When I try to defrag my HD, the computer locks up at 10 percent I have to turn it off and restart it...If I go straight to defrag it will lock again at the same spot. Scan disk shows no HD errors.....

Any suggestions?

You might not have enough free space for it to move the files around.

Try deleting some files and clean up some room first.

1. Make sure you have your hard drive backed up anyway. Your hard drive may still be in danger.

2. Look in your event logs in Windows to see what's happening. Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer. Look at the System error log and see if you find any messages that happened about the time you were defragging.

Do you HAVE to defrag? Does the Defrag analyzer suggest you defrag?

Do you have more than 15% free space on the disk as recommended?

Andrew

HD has 80% free

Does the Defrag analyzer suggest you defrag?

yes

no error messages

trying to defrag because it is running sooooo slow.

boot into safe mode, then try to defrag.

http://www.pchell.com/support/safemode.shtml

Also, if ts running slow, try running spybot or other spyware removal tools.

File checker shows HwInfoD.vxd changed on 6-28

Dr Watson says..........

--------------------
Windows KB918547 EXE component has altered Windows system files.

Module Name: KB918547.EXE
Description: Windows KB918547 EXE component
Version: 4.10.2224
Product: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Operating System
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation

Problem?

I hate being so stoopid regarding everyday things.

Is this Windows 98 or ME?

Andrew

As you are dealing with Win98 please try this. Disconnect any Modem or Network cables from PC, if there is a wireless networking card in it disable device in device manager. Re-run defrag and you should be ok. Network connections to Win98 of any kind will foul up defrag bigtime! If it doesn't hang it usually restarts 100 times if connected to a network.

11:11 am oooh my lucky day...always looking at clock at 11:11

Win98SE.... no network..... printer wont print either, but that's another problem......

well here we go.

Not to be discouraging, but Windows 98's Defrag is TERRIBLE. Total crap. The one in Windows 2000 and XP is light years better.

In fact, Windows 98 itself is pretty bad. (So is Windows ME!) I refuse to help friends who bring me something this old, because it's a huge pain to do anything in it. You have to re-boot Windows pretty much any time you change anything. It's much easier for me simply to wipe it and install Windows 2000, which is a far superior operating system (much more stable and reliable).

Andrew

I would rather be using my other computer which has 10x the ram and runs XP, but that one ha a HD that is 85 percent full of who knows what... (it was passed on to me)

Unfortunately, he didn't keep the discs. otherwise I would reformat that or put in a new HD and start from scratch. Local shop wants 75 bucks to do the same thing... two dollars is probably out of my budget right now :-)

Thanks for the suggestions. Defrag wasn't a problem until recently, nor the printer problem.

With all the features, you would think there would be a diagnostic for errors printer is not ready.... ok, Why? it's on, new cartridge, all conections securely attached... little green light flashes rather than steady. Cannon tech support walked through the manual page by page... (i can read) Then said, I don't know. Take it in for service.

Oh well, no big deal. thanks again for taking the time, all.

If it has XP, you can create your own restore disks.

I don't think you can create your own restore disks on most versions of XP. Some manufacturer-installed versions of XP (e.g. from Dell) did give you the option to make your own restore disks but not lately in my experience. Manufacturers have moved to restore partitions instead - that's what my laptop has (had).

Andrew

You can usually make cd's from the restore partition.

You need them, in case of a total disk failure.

But if you have a regular version of XP with no restore partition, you can't make the CDs most likely. And if your restore partition works, you don't need CDs to re-install.

I'd stay it's even a better idea to image your whole hard disk, maybe right after you've installed, done all the Windows updates, and installed much of your software, so you have a "clean" version of your OS with software. Have the image backup and you can just restore it to any hard drive if your main drive fails or if you get a virus and just want to wipe and start over. Would save you hours vs. completely starting over.

I use True Image from Acronis for this (True Image is like Ghost).

Andrew

I have Mandrake 10 (aka. Mandriva) on my machine, and I keep a copy of 98 on there, with the whole rig set up as a dual-booter (just in case...)

For what it's worth, if you are particularly handy with FDISK you can make a sort-of "restore partition" for your Win98 and in my case, Linux as well....this involves copying the entire contents of the CD to an extended (and hopefully active!) partition on your hard drive. (For example, mine is the D: drive which is hosted on the same physical HDD as my C: drive the system boots from.) You would also need a boot floppy to do this bit.

But the really cool part is you don't even need the CD to restore it from should something happen to F up your Windows or Linux, 'cuz it's all there in the machine and ready to go. All that's left to do, then, is boot up and access it.

Oh yes, and make CERTAIN you have backed up your system!! (If you do a clean install--even of Mandrake--it will COMPLETELY reformat your C: drive......)

And by the way, the Defrager that ships stock with 98 really, really SUCKS...can't say much about SE because I haven't had any experience with that one. Personally I have favoured Nyquist DiskMagic for several years.....it is a suite of hard drive maintenence tools, can be run from DOS but also has a GUI front end for Windows, which by and far is more compatible with hard drives >8GB as it also takes advantage of the VFAT and large disk functions of Windows. You *could* run the DOS version on a hard drive greater than 8GB, but you might end up screwing things up ROYALLY if you do. (This is from experience.)

I don't know if Disk Magic is even still in production or not....my copy is version 5, copyrighted in 2000. May be just somewhat out of date now.........

I use Damn Small Linux for these kinds of things. It's a command line deal, but you get:

-fdisk capability

-ability to copy between partitions / disks

-ability to deal with MBR (master boot record)

From there, it's just a matter of deciding what you want to do.

I used to make images pretty often. All you need is a drive, equal to or bigger than the disk you want to image.

Then make partitions, make them active, then use the dd command to move all the bits from one disk to the other.