Defragmenting

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 23 Aug 2000 2:43 pm

Defragmenting [WIN98] is working screwy
lately for me. It keeps saying that the
drivers have changed and it has to go back and read the files again........so nothing really gets defragmented.

I left the pc on, with defragmenting running,
a couple of days ago for nearly 8 hours and
nothing happened.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Chip

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Chip
Williams U-12 8X5

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 23 Aug 2000 2:57 pm

I believe if you check again it's saying the "contents of the drive" has changed, not "drivers". To get defragment to complete, have no programs running other than the defragmenter, and disable your screen saver.

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 23 Aug 2000 4:07 pm

Like Jim said: make sure all programs are disabled before running de-fragmenter. The only things you need to show up in Task Manager (hit Ctrl-Alt-Del once to view) are Explore, Systray, and Syshook.

And do make sure your screen-saver is disabled.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://members.xoom.com/dpennybaker/index.htm

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 24 Aug 2000 2:15 am

I usually just start my system in the safe mode when I want to run the defrag. Eliminates turning off screen savers, etc. as they are not started in the safe mode.

Restart windoes after defrag runs and your done.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 24 Aug 2000 3:25 am

Thanks everyone. I don't have a screensaver.
Jim...my mistake...it did say "CONTENTS".

To get into SAFEMODE aren't you supposed
to hit one of the "F" keys right at that
little 'beep' on Windows startup?

Thanks again all.

Chip

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Chip
Williams U-12 8X5

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 24 Aug 2000 4:12 am

F8 will let you get into the safe mode on WIN98. On some systems you can hold down both CTRL keys and it will do it too.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 24 Aug 2000 5:15 am

Thanks again Jim, Jack, and David. I went
into safe mode and DEFRAG worked as it should.
But how come it worked right in the past
without going to safemode and now it doesn't?

Chip

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Chip
Williams U-12 8X5

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 24 Aug 2000 10:02 am

David and Jack. I learned something today, that I didn't know anything about.
I had programs that said shut everything down, and there was a lot running that I didn't even know about.
Now you have both told me how to get that screen and how to shut down when needed.
Thanks, this forum is great for just about everything!.....al

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 24 Aug 2000 11:45 am

No problem, Al.

I can't give back much in the way of steel guitar (yet, hopefully), but I do know a few things about computers.

BTW, most of the time you don't really have to close down all those programs when instructed to by other programs. But, it's better to be safe than sorry.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://members.xoom.com/dpennybaker/index.htm

Kenny Forbess · Post by **Kenny Forbess** » 25 Aug 2000 6:38 am

David, how often should you run defrag ?
my computer is used at least 5 or 6 hrs. a day.
thanks,

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kenny
66 Emmons D-10 8&7
Blue Derby D-10 8&6

[This message was edited by KENNY FORBESS on 25 August 2000 at 07:39 AM.]

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 25 Aug 2000 9:08 am

There's no definite schedule on the scandisk or defrag. I'd say once a month on scandisk and once every two or three months on defrag. That's my approximate schedule. My machine is turned on in the morning and left on till I turn it off in the evening. I'm still from the old school of not powering up and down frequently. It's probably on 10-12 hours a day. It's not how long it has been on but how much disk activity will really determine how often you should run the maintenance programs.

The scandisk will check the drive for errors and allow for correction. The degrag (defragment) will reorganize the hard drive and defragment the files so they are in continuous blocks or sectors rather than having a file in various, nonsequential, blocks. This also frees up some hard drive space as normal reading/writing to the hard drive will fragmented files as it will write where it has a free block and many times only use a portion of a block of disk space and the rest of that block is wasted, by defragmenting you combine the framented sectors of data and in the process free up some of the blocks or space on the hard drive. Depending on how bad the drive is fragmented will determine how much space is regained. Also the defrag will arrange your most often used programs so they can be accessed faster.

I know this is not exactly what happens but it's close enough for a general non-technical explanation.[This message was edited by Jack Stoner on 25 August 2000 at 10:10 AM.]

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 25 Aug 2000 10:50 am

how often should you run defrag ?

I must confess, I rarely run Defrag.

I keep my Operating System (Win98) on a very small partition (less than 2 GB), with main programs on another partition (8 GB), games on another (8 GB), and my files I'm scanning, etc. on another (8 GB).

I also have my Swap file (fixed to 512 MB) on a separate HDD (1 GB SCSI), along with all my temporary internet files.

This eliminates much of the need for deragmenting on my system. I will typically run it after I've deleted programs (before instsalling new ones). Or if I've cleaned up a lot of files from scanning, and am preparing for several more rolls.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://members.xoom.com/dpennybaker/index.htm

[This message was edited by David Pennybaker on 25 August 2000 at 11:52 AM.]

Kenny Forbess · Post by **Kenny Forbess** » 26 Aug 2000 6:44 am

Thanks Jack for explaining how and what is happening there,
I understand it better now.
and thanks David for explaining how you have yours set up,
soon as I can figure out how you did it, I'll probably go that route,
sounds more trouble-free.
Kenny