antispyware, anything that auto updates, elsewhere a suggestion to clean boot the computer, elsewhere the advice that sometimes this behaviour can be caused by a virus or other malware. You can browse those pages, so I won't bother linking, especially since I'm none too sure, myself.

One thing that might be worth a look: in msconfig (Start>run>msconfig) in the startup section, how many applications are set to start with windows?

Have you tried a scan disk, including "fix any errors found"? Hope you haven't, yet, because it sounds like a real good place to go next.
Are there any tasks in taskmanager that might be trying to run at the same time?

[Air Conditioned]

I bin there, done that. Eventually I got some prompts that taught me how to get Win 98 defrag to work OK.

I now pre-empt the system with two actions:

Run ScanDisk. "Standard" is OK.

I then close every programme except Explorer. That is, select the Close Program window (CTRL-ALT-DELETE) and in turn highlight each item then END TASK. Repeat until only Explorer comes up in the window. Some items in my setup have to be actioned more than once before they close. I can action another END TASK before the previous one is complete, but have to be careful that I have indeed hit END TASK, or else the computer will restart at the second CTRL-ALT-DELETE.

Defrag then runs without hangup. Don't hold your breath, it takes a while.

My screensaver is only wallpaper, and I don't turn it off. Whether you need to deselect an active screensaver, I don't know.

[BOAC]

AC - why not give 'Safe' a go?

[Vajra]

For current versions of Windows, Diskeeper pro is my preferred defragmenting program since it can be set to automatic defrag and does a great job.
However, for Win 98 none of the current Diskeeper versions work, so I'd suggest that you check out the free Diskeeper Lite from a few years ago. It is freeware and can be downloaded from here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207
It ought to defrag Win 98.

[Cameronian]

Well, I started scandisk (full-strength and with auto repair) in safe mode, with the real time function of AVG turned off (I thought I'd turned it off completely!) and with the router disconnected. It has been running since 1200 hrs yesterday - nearly 24 hours and has currently reached 672,000 clusters out of a total of 1,250,000 so it looks as if i've got nearly another 24 hours to wait before I can start a defrag in earnest.

I had a look at the diskeeper lite link but am not entirely sure it will do a full defrag and it describes its function as "manual". If this means I have to watch it working and respond at various stages throughout the process then I think it will be too much to ask!! It may simply mean that it will do "one-off" proper defrags but won't work automatically on a permanent basis. That would be fine, especially if it's quicker than the W 98 version. Does anyone know, please? Perhaps I should just bite the bullet and try the official W 98 version but I don't know if my poor 10years old HDD is up to 96 hours of continual operation. "The cure was perfect but the patient died" springs to mind!!

This is a borrowed laptop which I'm using while the torture continues in the room next door.

[Tarq57]

Hi, Cameronian,
from all your descriptions, it's sounding to me like you have a rather old and commensurately underpowered computer running too many modern programs.
What's the RAM and CPU of this beast?
Therein may be the problem. Nothing should take that long. BTW, that program from Mesichdotcom is simply a modification to the standard '98 defrag, to turn it into the ME defrag. A bit like putting a mini cooper camshaft into a Morris Minor.

[Cameronian]

Yes, it's old! Normal operation is fine and subjectively just as fast as this 1 month old Compaq laptop I'm using at this moment (I know it can't really be as fast but there is no problem for what I do).
Which defrag should I use for W 98? I want it to do a good job, not take an age and be easy to run.