defrag

[beacon]

How do I run defrag on a PC?

 

[MikeP]

Click Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Defrag. Bingo!

 

[beacon]

Ta very much!

 

[beacon]

Is this right it keeps going blank and a message says "drive contents changed restarting" doesent look right?

 

[MikeP]

Win 98?

 

[beacon]

Sorry Yes

 

[MikeP]

Bugger!

If I remember correctly when I had 98 and this happened, I did a full system restore, fix all errors and then tried again. If it hasn't been defragged for a while (or ever) it will take quite a few attempts.

My mate bought a two year old laptop with 98 that had never been defragged, it took hours and I mean hours 4 or 5 if I remember!

Keep trying, it does seem to make a beneficial difference.

 

[beacon]

Thanks Gotterdammerung, I'm not haveing a lot of luck with this, I,m only defragging because I'm haveing problems getting some maps (mapsource) onto the 2610 I have had to get extra Ram and the guy at the IT store said best run defrag to, I,ll give it a couple of hours and see what happens thanks again!
Chris

 

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

Disable the screensaver or it will keep the defrag from progressing....

 

[finglonga]

Beacon have you got Norton Systemworks on your pc?
If so there is a utility called Speed Disc which also is a defrager.

 

[BlackBetty]

Disable the screensaver or it will keep the defrag from progressing....

YES!

 

[beacon]

No dont have norton shame! I desabled the screensaver before I started as I thought that may cause some problems, It just got up to 79% complete! could be on our way. Thanks every one this site is fantastic any problem can be sorted, now my mini isas not doing so well?

 

[Fanum]

If all else fails, run defrag from safe mode (press f8 during start up on most machines)

Screensavers aren't the only thing that can stop defrag- anything that accesses the drive that's being looked at will have the same effect, including for example some MS office aplpications that start organising themselves in the background after a period of inactivity, and AV software that can be set to do scan after a set period too.

If you've got 2 drives, change your swapfile from 'c' to the other one as well so defrag will go through this section of memory rather than leaving it alone- then swap it back afterwards.

 

[cookie]

If all else fails, run defrag from safe mode (press f8 during start up on most machines)

i was beginning to think no-one was ever going to mention that

 

[Steptoe]

If all else fails, run defrag from safe mode (press f8 during start up on most machines)

I've never defrag, when do i press the buttons,
what part of start-up.

I don't want to cause my computer any grief

 

[Fanum]

I've never defrag, when do i press the buttons,
what part of start-up.

I don't want to cause my computer any grief

Try it under normal windows first Neil.......

Click Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Defrag

If you've never done it before, you should notice a good increase in speed once it's done.

Other things you can do for basic maintenance;

Obviously run a full virus check, after making sure your AV software is up to date.

Windows updates; Make sure your version of windoze is up to date (because they regularly patch security holes, that's why.....now stop asking silly questions!! ) www.windowsupdate.com

Run a spyware and adware removal tool......these will find frightening numbers of little programs on your PC that you get whilst browsing, downloading stuff or trying demo games etc from CD's, even off reputable mags from time to time.

Adaware and spybot are two good ones, but Microsoft has bought out a company who make a damn good one too- it's only in beta at the moment but it'll still find stuff the others won't.
I'll come back and post a link when i find it again, but start with adaware and spybot. (type those words into google and follow the links )

Scandisk.....nope, not the same as defrag.
Defrag groups the bits of a program or file together and things run faster....scandisk checks for file corruption and dead imps on your hard drive....it's a good thing to run from time to time.

1. Double-click My Computer, and then right-click the hard disk drive you want to check.
2. Click Properties, and then click Tools.
3. In Error-checking, click Check Now.


Also run disk-cleanup to remove crap old files that don't belong to progs, or old files that got left behind.

Remove progs from startup.....
Start, programs, startup folder.......see what's in there.
You may have all sorts of rubbish starting up each time you start the PC......unless it's something you know about and need, delete it from this folder.
(it won't delete it from the PC so you can still use it if you want to, this just stops it from loading automatically on start-up.)

Do a search for any files thast end in .tmp or .temp ...then delete them.

These are usually created by badly written installation programs and should have been deleted when the prog installed, but they do have a habit of hanging around and clogging up your hard drive.

Oh yeah, and if you have MS Office, and unless you really need it and know what it does, disable file tracking and archiving....this can really slow things down if you keep it on after a while.

There's loads more, but seriously, a little bit of maintenance can make a big difference to a system......

 

[cookie]

this is all sooo much easier