Actually, it’s my GF’s 'puter. MY computer actually did have the same problem the week before it crashed horribly; the defrag would get to about 20% complete, and eventually even less, before the message would come up that “the defragmentation was complete”.
On my GF’s, it just got up to about 80% before announcing completion. Why is it not going to 100%? Is this an indication that something is horribly wrong? The timeliness of my pretty major computer crash after this problem surfaced has me a bit concerned.
I’d suggest running a surface check using ScanDisk - the only time I’ve seen Defrag run short of 100% and claim to be finished is when there’s bad sectors on the drive.
I had defrag problems on my old computer that was running Windows 98. Make sure you are shutting down everything that might be running in the background before trying to defrag, including your screen-saver and any virus protection. Mine just kept retrying and failing until I shut everything off.
This probably isn’t the correct answer but it may be related.
I’ve seen defrag keep restarting itself after about 10% without ever completing. This apparently is related to having your system on the internet while trying to defrag (usually cable or dsl).
If a surface scan doesn’t show any bad sectors, try a 3rd party defrag app. And look at your processes running as Chef suggested.
This is actually caused by any read/write to the HDD - the contents have been changed, and the Defrag must start over. Since windows relies heavily on the use of a swap file, read/write to the HDD can be caused by any program. Make sure you shut everything down, including your connection to the internet (some windows protocol drivers use the HDD to cache information) and your screensaver.
I had that problem once. But it was the same whether or not I was on the internet. It lasted until I formated my hard drive, but I suppose there would have been less expeditive ways to deal with the issue.
Well, unfortunately I’m home and probably won’t be back at the SO’s for a couple of days, so I won’t be able to implement any of the suggestions here till then (and she’s about 10X more computer illiterate than me so that’s out), but:
XP
Not sure how to do that.
I’m pretty sure I did this. I was just trying to do some general maintenance (her PC is a total mess!) From the C drive properties menu I “checked for errors” and this began a 5 part process which took a few hours.
I’m not sure that’s the problem here. I used to have that problem with WinME (though I’m sure it’s the same on other OS’s) where it would keep starting over until you went to the task manager and shut down everything. Perhaps I should do that in this case anyway, but the problem here isn’t that it keeps starting over, but rather that it indicates that it has been completed far before reaching 100%.
If he is running Win 95 or Win 98, the problem can be that something is running in the background and changing the information on the hard drive. He will have to run in Safe Mode or use a 3rd party defrag such as VOPT. That will work in any mode and does a good job.
Just thought of something.
Does the computer have at least 15% free space? Defrag uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15% free space, Defrag only partially defragments it.
With ME, when you first boot up and when you see the underscore in the top left of the screen (in my computer, after the Dell logo), press F5 repeatedly, and you will then see the message that Windows is bypassing the start-up items. Alternatively, you can press F8 but this gives you certain options. You can opt for safe mode, but F5 gives it to you directly. Another way is to restart the computer, and after pressing the “restart” press “Ctrl” repeatedly, and it should restart with the same options as F8. I don’t know if this works in XP, but you can try it.
The problem with Diskeeper is that it slows down your puter while it is defragging. Granted that it can defrag while you’re working on it, but it does slow things down. If you use Diskeeper, do not also use the Windows defragger. They operate by different methods and you may wind up not being able to load windows. IMHO diskeeper is for people who are on the puter all day long. Again, IMHO stick with the Windows defragger, which is sufficient.
Compared to the Windows defragger, that’s a giant leap forward; with that dog you can’t have anything running at all, or you get the “disk contents have changed, restarting” routine, ad nauseum.
So do it in Safe Mode. What’s the big deal? When I boot up the puter the first time on a day, I first defrag and do it in Safe Mode, and then it usually takes 10 minutes. Even in Safe Mode, it sometimes restarts due to “disk contents have changed,” but it jumps right back to where it left off in seconds. I don’t know how disk contents change in Safe Mode. What can be writing to the disk? Does anyone know?
If you have Norton Works, it also has an “optimizer,” which works quite efficiently in regular mode.
BTW, I always have a book handy to read while I wait for the puter to do things, such as accessing this MB.
