Defrag problems ?

C

Custer

Guest
The last few times I've run defrag (both Windows and Norton Speed Disk) my machine would only boot to the "improper shutdown" screen. No matter what I choose (start in safe mode, start normally, last known good config) the computer always restarts and stops at this screen. I always end up reinstalling to solve the problem.

I've even changed hard drives, thinking the drive might be flakey. The result was the same. Any suggestions? It's beginning to be a pain reactivating!

Running XP Home, Athlon 1.3, 256mb RAM, iWill KK266Plus MB
 
defrag..

not sure, but doesnt Norton strongly recommend that you run a CHKDKS (NT/2k/XP) or SCANDSK??? before you run defrag???

i suppose it wouldnt hurt to do that first with norton or windows defrag..

maybe there is a problem with your harddrive that chkdsk will detect (you'll see "Found.xxx") folders under your root... if there was any cross-linked/corrupted files found....

then try defrag..see what happens...

good luck:D
~n
 
did you find any "Found.001, Found.002" folders under your C:\ drive..??
 
Well, there goes my first suggestion.

The only thing I can think of would be to run a full chkdsk on your drive(s)/partition(s) and make sure everything is cool there before you do your defrag. I'd then do the defrag (personally, I avoid Norton stuff now because even installing anything seems to muck with too much stuff) and keep rebooting until the problem worked itself out.

You might also try getting a trial copy of Diskeeper and see what you see - XP's built-in defrag utility is actually Executive Software's Diskeeper on a diet.
 
cool idea lonman... yeah.. diskkeeper might work.....
cant hurt to try...

custer, have you tried wiping your disk completely, fdisking and reformatting from scratch?? also, i wonder if there are any bad sectors/tracks...being that you have tried more than one hard drive, probably not... in which case....what is the constant factor???? >>> MOBO and memory??? try reseating your memory chips, or just take out all but one chip, reboot in safe mode..and try defrag after lonmans suggestion of doing a full chkdsk with surface scan.....

k..good luck again... any suggestions..let me know... cuz i can always learn something new....;)

~n
 
No found.xxx files anywhere.

The only reason I installed Norton was because I figured that Win defrag might be screwing things up... nah! MS wouldn't do that would they?

The weird thing is everything is great until I defrag. I''ve been backing up a half zillion floppies to cd so things get a little spread out... scared to even touch anything that says defrag now! :(
 
The last time I reinstalled, I repartitioned the drive, formatted it, ran chkdsk (from a Win98 cd) several times with the /F switch. If there are any bad sectors, it's not marking them. Only got one mem chip and have reseated it... also reseated every card in the computer.
 
If you can, get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost or PowerQuest's Drive Image. Plug in your other hard drive as a slave and make an image of your drive before you experiment with defragging. If it fails it only takes 5 to 10 minutes to restore an image (vs. reinstalling there's no comparison). Then get your defrag issue resolved before you install all your other software... I'd suggest starting completely from scratch again first and right after you activate make your image.
 
defragger

according to MS KB article @ : http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q283080

defrag in XP requires that you have at least 15% of hard drive space available for "sorting" of files... if you have less than this..that might be why it reboots into chkdsk and never does a successful defrag.... im still poking around in MS KB articles... i did a search for "defrag" under Windows XP btw...

~n:)
 
There's 30 gig left on the drive so there's plenty of room. I spend most of the day at work looking around the MSKB... didn't really find anything that I *thought* applied.

I'll grab Ghost just as a quick fix... at least quicker that reinstalling!
 
that may be your best bet... better off making an image as soon as you know you have a successful install on a parallel drive...

and to think..all this frustration, for about a bazillion 1's and 0's who would have ever thought....lol

take care :D
nick
 
and again!

Happened again, this time without defragging. Same symptoms as before. I did notice a blue screen flash very quickly while trying to reboot, but it was too fast to tell what happened. I did see "STOP" but that's about it.

I booted from the XP install disk, and it gave me the option to try and recover... but it didn't work... so I'm back to yet another install! The message it gave me was:

"Setup cannot set the required Windows XP configuration information. This indicated an internal setup error." "Contact your System Administrator."

Oh well...
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back