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Thread ID: 8325 2001-03-19 09:49:00 Defragmenting Guest (0) Press F1
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10201 2001-03-19 09:49:00 My Hard disk is fragmented quite badly and I am havn't difficulty defraging it
I defrags very slowly and after around 30 seconds of defragmenting it says the drives contents have changed and starts again, if it keeps doing this it will take about 20 hours to finish.

Also sometimes is locks up completly saying that windows or some other program has locked it up.

Help would be appreciated.
cheers
Guest (0)
10202 2001-03-19 11:03:00 Hi Simon,
Yes this is a very common problem!

The problem with the defragment utility that ships with windows is that it is essentially a 16 bit app with a 32 bit overlay. As you probably know, Windows 9x is a 32 bit operating system with a 32 bit file system. When you run Windows, there are several hidden applications and processes that also run in the background. A 16 bit application is unable to handle multiple applications running simultaneously (multitasking) and must 'wait its turn' when other applications are running, hence, 'drives contents changed,...'

What I suggest is either get a pure 32 bit defragment utility ( Norton Speed disk is a good choice )or, goto;
www.etechnik.com/pdefrag.html and download the powerdefrag utility. This wee program is excellent! Essentially all it does is improves the default Windows defragger. When you run it, it will reboot your system and run the windows defragger without any other programs running in the background, not even the Windows GUI is loaded, giving a totally controlled enviroment. You should find that it now takes a fraction of the time to defrag and it should now complete without any errors.

Hope this helps.

Bruce Flyger
Guest (0)
10203 2001-03-19 16:21:00 Top answer there Bruce . . can I adopt you by any chance ?? . . . . There is another way to do it which doesn't involve turning off every programme / function in windoze 98 . . . . . something which I've never been able to achieve anyway .

Simon, the only sure fire way to get the actual windoze Defrager to run is to do so in 'Safe Mode' . Using the F8 key .
Guest (0)
10204 2001-03-19 23:14:00 Thanks for that, although the etechnik.com site isn't there
i'll try the safe mode option...
Guest (0)
10205 2001-03-20 06:42:00 Sorry, my fault!,
try;
www.e-technik.com/pdefrag.html
or if that doesn't work try;
www.powerdefrag.com.

Bruce Flyger
Guest (0)
10206 2001-03-25 11:25:00 you will need to turnn off or disable your virus app and your screen saver as a first option
this should work
second option is to close all running programmes by using the Ctrl/Alt/Delete key abd clicking on the app. to disable - leave explorer and runapp.
good luck
Guest (0)
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