sheath isn't the only one with computer ills

[ahooohgah]

I've been unable to defrag my system for a few weeks now, maybe months, because something is running in the background. I have the scheduled tasks thing set to run all the system tools at night, and it tells me it runs on shedule, but I'm not sure it does. I say that because I've tried to do it manually lately, and it runs for a little while, then starts over, up to 10 times before it quits. Then it tells me I have a program running somewhere, and to shut it down and try again.

How can I find out what's running in background? I use Win 98.

Thanks!

 

[firefighter02]

Damm Double post

 

[firefighter02]

I'm taking an uneducated guess here, but had similar problems when running 98.

I found that once I disabled the virus system whether it was Norton or McAfee that it defraged just fine. Also another trouble maker was Yahoo IM and AdAware 6.0.

 

[Weird Harold]

I've been unable to defrag my system for a few weeks now, maybe months, because something is running in the background.

How can I find out what's running in background? I use Win 98.

Thanks!

The program that is writing to drive C: and causing Defrag to restart is Defrag itself or Windows. If you have a large drive C: this is always going to be a problem.

Tomake sure that defrag/windows is theonly program writing to disk, got to Start -> Shutdown -> Restart.

As soon as windows shows the shutdown screnn, press and hold the control key until you get the boot menu.

Choose boot in Safe Mode. and then run DEFRAG in safe mode. That way ONLY defrag and/or Windows will be running and the interruptions will be minimized enough for defrag to finish -- possibly after two or three tries.

 

[Xt4cY]

right after bios keep pressing F8 key anyways rarely does control key work it's usually F8 that get's u to the safe mode menu safe mode prevents any programs to start up other than the basic windows interface, usually u can't use internet or anything of that sorts so it's just for simple fixes like defrag...either way as far as win98 for what ever problem it may be...either programs crashing or anything..it's always a good idea to every several months to do a full back up of your important information and to just reinstall everything, because overtime too much junk builds up reformating is your friend trust me on this it's a universal solution to all of computers problems

 

[ahooohgah]

All great ideas, and I hadn't thought of a single one of them. Thanks!

 

[MagicFingers]

Do you have MS Office installed?

If so, go to Start, Run, type "msconfig", go to the last tab, uncheck "FindFast". reboot after this and it will not be running anymore. This is supposed to be a fast indexing program, but in reality it slows down everything in the whole computer. This is one classic reason for many problems in Win 98.

 

[ny11011]

Just to add here...

If you are attached to either a network or router then take the cable out other wise it will probably still try to make a connection and thus abort the defrag. This is also true if you are scandisk-ing the drive it aborts and restarts every time the netcard polls the network/router.

 

[firefighter02]

bumped for sheath

 

[sheath]

Thank you for the bump...and now I have a few more ideas on how to get this damn thing to defrag!

I have noticed, if it matters...only after I downloaded the new Yahoo Messenger and did a Windows Update did I encounter this problem. The Windows Update is something that really needed to be done for my system, so I can't imagine it would be the source of the problem. I'm thinking Yahoo, then.

ahoogah, did you install the latest Yahoo, by any chance?

S.

 

[ReadyOne]

Yahoo! is becoming more and more incestious. If you let them install there little things to login automatically, go directly to your mail box, or run their "companion", things start when you boot your machine.

Now messenger is cross-linking to them, so that starting messenger starts a bunch of other things under the covers.

Tell messenger to not start automatically, to not automatically logon to mail and other servicers, etc.

 

[fgarvb1]

I'm sure you already know to set your screen saver to none and take your computer off of stand buy, as well as to shut down everything else you don't need using ctrl/alt/delete to bring up the list.

I don't remember which programs you HAVE to have running.

also you might search the Microsoft website for the WIN ME defragmenter. It works better and faster than the Win 98SE one.

That is the only good thing to come out of WIN ME.


To tell you the truth I haven't used defrag in years.

I use Norton Systems Works 2002 speed disk to defrag and optimize at the same time.

 

[sheath]

For what it is worth...

Weird Harold's advice was dead-on. It worked just fine for my computer and it was easy to do.



S.