Problem trying to defrag Sys Drive (C:)

[Jeff Richards]

.... and perhaps demonstrated yet again.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"glee" <glee29@spamindspring.com> wrote in message
news:OjK8gCNxIHA.4952@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Well, he solved the problem (see the last forward from me this morning),
> though he may have other problems.
>
> I don't mind taking cheap shots at Symantec....they so often are deserved,
> IMHO.
> --
> Glen Ventura, MS MVP Windows, A+
> http://dts-l.net/
> http://dts-l.net/goodpost.htm
>

 

[letterman@invalid.com]

On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 02:59:06 -0500, "SomeOne" <SomeOne@Example.Com>
wrote:

>Please excuse. I am not sure if I am in the proper newsgroup. I am
>shotgunning this to every Win98 newsgroup that I am coming across.
>
>I have tried looking this up on the new, but the only thing that it relates
>to is WinME
>
>I have an old system that I uses for subscription mail.
>
>I had about 100MB mem w/Win98SE
>
>Due to the age of the mother board, I have to use something called EZ Bios
>as I am running a hard drive that is greater than 32 gig.
>
>I have two hard drives. Drive C, E, and F are logical drive and Drive D is
>a single 4 Gig hard driv. Problem is this. I keep getting messages from
>Norton stating that Drive C is heavily fragmented (over 82%) and needs to
>have defrag run on it. When I try and run any of the following software
>Norton Disk Doctor, Optimization Wizard, Speed Disk, Win98 Scan Disk or
>Win98 Disk Defrag, I get the following message "Unable to operate on Drive C
>because it is in use by unknown disk utility. Please close unknown disk
>utility to operate on Drive C".
>
>Now I use Drive C as my system drive and I put nothing on the drive
>directly. When I try and install, I try and have everything go to Drive E
>however, sometimes software does not give me that option.
>
>I have turned off everything that I can find. Have to be careful if I boot
>in DOS and try this as I am not sure of the EZ Bios would be working and I
>do not want to screw up Drive C (Defrag might not see complete Drive C, etc)
>
>I would appreciate any and all help. One thing, I really would prefer not
>to have to reformat Drive C. Drive C is 7.3 Gig with 5.6 Gig free.
>
>Thanks in advance
>
>SomeOne
>
>

Did you run scandisk on ALL drives and partitions. You may have some
lost files or something from a instant shutdown.

Go into your STARTUP folder and write down everything that is enabled.
Then disable everything (disable, not delete). Reboot and try to
defrag again. (later you can re-enable everything)

If you have a virus checker that runs all the time, disable it
temporarily.

Disable all screen savers.

Check for viruses & spyware

If none of the above helped, try to run defrag in Safe Mode.

One last thing.
Get yourself a copy of DEFRAG.EXE from WindowsME. Rename the one that
came with Win98 (in Windows folder), to defrag.98. Copy the ME one
DEFRAG.EXE to the Windows folder. It's far better and much faster
than the one from Win98. It's 100% compatible with 98. If you dont
have a WinME CD, I have seen this defrag file on websites. or ask
someone on a newsgroup to send it to you.

I have used those bios utilities from drive manufacturers and never
had any problems with them. If Windows works, I doubt it's that.
Something above should help. If not, I dont know what else to try.