I want to do a defrag, but it says I have to run Scandisk to fix errors. That's fine... BUT... it can't seem to get through the entire session. Its says something about having to restart 10 times.
I went through the background and turned off everything running except explorer and systray.
I don't know what else to do... any suggestions? Thanks!!
Posted by Tony McDonald (Member # 1158) on :
Sounds like something is running in the background...like anti-virus.
Posted by Alan Ackerson (Member # 3224) on :
Hi Dana,
Did you disable the screen saver? When running scan disc I also kill the modem by disconnecting the cable line.
[ July 13, 2004, 09:47 AM: Message edited by: Alan Ackerson ]
Posted by Kimberly Zanetti (Member # 2546) on :
Dana,
Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and see the programs that it lists...that's everything that's running. Turn off everything but the basics like Explorer. That will insure that the ScanDisk will not be interupted.
BTW, you don't HAVE to run Scan Disk before a defrag, it's just their suggestion. I've done it plenty of times without it but you will have the same issue with it restarting if you don't close all the other programs first.
Posted by David Wright (Member # 111) on :
The best way to defrag and scan is to run it in Safe Mode. No interfering programs to get in the way.
Posted by Dana Bowers (Member # 780) on :
Thanks for the replies. I turned off the internet, turned off all screensaver stuff, control alt deleted everything off except systray and explorer, exited antivir, exited everything I could in the lower tool bar... STILL get the warning window that it has started 10 times.
I will probably have to do the safe mode thing. But I don't understand why it won't work with everything turned off? Am I missing something here?? I remember it working in the past.
Posted by Nevman (Member # 332) on :
Safe Mode is the best wawy Dana...'
Good Luck !
Posted by Curtis hammond (Member # 2170) on :
Vote number three for safe mode. USe safe mode..
Windows has a couple of programs that run in the back ground you will never be able to turn off. Such as the quick find indexer. It runs no matter what and this one is almost always the one that makes your scandisk restart so many times..
Running in safe mode does not load all the oer head that scandisk cannot get along with.
Posted by Hubert Furey (Member # 3951) on :
Hi Dana,
See this link to a Microsoft technical doc. It will list a variety of things to try.
Thanks
Posted by Dana Bowers (Member # 780) on :
Wow Hubert... THANKS!!! That's exactly it!
You guys are the best! Posted by Frank Droog (Member # 3958) on :
hardware is not my specialty. I thought all harddrives where 1:1 spin ratio these days. So the harddrive can seek to any sector as fast as any other. Therefor defrag is irrelavent as it provides no speed increase. Or am i wrong.
Posted by Frank Droog (Member # 3958) on :
hardware is not my specialty. I thought all harddrives where 1:1 spin ratio these days. So the harddrive can seek to any sector as fast as any other. Therefor defrag is irrelavent as it provides no speed increase. Or am i wrong.
Posted by Ron Wakefield (Member # 4816) on :
Hi Dana, The others have good suggestions; especially about Safe Mode. Down the road however you should consider a third party utility like Norton System Works which includes Speed Disk (defrag/optimization utility). I've been keeping my PC's running in tip top shape over the years and it's been very helpful. Just a thought. -Ron
Posted by Curtis hammond (Member # 2170) on :
Defragging??
Yes it makes a diference in speed. If your data is allover the disk it takes time to acces each section and read it. If it is all in one continous line the seek head does not have to travel looking for data. Each seek goes from FAT to data back to fat to find the next packet back to FAT to find next packet etc. All this in mili seconds but times that by 100,00 seeks just for one packet then you see it will take time.
Small files don't matter much. Bigger files do matter. Especially if you are rendering DVD's or graphic files.
Posted by Frank Droog (Member # 3958) on :
Thats what i dont understand. I was told that the seek time from any sector to any sector is the now same for any drive less that 10 years old. Therefor it is irrelevant if its defragged all over the place or contiguous. I understood ,but may be wrong, that it is only OLD OLD (8088 - 80486 days) where the seek time is differant.
Or is this false advertizing. If the seek time to ANY sector is the same, and yet a defrag does speed up performace, where does this speed up come from. Just curious, cause if seek time is the same, whats the point of defragging.
Posted by Mindy Cassingham (Member # 4802) on :
Computer drives are so fast now, that you are only gain milliseconds of saved time. And drives are so large that it takes hours to complete the task. So what are you really gaining? Lost time that the computer can't be used while it is sorting its files to gain maybe .003 second faster seek time.... think about it.
Now with a good solid unix based operating system, there isn't even a user function to defrag a drive. The operating system keeps track of the superblocks of data and consolidates them as required. In old school Linux/Unix systems, there is a chkfs command, which corrolates the data addresses to the data location. This command runs automatically when required. It is so unnecessary, that Norton System Works has been discontinued for the OS X platform.
It's easier to make a user friendly bullet proof Unix based operating system than to fix Windows many many issues.
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