question about disk defragmenter.

[John Barnett - MVP]

I'm confused as to why disk defragmenter froze your laptop simply because
you removed your cd-rom. Disk defragmenter defragments your 'hard' drive,
not your cd-rom. You may find that your laptop problem was due to a driver
problem rather than defragmenter. Although i can't understand why it killed
your laptop.
If you decide to remove hardware always make sure you reboot after the
removal so that xp and, in particular, your bios, knows that it is no longer
present. Running defragementer shouldn't cause this type of problem. Well i
haven't come across it, as yet. Maybe someone else has.

John Barnett - MVP
Associate Expert

 

[Sarah]

I have a silly question about the disk defragmenter, and
didn't know where to post it.

The first time I used disk defragmenter on my new comp-
(windows xp.) it just happened to be on the same night
where I ended up removing my cd-rom drive by accident.
(don't ask, long story. I was trying to install an
external drive.) Anyway, I didn't notice it was missing
until AFTER I had run the disk defragmenter. A few years
ago, I ran disk defragmenter on a laptop with window's
98, and it froze, and killed that computer.

So my question is.... if I run disk defragmenter- there
is no chance it will wipe out my cd-rom drive or kill my
computer???? I'm sorry, I just seem to have bad luck with
it, and need some positive view points from people whom
have run it successfully.

Thanx.

 

[Kenny]

Defragmenting can not physically damage a PC. It will run better and faster
if you do it in Safe Mode.