Need computer help - can't defrag

self | March 28, 2008 | vanity

[bgill]

I have Windows XP Professional.

I have I haven't been able to defrag my C drive in months. C drive is a NTFS file system if that means anything. I can defrag the other drive but it's a FAT32.

It says it can't defrag because it's in another volume.

Months ago, I tried the online solution of going into C: prompt and typing in to schedule a scan disk to run at start up. I don't see that did anything.

Today, I tried to defrag it and got a pop up window that said, "Disk Defragmenter has detected that Chkdsk is scheduled to run on the volume: (C:). Please run Chkdsk /f."

Ok, so in C prompt the message is, "The type of the file system is NTSF. Cannot lock current drive. Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts."

All I want is for the defrag to work and to see all the little blue areas lumped together nice and neatly, and for it to restart quicker.

[Vendome]

You need 15%+ of free space on your hard drive to defrag.

If your hard drive 100GB you should ideally have 200GB of free space or 150GB minimum.

[bgill]

I have 60% free space so all is good.

[Oceander]

Ahh. Sounds like you’ve just been using your system as it came - I’m guessing you have a really old system that either came with Windows 2000 or ME, that you upgraded to XP, or perhaps came with the original release of Windows XP Pro - and you’ve followed the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That doesn’t make you a dummy - just somebody who has better things to do with his time than getting familiar with the internal plumbing of his computer. That being said, once you get the defragmenting issue sorted out - I would give a try with the freeware defragmenter one of the other posters provided the download link for - it might help if you backed up everything on the FAT32 partition (just for safety’s sake), and then used the built-in XP disk management functionality to convert that FAT32 partition to an NTFS partition.

[Egon]

Just out of curiousity, why do you still have a partition that’s formatted as a FAT32 partition? Even NTFS is an old file system that’s beginning to show its age, and FAT32 is the file system equivalent of a model T.

I have a shared partition on a Linux and WindowsXP dual-boot. It needs to be FAT32 so Linux can write to it. Just sayin'

[edcoil]

msconfig
startup tab
click on disable everything
restart
This is what the computer runs in the background every time you computer runs, 99.9% is not needed and, if you do need it to start - click on its icon and run the program normally.

[DaveTesla]

Go to - MY COMPUTER
Right Click - LOCAL DISK (C:)
Choose - PROPERTIES
Choose - TOOLS -
Choose - CHECK NOW.

A screen will pop up and give you two options. You need to choose the “Automatically Fix File System Errors” (which means the chkdsk/f.

A screen will ask you if you want to schedule a check disk at startup - you choose Y for YES (even though you are getting the “Can’t use Disk Defragmenter because of Checkdisk (Chkdsk/f)) select Y (Yes) anyway.

Make sure you turn your computer completely OFF and then restart.

[SouthDixie]

1. Access the "My Computer" menu. You can do this by clicking the Start menu and clicking the "My Computer" menu option. You can also double-click the "My Computer" icon if you've enabled it on your desktop.

2. Right-click on the drive on which you wish to run the Chkdsk F command.

3. Click "Properties" in the right-click context menu.

4. Click on the "Tools" tab in the Properties window.

5. Click on the "Check Now" button in the "Error-checking" frame of the Tools tab.

6. Click in the "Automatically fix file system errors" check box under the "Check disk options" frame in the following window. This is the step which enables the "/f" command in Chkdsk.

7. Click "Start" to begin the Chkdsk scan. If there are a lot of processes running in the background, or if Chkdsk determines that it should be run when you next restart your computer, it will suggest it. It is always advisable to run the Chkdsk from the restart in this case.

8. Set your system to safe mode with the "/SAFEBOOT" command from the MSCONFIG program. Click "Start" and "Run." Type "MSCONFIG" and enable the "/SAFEBOOT" option from the BOOT.INI tab if your anti-virus or anti-spyware software is conflicting with the Chkdsk process.

[Oceander]

Very good point! That’s a positively good reason for still having a FAT32 partition. Thanks for answering my pestiferous little question!

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Globally shut down your recycling monitor(s) (XP and probably Norton).
They lock the disk.
Other than that, Windows doesn’t care.
I’m running it on C (NTFS) right now.
I don’t use recycle anyway.
I have FAT drives too. Simpler to recover crashed data.

[bgill]

Okey dokey. Thanks for the help. Printed out the thread and am taking deep breaths before attempting the unknown... Hope to see y’all on the other side... If I’m not back, well, it’s been fun!

ok - here goes nuthin’ - bye

[waynesa98]

Sounds like your partition has been flagged dirty. Before you defrag you’ll need to chkdsk /f. you can’t chkdsk c: in windows must be done at boot up. If your system won’t do the chkdsk. use msconfig (start run msconfig) go to boot.ini check /safeboot, then reboot. If that does’t work boot from your xp setup disk. choose repair then commad prompt run chkdsk with the /p switch. do it at least 3 times.

[bert]

on another subject, I think my laptop has a virus or malware or something.

Friday I turned it off and yesterday when I rebooted, after turning on windows, the screen goes black. It occasionally makes some noise and the hard drive runs but no video.....black screen?

It runs in Safe Mode OK

Need help quick or I’ll miss the live American Idol thread Tuesday :)

[Caesar Soze]

I have a shared partition on a Linux and WindowsXP dual-boot. It needs to be FAT32 so Linux can write to it. Just sayin'

What version of Linux are you using? Haven't they all come with ntfs-3g for years now?

[Vendome]

Hmmmm.... then you have a conflict program. Turn off your Anti*.* anything, make sure you are not connected to the internet if you do it.

That’s the hard way and it seems you don’t know how do that, which okay.

So here is the easy way and it is more accurate.

Boot up into safe mode, hitting F8 while booting will get you there.

From there you can defrag and should be no problemo.

You will not be on the internet while that happening and you should not touch your computer while in defrag otherwise you have to start all over.

I usually let it run over night.

Another way to get better performance is to use ccleaner and it’s easy to use.

Then get a program called Eraser http://eraser.heidi.ie/. It will write over any empty space and clean it. Set it to Mil standard/write 7 times.

So here are the steps:

Boot to safe mode
run ccleaner
run defrag
use eraser to write over any empty space. If you are not sure about this step then absolutely skip it. You can wipe your hard drive using Eraser.

[Vendome]

You spun your drive. Time for a new computer.

Get new computer
Take hard drive out of old computer, place into external hard drive enclosure and copy to your new computer ASAP before it is unreadable.

[Clive]

Egon wrote:
"I have a shared partition on a Linux and WindowsXP dual-boot. It needs to be FAT32 so Linux can write to it. Just sayin'

I conventionally had a small FAT32 partition for just that reason. Now I simply use NTFS-3G instead.

If you have a current Linux distribution it ought to be part of the distribution.

My systems were dual boot until my son bought his own laptop. Now my system is totally Linux. I have an external seen as NTFS by my son's Vista machine and as NTFS-3G by my Linux system so that either of us can use it for backup,

[rambo316]

bump for later

[Age of Reason]

I thought a drive in NTFS format doesn’t need defragging.

For the heck of it, I tried defragging a few hard discs through the years that were NTFS, and defragging accomplished nothing. Even after running daily for years, there was little or nothing to defrag.

[Oceander]

If it’s the system drive, it will get fragmented rather quickly.

[Age of Reason]

Didn’t seem to be the case in my experience.

Two PCs, one running Windows 2K and the other Windows XP, all hard discs in both computers were NTFS format.

And when after using those PC’s for years, I ran defrag it showed little if any need to defrag the drives, which I did anyway, with little if any difference.