Whenever I try to defrag my hard drive, it goes to about 10%, pauses and then says that the information on the drive changed, and starts over.
How do I fix it?
If it matters: Pentium 333, Win 98, no other applications running at the time either.
I had problems with this too. Not sure if this is your problem, but try killing everything that is running on your computer. Sometimes, even “idle” programs are writing to your hard drive. The only thing I couldn’t kill was Explorer (when I tried to kill it, it would try to shut down my computer completely) and that friendly piece of software seems to update your hard drive while you do a defragment. I just had to sit in front of the computer and babysit the error messages until it made it through. Not a good way to spend an afternoon.
Hope that helps.
Don’t leave anything else running at the same time. Turn off your virus scanners, your email programs, your downloads, and anything else that would write to the HDD. Then, you should be fine.
it could be the swap file that is changing. I cannot think of anything else
Some general advice below from the noted microsoft website.
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q186/9/78.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0
Disk Defragmenter: “Drive’s Contents Have Changed: Restarting…”
SYMPTOMS
When you use Disk Defragmenter to defragment your hard disk, the following message may be displayed:
Drive’s Contents Have Changed: Restarting…
CAUSE
This issue can occur if something runs on the drive when Disk Defragmenter is running, an anti-virus program or screensaver are good examples.
RESOLUTION
To work around this issue, use one of the following methods:
Clean Boot
A clean boot is a method of reducing problems that may occur because of your computer’s environment. Many problems running Windows or programs occur because of conflicting drivers, terminate-and-stay- resident programs (TSRs), and other settings that are loaded when your computer starts. Windows 98 includes a System Configuration Utility tool (Msconfig.exe) to make performing a clean boot much easier.
Start the System Information tool, and then start System Configuration Utility using one of the following methods:
-
Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Information.
-
On the Tools menu, click System Configuration Utility.
Start System Configuration Utility with the Run command. To do so, click Start, click Run, type “msconfig.exe” (without quotation marks), and then click OK.
To use System Configuration Utility to perform a clean boot, use one of the methods listed above to start the program, and then follow these steps:
On the General tab, click Selective Startup, and then click to clear the following check boxes:- Process Config.sys File
- Process Autoexec.bat File
- Process Winstart.bat File (if available)
- Process System.ini File
- Process Win.ini File
- Load Startup Group Items
Click OK, and then restart your computer when you are prompted.
After your computer restarts, run the Disk Defragmenter tool. After Disk Defragmenter completes, use the following to restore your computer to a normal boot. Use one of the methods listed above to start Msconfig.exe, and then follow these steps:
On the General tab, click Normal startup, click OK, and then restart your computer when you are prompted.
Safe Mode
Instead of performing a clean boot, you may want to restart your computer in Safe Mode and start the Disk Defragmenter from there. For additional information about how to start your computer in Safe Mode, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q180902 How to Start a Windows 98-Based Computer in Safe Mode
MORE INFORMATION
For additional information about troubleshooting Disk Defragmenter issues, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q218160 Disk Defragmenter Hangs After Choosing Disk to Defragment
Do this: remove defrag from the scheduler, MS is completely off their rocker by defaulting this. Now that you’re ready to defrag reboot your PC and hold down the left shift key. This will boot your computer in ‘Safe Mode,’ which is great because no other programs should be running. Except, your screen saver, which will probably crash your machine if it kicks in when defrag is working. it does on mine. Shut off any screen savers you have. Run scandisk. Now run defrag and go away for at least 45 minutes.
Repeat once a month or so.
My computer did that when I ran Scandisk or Defrag. It was the screensaver. I started disabling it when ran either or those, but then I got Norton Systemworks. When you run Defrag on that, it disables anything that is running and gets on with the job. So, my advice is, try something that is not made by Microsoft.
If you use a real product like Norton, you won’t get that message. You can run Norton with all your programs intact.
O&O defrag is pretty good for NT.
'Nother quick solution:
Click on Start
Click on Shut Down
Click on Restart in MS-DOS mode
Click on OK
When you arrive in DOS, simply type DEFRAG (you don’t have to capitalize it) and press enter.
The only downside is that DOS DEFRAG is not installed by default on most systems. The executable might be hiding in your \WINDOWS\COMMAND directory, though. And it’s on most Win95/98 CDs I’ve used.
I have found it to be the sceensaver, in most cases. Screensavers are no longer really nessesary, and should be gotten rid of, IMHO.
Daniel, you mean that they’re no longer necessary for saving the screen. On the other hand, for something to stare dumbly at in lieu of doing real work, they can’t be beat.
Thanks for all the help, I’ll give them a try later on.
As for killing all running programs, I thought I did that, but I’ll double check.