Defrag the C Drive Question

[mrteacher]

Friend of mine is having problems with her C drive not defragging... It is a small drive - about 1 GB - her D drive is 40 GB (just for fyi here).
I suggested that she remove all tmp files and then defrag the drive because it was running slow.
She e-mailed me back with the following:
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BTW, I ran Scandisk on my C:\ drive and it didn't work. It just kept starting over and over and over. Then I tried it on the D:\ and it worked just fine.
So then I ran the Defragmenter on the C:\ drive. I started it at 9:30pm and at 10:30pm it still said 0% complete. I left it alone and got up at 3:00am and it still said 0% complete so I shut down the computer. Any ideas as to why
neither of these work?
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Does anyone have an idea of how to resolve this? I have cruised through some of the forums here - but nothing is jumping out at me as a solution...

Thoughts?

Steve

 

[Jump1ng]

I would think that the c drive is virtually full if its only 1gb in size.

Windows Xp alone takes almost a gb fresh installed then you have the swp file etc.

She could try removing all the tmp etc but I think you really need to think about resizing the c drive to make room for tmp and other files that build up.

You could also try and put the swp file on the d drive but I think that to shrink windows down enough you need a severe tidying. For example my windows folder on my work machine is 1.45gb then if you keep Documents and Settings/username folder on your c drive you will very quickly eat up a couple of gigs worth of space.

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Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

 

[captaincrunch00]

Jumping got it right.
A 1GB C partition is not large enough. Not even close. I usually suggest 6GB as a minumum, 12GB would be the max I would suggest.

Also, the chkdsk will run when windows boots up, it will be a black screen and take like 20 minutes to finish. Just let it run.

Then reboot into safe mode and try defragging, but you cant defrag if you have less than 15% of the disk free. (I think it's 15%, may be less).

 

[mrteacher]

Thank you - I was on the right track - but did not know what the space needed was for defrag swap out. She is mostlikely out of space. I know my drives are all 100 to 250GB's for my PC's and Laptop.

Steve

 

[linney]

XP wants at least 15% free space on the drive to Defrag successfully.

Having security type scanning software using the drive at the same time can also interfere with defragging.

 

[mrteacher]

Good point on the virus scannng software and also firewall software might affect it too. Will have to mention to her.
thanks - Steve

 

[captaincrunch00]

Just boot into safe mode and defrag. None of that stuff will start up.
Its easier and stops any other processes from booting up that you forgot about.

 

[usakjw]

If the drive is only 1 gb in size it is pretty old. the smallest drive that you can buy now is 40gb. most hard drives are usually designed to last three years, if you get more than that then you are lucky.

If the drive made no progress in the defragmention in 5 1/2 hours she may have a bad drive. If it was a free space issue Windows would have told you, although I guess it is possible that it might not.

As one of the other posts above mentioned run chkdsk on the drive when it boots up. You can schedule this by going into my computer --> right clicking on the drive and click on the tools tab and click the Check Now button, check both check boxes and click ok. You will be told that windows could not check the drive because it needs exclusive access to it, Click yes on the message box and reboot. The disk will be check for erros. If any errors, especially pysical errors are found then it is a sign that the drive is bad or on it's way. Replace the drive.

The only other thing I can think is the MBR (Master Boot Record) maybe corrupt. Boot from your Win Xp cd and get to the Recovery ooption and type fdisk /mbr. This will replace your MBR while leaving the rest of the drive alone.

 

[mrteacher]

It went into Safe mode and started doing the defrag last night she said. Looks like we are up and running. Recommended that she switch as much over to larger drive.

Thank you to all of you for your HELP and input.

Have a great weekend...

Steve