What's the most sensible way to defragment?

[Zoinkity]

Usually I just run the disk defragmenter from the start menu, but it will take forever. Windows is constantly writting to the disk so the defragmenter will need to restart over and over again. It can take most of a day to do the primary drive, then maybe an hour tops to do anything else plugged inot it.

Is there a way to schedule defragmentation before the OS starts or in some way that it won't constantly need to restart?

[j7n]

You are lacking memory, or have too many terminate-and-stay-resident tools loaded (antiviruses, messaging servents, ...). Make sure you quit all programs before defragging.

If you have enough memory (> 255 Megs) and think you have terminated all applications, but still have the problem, maybe FILEMON by SysInternals will reveal the process which is accessing your disks.

Edited March 3, 2008 by j7n

[alexanrs]

Or you could restart the system in safe mode and defragment it from there.

[herbalist]

One of the most commonly overlooked items that can interfere with the defragmenter is a screen saver. Is that still running?

Rick

[Pari_IT]

You can spend all day stopping programs but I have found the only way to reliably defrag is to do it from safe mode

[Mijzelf]

You can spend all day stopping programs but I have found the only way to reliably defrag is to do it from safe mode.

When running in safe mode no necessary programs will be started. On the other hand, no chipset drivers will be started either, so the disk access will be (much) slower.

[ShadeTreeLee]

Is there a way to schedule defragmentation before the OS starts or in some way that it won't constantly need to restart?

Yes there absolutely is and to both questions too.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]
"Defrag"="Defrag /All /Detailed /Noprompt"

.

Copy and paste the above into a Notepad document and Save it As "Defrag.reg" file. Right click it and select Merge from the right click menu or you can just double click on it as well. When you reboot, Defrag will run though all your drives before the Desktop proper loads so no systray items even.

The best way to prevent Windows from constantly writing data to the drive (which causes Restarts) is to move the swap file to a drive other than C:\. Next best tip is to make it a big minimum size swap file with no maximum set, mine is 300 megs but I only have 128 meg of ram. Adding these two lines to [386Enh] section of System.ini is all it takes here. And a Reboot of course.

MinPagingFileSize=307200

PagingDrive=F:

If you don't have a Drive F: then of course it won't work as shown above, some common sense is required. You need the free space with no chance of running out of it, again doh! The formula is 1,024k x 100 x 3 to get to 300 meg (307200) setting as shown. This can also be done the regular way via Windows key + Break key press|Performance Tab|Virtual Memory box.

Best tip is to use Windows ME's defrag.exe in Win98 to speed up the process 20 times over.

http://www.mdgx.com/98-5.htm#WDIW

[Fredledingue]

Windows doesn't write on disk 5in normal times). Only third parties do.

[sailorsonic]

You could use the following program

http://www.blueorbsoft.com/scandefrag/

Here is a screen shot http://www.blueorbsoft.com/ScanDefrag/ScanDefrag1.jpg

The readme is here http://www.blueorbsoft.com/scandefrag/Readme.html

it can run both scan disk then defrag before the windows shell load, that way you can avoid defrag restarting all the time.

It also has more agressive modes that prevent other programs from loading on boot, this way defrag will not have to restart. Once the defrag is done, the pc will reboot in a normal mode.

The readme explains it better than I have.

[Zoinkity]

Thanks! I didn't know how you could move the swap file, which in general has been a great help since the secondary drive is newer, larger, and just a better place to stuff it. The defrag and scandisk took less than an hour, which is a heck of an improvement from the day-long ordeal it was before. Splendid!

[Access Denied]

Perfect Disk 2008

I wouldn't install an OS without it. Period.

the os defrag just plain blows, period.

[ldb]

If you have a newer, faster drive, then you OS should be on that drive. Partitioning you drives will speed up the defrag as it takes less time to do a smaller drive. A faster drive will take less time to defrag than a slower drive.

I have 8 GB reserved for 98SE, you could put games and apps on another partition. It takes me around 2 minutes or less to defrag the C drive.

The Win ME defrag works much better than the one that comes with 98.

I often disable the swapfile and then do the defrag after the reboot. Once the defrag is done you can re-enable it. Result is a fresh swapfile that is not fragmented.

If you are going to move the swapfile be sure to put it on a different physical drive and not just another partition on the same drive.

When I am installing a program upgade that requires me to uninstall the old program, I defrag the drive after the uninstall so that the new release gets a fresh space.

[MikeyHunt]

Perfect Disk 2008

I wouldn't install an OS without it. Period.

the os defrag just plain blows, period.

Looks good , but it says windows 2000 or above supported...

any recommendations for 3rd party software that works on 98/98se/ME??

or is Diskeeper the best way to go?

Thanks

[Access Denied]

Like a moron, I didn't notice the forum I was in. I would google Diskeeper and find out if it works on those OS's. If so, I would definitely go that route. I use it on my other 2 XP computers.

Edited March 10, 2008 by accessdenied042

[MikeyHunt]

Like a moron, I didn't notice the forum I was in. I would google Diskeeper and find out if it works on those OS's. If so, I would definitely go that route. I use it on my other 2 XP computers.

no prob.. don't be so hard on yourself.

Yes, Diskeeper still works on 98se

I was just wondering if anyone else had better recommendation.