Defrag humdinger...

[RJK]

....got to go html on this one ...just this once ...., it's SOooo hard on the eyes... !!! ...grey background ooooh !!!!

I wanted to defrag my machine, which I haven't done since I installed it, months and months ago.

There was nothing wrong with it, it wasn't going slow but, I thought I'd do it anyway ! There's a LOT to be said for, "if it ain't broke don't fix it."

I have 2 hds' on my first IDE port 20gb c:\ d:\ & e:\ & 80gb slave f:\ g:\ h:\ i:\ and j:\ ...all drives Fat32, Dual boot W98se on c:\ XP Pro on d:\ ...both use pagefile.sys (xp system managed 2-767mb) located on 2gb g:\

XP's chkdsk.exe & Norton Systemworks Disk Doctor, that I often run on both platforms has never complained about any invalid filenames ....EVER !!!!!

I booted XP Pro into Safe Mode, and defragged c:\ and d:\

I didn't like how XP's defrag didn't consolidate free space on c:\ and d:\ so I rebooted to W98se and set Norton to defrag all drives.

Now I'm in W98se.... Now, what was it happened first ? ....Norton complained that there was a nasty illegal filename on d:\ (xp pro), in a Macromedia DreamWeaver (Proram Files) folder so I let it correct the filename or delete the f*****g thing, whatever it was that it wanted to do!

Still in W98se, Norton Systemworks defragged drives c:\ through g:\ and got to 30% on h:\ and told me, "error reading cluster on drive h:\" and it just sat there. I came back an HOUR later and it was still at that point. Some tentative clicking revealed that my system had locked up. A soft boot to bring up task manager revealed "RXmon not responding." So I did an "end task" on that...and was able to restart normally.

So I booted up to XP Pro

PALE BLUE SCREEN ...."checking file system on drive h:\..." (how the f**k did XP know what W98se and Norton had been doing ?), ..."...your disk needs to be checked for consistency.

...."Windows replaced bad cluster in.." ...and I can't read my own writing....
.....MyProgramsCommonToW98seandXPpro\gnotella\gnotellainstaller.exe of name null

Then XP Pro did a "Windows is verifying free space," which took AGES .....I let it complete. ...PHEW !!

so, any advice appreciated,
I've got a sneaky suspicion that even though all my drives are FAT32...
when I'm using W98se and Norton Systemworks - defrag is doing something that XP pro doesn't like,
and when I'm using XP Pro, Norton Systemworks it's doing something that W98se doesn't like ...

regards, Richard

 

[Gerry Cornell]

It is late and I suspect I need to read your message more carefully than time allows <g>.

Conventional wisdom says not to mix defrag tools! Norton and Microsoft. Occasionally in 98 groups one reads of locked drives, which I for one do not know how to resolve.

The 98 utilities cannot handle larger drives. How large is your largest partition?

The Disk Defragmenter bundled with Windows XP is much quicker than that included with Windows 98. Whilst the restart problem is readily apparent in Windows 98 I am not sure about how often it occurs when using Windows XP. I always used Safe Mode in Windows 98 but I allow Disk Defragmenter to run in normal mode in Windows XP without disabling anything, No restart problem!

I find that folders containing only operating systems or programmes require to be defragmented less frequently. I do not defragment swap / pagefile partitions.

Before Defragmenting you should carry out other housekeeping chores. Run Disk Cleanup, compact Outlook Express etc.

--
~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA
(e-mail address removed)
Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please tell the newsgroup how any
suggested solution worked for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


...got to go html on this one ...just this once ...., it's SOooo hard on the eyes... !!! ...grey background ooooh !!!!

I wanted to defrag my machine, which I haven't done since I installed it, months and months ago.

There was nothing wrong with it, it wasn't going slow but, I thought I'd do it anyway ! There's a LOT to be said for, "if it ain't broke don't fix it."

I have 2 hds' on my first IDE port 20gb c:\ d:\ & e:\ & 80gb slave f:\ g:\ h:\ i:\ and j:\ ...all drives Fat32, Dual boot W98se on c:\ XP Pro on d:\ ...both use pagefile.sys (xp system managed 2-767mb) located on 2gb g:\

XP's chkdsk.exe & Norton Systemworks Disk Doctor, that I often run on both platforms has never complained about any invalid filenames ....EVER !!!!!

I booted XP Pro into Safe Mode, and defragged c:\ and d:\

I didn't like how XP's defrag didn't consolidate free space on c:\ and d:\ so I rebooted to W98se and set Norton to defrag all drives.

Now I'm in W98se.... Now, what was it happened first ? ....Norton complained that there was a nasty illegal filename on d:\ (xp pro), in a Macromedia DreamWeaver (Proram Files) folder so I let it correct the filename or delete the f*****g thing, whatever it was that it wanted to do!

Still in W98se, Norton Systemworks defragged drives c:\ through g:\ and got to 30% on h:\ and told me, "error reading cluster on drive h:\" and it just sat there. I came back an HOUR later and it was still at that point. Some tentative clicking revealed that my system had locked up. A soft boot to bring up task manager revealed "RXmon not responding." So I did an "end task" on that...and was able to restart normally.

So I booted up to XP Pro

PALE BLUE SCREEN ...."checking file system on drive h:\..." (how the f**k did XP know what W98se and Norton had been doing ?), ..."...your disk needs to be checked for consistency.

..."Windows replaced bad cluster in.." ...and I can't read my own writing....
....MyProgramsCommonToW98seandXPpro\gnotella\gnotellainstaller.exe of name null

Then XP Pro did a "Windows is verifying free space," which took AGES .....I let it complete. ...PHEW !!

so, any advice appreciated,
I've got a sneaky suspicion that even though all my drives are FAT32...
when I'm using W98se and Norton Systemworks - defrag is doing something that XP pro doesn't like,
and when I'm using XP Pro, Norton Systemworks it's doing something that W98se doesn't like ...

regards, Richard

 

[RJK]

Largest is like my drive H:\ , which now looks like this:-

The type of the file system is FAT32.
Volume H2P3_PROGS created 30/10/2003 10:50
Volume Serial Number is 3E24-5033

Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
33,559,552 KB total disk space.
1,472 KB in 26 hidden files.
74,784 KB in 2,321 folders.
9,347,808 KB in 52,218 files.
160 KB in bad sectors.
24,135,296 KB are available.

32,768 bytes in each allocation unit.
1,048,736 total allocation units on disk.
754,228 allocation units available on disk.

....so it looks like XP, when it was "Windows is verifying free space," has
marked out 160kb in bad bits !!

oh well, that 80gb drive is only about 6 months old. ...and I'll have you
know I do my housekeeping REGULARLY

....you are quite right about sticking to one defragger, or another, I never
usualy swap between different brands for obvious reasons.

regards, Richard


It is late and I suspect I need to read your message more carefully than
time allows <g>.

Conventional wisdom says not to mix defrag tools! Norton and Microsoft.
Occasionally in 98 groups one reads of locked drives, which I for one do not
know how to resolve.

The 98 utilities cannot handle larger drives. How large is your largest
partition?

The Disk Defragmenter bundled with Windows XP is much quicker than that
included with Windows 98. Whilst the restart problem is readily apparent in
Windows 98 I am not sure about how often it occurs when using Windows XP. I
always used Safe Mode in Windows 98 but I allow Disk Defragmenter to run in
normal mode in Windows XP without disabling anything, No restart problem!

I find that folders containing only operating systems or programmes require
to be defragmented less frequently. I do not defragment swap / pagefile
partitions.

Before Defragmenting you should carry out other housekeeping chores. Run
Disk Cleanup, compact Outlook Express etc.

--
~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA
(e-mail address removed)
Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please tell the newsgroup how any
suggested solution worked for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


...got to go html on this one ...just this once ...., it's SOooo hard on
the eyes... !!! ...grey background ooooh !!!!

I wanted to defrag my machine, which I haven't done since I installed it,
months and months ago.

There was nothing wrong with it, it wasn't going slow but, I thought I'd
do it anyway ! There's a LOT to be said for, "if it ain't broke don't fix
it."

I have 2 hds' on my first IDE port 20gb c:\ d:\ & e:\ & 80gb slave f:\
g:\ h:\ i:\ and j:\ ...all drives Fat32, Dual boot W98se on c:\ XP Pro
on d:\ ...both use pagefile.sys (xp system managed 2-767mb) located on
2gb g:\

XP's chkdsk.exe & Norton Systemworks Disk Doctor, that I often run on both
platforms has never complained about any invalid filenames ....EVER !!!!!

I booted XP Pro into Safe Mode, and defragged c:\ and d:\

I didn't like how XP's defrag didn't consolidate free space on c:\ and d:\
so I rebooted to W98se and set Norton to defrag all drives.

Now I'm in W98se.... Now, what was it happened first ? ....Norton
complained that there was a nasty illegal filename on d:\ (xp pro), in a
Macromedia DreamWeaver (Proram Files) folder so I let it correct the
filename or delete the f*****g thing, whatever it was that it wanted to do!

Still in W98se, Norton Systemworks defragged drives c:\ through g:\ and
got to 30% on h:\ and told me, "error reading cluster on drive h:\" and it
just sat there. I came back an HOUR later and it was still at that point.
Some tentative clicking revealed that my system had locked up. A soft boot
to bring up task manager revealed "RXmon not responding." So I did an
"end task" on that...and was able to restart normally.

So I booted up to XP Pro

PALE BLUE SCREEN ...."checking file system on drive h:\..." (how the f**k
did XP know what W98se and Norton had been doing ?), ..."...your disk needs
to be checked for consistency.

..."Windows replaced bad cluster in.." ...and I can't read my own
writing....
....MyProgramsCommonToW98seandXPpro\gnotella\gnotellainstaller.exe of name
null

Then XP Pro did a "Windows is verifying free space," which took AGES
.....I let it complete. ...PHEW !!

so, any advice appreciated,
I've got a sneaky suspicion that even though all my drives are FAT32...
when I'm using W98se and Norton Systemworks - defrag is doing something
that XP pro doesn't like,
and when I'm using XP Pro, Norton Systemworks it's doing something that
W98se doesn't like ...

regards, Richard

 

[Bill]

Very Important questions:

1. What version of Norton SystemWorks are you using (and are you also running Norton Personal Firewall)?
2. What changes have you made to your hard drives (such as resizing or adding a partition) after Norton SystemWorks was already installed?