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Topic: Problems Defragging |
Jimmy Gibson
From:
Cornwall, England
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Posted 1 May 2005 12:28 pm |
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Please help I have been trying to defrag my system,but it gets to 1% and then it starts again,this goes on all the time without any progress.I would be very grateful for any help on solving this problem.Thanks.
Jimmy Gibson. |
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Gere Mullican
From:
LaVergne, Tennessee, USA (deceased)
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Posted 1 May 2005 12:36 pm
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Disable your screen saver and anything that is running in the background and defrag should continue to completion.
Gere
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GFI SD10, Peavey NV 112, Hilton Pedal & Boss DD-3 & PODxt
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Jim Vogan
From:
Ohio City, Ohio 45874
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Posted 1 May 2005 12:59 pm
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I have the same problem. I put the computer in safe mode and it defrags with no problem.
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Jim Vogan
Derby SD 10 3&5
G.D. Walker Stereo Steel Combo
Bakelite Ric
Hilton volume pedal
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 1 May 2005 1:51 pm
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Jim's way is the easiest for older Operating Systems. If it's a Windows XP machine you don't have to be concerned when it's defragged as you don't have to turn applications off or go into safe mode.
Another option with older OS's (e.g. Win98, Win ME) is to download Enditall2 and run that, it will kill everything except what is absolutely necessary for windows to run and you can run defrag. Do a search for enditall2 on google. |
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Bobby Lee
From:
Cloverdale, California, USA
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Posted 1 May 2005 2:17 pm
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| I defragging even necessary with today's operating systems? |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 1 May 2005 3:36 pm
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Microsoft still suggests it with XP and NTFS. Defragging will speed up things. The Microsoft defragger in XP will assemble the most often used programs into a location for faster access. (Big Brother knows your favorite programs....).
I would think it's even more an issue with the larger and larger hard drives and the files scattered throughout the hard drive. |
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Al Marcus
From:
Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)
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Posted 1 May 2005 7:31 pm
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Jack-Thanks for you information which is always useful. I have Xp and I dont know how to De-Frag or do any of those discs work, I had it all on my Window 98, but the xp is very a thin manual and dosent mention much. I think I could do more maintenance, and had more control with Win 98 and still could get DOS. Now I can't "print screen "anymore. ...al
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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 2 May 2005 2:09 am
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Al, unless you have a special program there is no "print screen" in Windows. When you "print scrn" it copies it to the clipboard and you have to paste it to a program such as the Wordpad to print the screen. To do the print screen, hold the CTRL (Control) key down and then press the Print Screen Key.
Defrag can be accessed in Windows XP, from the Control Panel/Performance and Maintenance. Click on "Reaarange items on your hard disk to make programs run faster". It can also be accessed on the Windows Explorer, RIGHT click on the hard drive and the LEFT click on Properties. When the Panel comes up Click on the Tools Tab. |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 2 May 2005 3:01 am
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Occasional defragmentation is essential on any Windows desktop OS. If you have any doubt, another route to it is Start Menu/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter (that's if it's not hidden, see below), and you can just run the analysis tool. On Win2K and XP, fragmented portions show up as red, and in XP, a popup makes a recommendation about whether or not you should defrag. Disks can become fragmented, especially when the free space on the disk partition starts getting small. A file is fragmented when 2 or more pieces of it are scattered across the drive, and fragmentation is normally expressed as a percent of the entire volume's files that are fragmented. High fragmentation slows things down, both running programs and accessing data. NTFS is supposed to handle this better than the FAT file systems, but I'd check it occasionally anyway. On Win9x, it's a good idea to shut down any running programs. But WinNT/2K/XP should work fine without that.
Jack, you're right that huge disk partitions have more problems. I make separate partitions for data, which keeps the partition sizes manageable, and also separates my data from the core OS files. That way, if I have an OS problem, I can just wipe the C partition clean and quickly reinstall the OS without losing my data. These days with spyware, trojans, worms, etc., so prevalent, it's useful to be able to quickly wipe C clean and start over.
Al, You can still get a command prompt to run DOS programs on XP. Go to Start Menu/Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt or better yet, when you get there, right click on "Command Prompt" and then click "Send to" > Desktop(create shortcut). This puts a Command Prompt icon on your desktop. Just double click that to quickly get to a command prompt.
Most anything you could do with Win9x can be done on Win2K/XP, but a lot of things are hidden by default. That's why I opt to use the "Windows Classic" interface, which is basically the same as the Win98 interface. If you want to try that, right click Start Menu, then click Properties. Hit the radio button that says "Classic Start Menu", and you might want to hit the "Customize" menu button. In the lower window, I normally check "Display Admin Tools", "Display Log Off", "Display Run", "Enable dragging and dropping", "Expand Control Panel", "Expand Network Connections", "Expand Printers", and uncheck "Use Personalized Menus". It's this last one that hides things that you don't use often, drives me nuts.
You're right, the "manual" is a joke. They wouldn't want to interfere with book publishers making $$$ selling you a book to show you how to use the OS.  |
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 2 May 2005 6:24 am
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| Quote: |
| I make separate partitions for data, which keeps the partition sizes manageable, and also separates my data from the core OS files. That way, if I have an OS problem, I can just wipe the C partition clean and quickly reinstall the OS without losing my data. These days with spyware, trojans, worms, etc., so prevalent, it's useful to be able to quickly wipe C clean and start over. |
Still a partial solution, unfortunately, since, even though you've avoided loss of the data in the other partition(s), the new install of Windows won't be aware of any applications loaded there, so they won't show up in the new Start Menu, etc. Any files they require which used to be in the system folders, such as .dlls commonly found in c:\windows\system32\ won't be available either if the root partition is wiped clean.
I've not found any way to make reinstalling Windows a happy experience. My current approach is making mirror images of my entire C drive once a week, and storing them on a separate hard drive on my system. I've had to use it, and it does work. I keep three of these images available, dropping the oldest one when I add each new one. I lose minimal data with weekly backups, but I'd do it more frequently if something important was involved.[This message was edited by Dave Potter on 02 May 2005 at 07:35 AM.] |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 2 May 2005 10:25 am
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You're right, if you install apps that require registry access to the data partitions, you won't have access to them when you reinstall Windows. So I install any such apps to the C-drive. This of course requires re-install of those apps. It's not completely painless, but a lot less painful than having to hunt for your data when reformatting or losing your data. I'd also say it makes sense to reconsider what apps I really need every once in a while. I've never actually had to reformat, but once a year I normally do it to avoid things getting sluggish. The registry can get pretty congested, especially if apps are installed and uninstalled.
Of course, you're correct, backup-backup-backup your data. I do network backups once a week, at home and at work. I also share data partitions and dual-boot with Linux, yet another reason to 'separate church and state', so to speak, by keeping just data on the data partitions. |
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Winston Street
From:
Laurel, Mississippi, USA
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Posted 2 May 2005 11:09 am
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| Jimmy, one thing that you also might want to try that I have found over the years that will fix a lot of problems. Especially if it is something that worked before and has all of a sudden quit working correctly. If you have a desktop computer, shut it down, unplug it from the wall plug-in, wait about a minute and re-plug it in and boot back up. If you have a lap top you must also take out the battery. This allows the computer to re-set its own self and most of time the problem will dissapear. I always do this before I start running trouble shooters and all the technical stuff. |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 2 May 2005 11:38 am
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Winston, that may clear a "temporary" problem, or something that got hung up but it really won't permanently fix something.
I've been throught that many times with my Network/Hardware techs. If someone has a problem, repowering may "clear" it but it's not really addressing or fixing the real problem - why did it happen to start with or it will come back. Same way with Network problems, we could "take them out and put them back in" (recycle them) and it would clear them so they could use the network, but why did it happen to start with.
Having worked in or with computers since the early 60's (I know big iron and even tubes) repowering is a last option. |
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Winston Street
From:
Laurel, Mississippi, USA
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Posted 2 May 2005 2:19 pm
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| Jack, I agree with you 100% on "fixing the problem" but most computer owners don't know how to get into the software and trouble shoot it or fix it. I don't understand exactly what happens when you take the power away from the computer (not just re-booting)but I do know that over the last 10 years it has worked well for me. I only owned one computer before Windows 95 came out. For my own information I would like to know why re-powering is the last option. It may keep me from doing something stupid in the future. I have always been told that was one of the first options. Don't think I'm trying to start a debate on the subject because I'm not. I'd really like to learn why. |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 2 May 2005 3:14 pm
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Winston, when you repower the PC, it resets all the logic elements to their initial state. With everything reset you basically "start over". This was used for years to clear old discrete component and TTL logic and did at least appear to fix problems. The only thing many times it would happen again (and again) so repowering gets it going but ultimately doesn't fix anything. The reason for waiting approx 20 seconds or so before repowering was to allow the power supply voltages to bleed off to zero.
If it's a software problem, repowering reloads and reinitializes the program. Again it clears the current problem but you may be back to it doing it again so you really haven't "fixed" anything.
Howver, one issue is the fact that modern computers and software have got so complicated that a user trying to troubleshoot is like the proverbial "needle in a haystack". The dreaded software reinstallation, unfortunately, is what is required in many cases. I don't like to "admit defeat and reinstall" but it has become a routine software troubleshooting tool.
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 2 May 2005 3:39 pm
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Winston, the problem with just powering the computer off while the OS is running is that some operating systems wait to write things back to the disk. It queues these things, and when, in its infinite wisdom it decides it's time to write them back, it does it. When you tell the OS you want to shut down, that's one of the things it makes sure is done before it powers down. If you circumvent that by powering it off cold-turkey, it doesn't get a chance to do these disk writes. This could be data, or even worse, things that relate to the structure of the file system. Back on the old Win9x OSs, when you powered down without properly shutting down the system, the ScanDisk program would run when you powered back up. This was to check to make sure the file system didn't have errors.
On the issue of doing a full power-off shutdown vs a momentary reset, Jack's correct on this. The full shutdown with a restart delay clears the voltages in the logic circuits.
In terms of the need to shut down systems sometimes, that is sometimes necessary, especially with DOS-based OSs like Win9x. The problem, IMO, is that as programs get put into memory, run, then clear the memory they're using, some programs never properly clear the memory. These are programming errors known as 'memory leaks'. Eventually, you can wind up with a bunch of memory that is taken up, but not doing anything. If these memory leaks are in the OS software itself, the only way to reclaim that memory is to shutdown the system. But you should almost always let the OS do the shutdown if at all possible. There is one exception I can think of - if you find yourself being affected by something like a virus, just turn the power off. The problem is that viruses can erase or write garbage to your hard drive. By turning the power off, you stop it, and someone may be able to recover your data from the disk. |
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Winston Street
From:
Laurel, Mississippi, USA
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Posted 2 May 2005 5:46 pm
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Dave and Jack:
Thanks guys for the comments. Hope I didn't mistate shuting the computer down. There is only a few reasons to have to shut down "cold turkey". I never do this usless the computer completely locks up and alt,ctrl,delete doesn't do the trick. And no one else should either. I usually never save files on my computer unless it is something current that I am working on. I save all files to external hard drives which total almost 600 gigs. Two of the hard drives are used exclusively for backup. I just had to replace the 60 gig hard drive in my computer and the backups were life savers. Had a lot of fun re-installing all the cad programs, databases, and software writing programs and upgrades. I was at it almost two days getting everything set back up.
But your right, un-installing and reinstalling is a good fix for most problems but I have seen times that that didn't work. Especially if the computer doesn't delete all of the files associated with the program and you have to go hunt them down and delete them manually..
I have no idea how you would re-install disk deframentation unsless you re-install the OS.
Maybe System Restore, and then you have to watch what your doing to keep from losing programs that you have installed after the restore point that you use. Course you can always back up to the day after the last program that you installed and try it there. For something that only understands 0's and 1's it can get pretty complicated. |
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