Windows XP Disk Defragmenter is acting oddly.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Huey
  • Start date Start date
H

Huey

When I click either analyze or defragment, the program pauses,
displays a blank screen, and nothing (visible) happens (because I
can't tell if anything is happening). How do I fix this?
 
Hi Huey,

Your disk may be not quite right. I always recommend a chkdsk /F command be run on the system drive (C: probably).

(This - in fact - should be the starting point for all XP users with strange PC problems.)

More info on chkdsk:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx?mfr=true

Good Luck,
Ken


When I click either analyze or defragment, the program pauses,
displays a blank screen, and nothing (visible) happens (because I
can't tell if anything is happening). How do I fix this?
 
chkdsk /F alters the file system. It decides what changes to make based
on what it thinks the file system ought to be like. In the vast majority
of cases it will do this just fine, but in a small number of cases it
could trash the filesystem, especially if the disk is on the way out.

chkdsk is the utility that I would recommend *LAST*, and definitely not
first.

Before running chkdsk a full backup should be taken if at all possible.

Cheers,

Cliff
 
Hi Cliff,

Chkdsk *is* safe to use. I see no reason to recommend it *last*. I have been working with and programming computers for 35 years and "Windows" since version 3.0.

A friend phoned me up the other night - he had a power flick and now everything works fine except the mouse! It was not responding. Safe mode / Re-scan for hardware etc. etc. (he had tried all of 2 days - stuffing around - reloading drivers - he is not too bad technically actually).

Finally calls me up and I suggest a chkdsk /R and an aspirin. Well, his - PC came up just fine - mouse working great.

Most XP users are running NTFS these days. I often recommend a chkdsk /R first.

Oh yes, backups are always a good thing - agree with you there! I have 7 3 of which are off-shore - not just off-site :-)

Thanks be to Ghost 2003 that has saved my backside more than once. I do regular monthly ghosts of my system partition (Windows 2003 Server).

Have a nice day,

Ken



chkdsk /F alters the file system. It decides what changes to make based
on what it thinks the file system ought to be like. In the vast majority
of cases it will do this just fine, but in a small number of cases it
could trash the filesystem, especially if the disk is on the way out.

chkdsk is the utility that I would recommend *LAST*, and definitely not
first.

Before running chkdsk a full backup should be taken if at all possible.

Cheers,

Cliff
 
I don't have any backups. I tried chkdsk'ing. No luck, I still have
the problem where I don't know what's going on. Any other help?
 
Ken said:
Hi Cliff,

Chkdsk *is* safe to use. I see no reason to recommend it *last*. I
have been working with and programming computers for 35 years and
"Windows" since version 3.0.
Click to expand...

It's silly to have gone off on a tangent here, but ... chkdsk IS a proper
response for the OP at that point, AND it is also NOT the first choice for
troubleshooting. Depending on the location and type of corruption it finds,
it can indeed do what APPEARS to be much more damage to the drive, and
effectively render it unbootable. It will only happen to an already damaged
drive, but ... the "repair", though logical, is based on corrupted
information and thus can and does sometimes render the disk useless.

In reality, it has only reacted to what it found and admittedly doesn't
happen often, but it DOES happen, and thus should be reserved for later in
the process after "normal" problem recovery routines have failed.

I don't care about how long you've been "working with and programming
computers"; that's not a resume, it a tangential effort to say "trust me",
which always raises a flag in my mind. More important are the facts and the
experience that goes with having experienced such failures more than once.
Personally I've only seen it happen three times, but I've read of it
happening much more often and have read articles describing the "why" and
"how" of it.

Besides, 35 years ago, which was the day of analog computers actually, this
was pretty much a moot point, even in the building-sized digital crossovers
that were evolving about then.

You also should switch to Plain Text for posting.

Regards,

Pop`
 
defrag can
be run from safemode as
well as normal mode.

also, defrag requires
virtual memory. if you have
none, it won't run. if you have
too little it will take 25years
to complete. exaggeration,
but just trying to prove a point.

my guess is that the issues
you may be trying to resolve
are due to virtual memory
settings.

i always recommend a custom/fix size
since the automatic resizing of
virtual memory may not always
occur on some machines.

set it to a min of 2 and max of 1152
reboot.

http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/getstarted/pcproblems.mspx

in addition to making more memory
available is to run this :
http://www.amsn.ro/

run it as frequently as you like
to test your system and understanding
of the memory requirements.

but don't keep it memory resident. launch
it, run it, then quit it, since it too requires
memory and processing power.

- db
When I click either analyze or defragment, the program pauses,
displays a blank screen, and nothing (visible) happens (because I
can't tell if anything is happening). How do I fix this?
 
Poprivet said:
It's silly to have gone off on a tangent here, but ... chkdsk IS a proper
response for the OP at that point, AND it is also NOT the first choice for
troubleshooting. Depending on the location and type of corruption it finds,
it can indeed do what APPEARS to be much more damage to the drive, and
effectively render it unbootable. It will only happen to an already damaged
drive, but ... the "repair", though logical, is based on corrupted
information and thus can and does sometimes render the disk useless.

In reality, it has only reacted to what it found and admittedly doesn't
happen often, but it DOES happen, and thus should be reserved for later in
the process after "normal" problem recovery routines have failed.

I don't care about how long you've been "working with and programming
computers"; that's not a resume, it a tangential effort to say "trust me",
which always raises a flag in my mind. More important are the facts and the
experience that goes with having experienced such failures more than once.
Personally I've only seen it happen three times, but I've read of it
happening much more often and have read articles describing the "why" and
"how" of it.

Besides, 35 years ago, which was the day of analog computers actually, this
was pretty much a moot point, even in the building-sized digital crossovers
that were evolving about then.

You also should switch to Plain Text for posting.

Regards,

Pop`
Click to expand...
One more post and I'm going to drop it, since we will start to go round
in circles. The reason I am against chkdsk is because if the disk is
going bad, then chkdsk will almost certainly make things worse - it may
try to read bad bits of disk, get the wrong results and screw the
filesystem totally. It is unlikely that chkdsk is going to harm a good
disk, but it won't improve things either - it should find no errors.

The only time that chkdsk is a good idea is if errors occur right after
a power removal or spike. Huey didn't mention this so I'm guessing that
this did not happen.

You are correct about the experience - I've seen bad things happen after
a chkdsk more than once - in the old days Windows would sometimes decide
to do one on boot and in more than one case - bloouiey!

But I wouldn't deny Ken's experience - if it works for him, it works for
him, and while he may think that I'm too suspicious of chkdsk, I believe
he has been lucky. What the truth is, is probably somewhere in the middle.

Cheers,

Cliff
 
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