Disk Defragmenter

[Ron]

Disk Defragmenter on Win XP Home goes to 73% and stops. CPU usage is 0%, Sys
Idle % is 99%, but Disk Defragmenter shows as a running item. I d/l a few
of the defragmenter/registry cleaners but still 73% is the max I can obtain
for XP Disk Defragmenter. Any ideas.?

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Try Safe Mode. If it has no problems there, you'll want to look into Clean
Boot T-Shooting to find out what is getting in its way, though this is the
very first time I've heard of such a story outside of Win9x groups.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316434

There's also the possibility, I suppose, of a disk error. But don't run
CHKDSK until you've made a complete backup of your system (and making darned
sure you know how to restore it if the drive turns out to be bad.) CHKDSK,
like all MS disk tools, is prone to doing more scrambling of data than it is
to fixing anything.

I DO NOT recommend XP's backup, but rather get an imaging type, such as
Acronis True Image. Back up to DVDs or to an external HD that can be
unplugged after the backup is done. Such apps also typically have a way to
run them from a CD boot so that you can do a full restore to a blank hard
drive.