Can't defragment Hard disk. HELP!!

[ebook88]

Hello,

I have been diligently using scan disk for the past 6 years on this computer of mine which has been running very well till recently.

Scan disk does not show any problem but disk defragmentation stops every time and says that there's a problem with the hard disk and that I have to scan disk and fix the problem first. I always use the thorough option to scan and fix errors but the disk fragmentation still refuses to work.

What shall I do now? I am no computer expert ... anyone please give me some advice. Thank you in advance for your time to help me with this problem. I am using Windows95.



ebook88

[Cricket]

Hi ebook88,

Find out the brand of the hard drive in your PC and then head over to the manufacturer's website and look for the hard drive utility and download it. Run the utility, it will tell you if there is something wrong with the hard drive.

How long has that installation of Win95 been on your computer without a re-install? Is the system stable?

You could try another IDE cable.

Cricket

[bagglo]

Try removing the applog file (C:\windows\Applog) it gets corupt, it contains the info used by defrag to place the programs you use the most first , Windows will reinstall it so need to worry, just delete the file, reboot and defrag in safe mode with no screen saver, see if that works.

[Cricket]

The Win95 Defrag is different. It doesn't place frequently used programs at the beginning like the Win98 Defrag. There's no Applog file. It just defrags the hard drive.

Cricket

[bagglo]

opps, sorry did not see the Win 95, maybe time to upgrade, Thank you Cricket

[ebook88]

Thanks guys!

The Windows 95 has been on my computer for 6 years without reinstalling. The system is not very stable now - crashes quite often if I use it for 4 to 5 hours in one go. Otherwise it's OK. Sometimes it just hangs and I just turn off the main switch, turn it on again and the computer will boot up fine! I have done this many times.....I am unwilling to get another desktop at the moment because I have so many of my favourite programmes on this computer which will not work on an XP computer. How do I prolong the life of this computer?

There is another problem that just happens a few days ago. Whenever I try to download software or ebooks with a .exe extension, a Quicktime symbol appeared and the file appears to be downloading. Later, a broken quicktime symbol appeared. I did not have this problem before. Please help.


Sincerely,
ebook88

[glc]

6 years of 95 without a reinstall is 95% of your problems. Run the hard drive diags as Cricket suggested and go from there. Time to back up your data files, you are probably looking at a reformat soon.

[Lord Prism]

I probably reformat more often than I should (2-3 times a year!)but it just feels good to have a smooth, clean, fresh system again.

[jamesrpm]

If I were you I'd at least upgrade to Win.98se , give you some more utilities and stability. What are the specs. of your computer?

[mike breck]

ebook88

Credit to you for maintaining an installation of Win95 for six years, without a major problem. You've obviously kept your system in good condition.

However, I think it's probably time for a fresh install and that will last you for another six years; however, I like many others tend to reinstall every year - as nothing runs as quickly as a nice, fresh install. Gets rid of all debris that builds up as well.

Whether you upgrade to Win98SE depends on you and what you use the PC for. If you have Win95 OSR2 and upgrade IE to 5.5, then you could probably get away with it for some time to come. There ain't much difference between the two - unless you particularly wanted the better USB support that 98SE offers.

However, be very careful to check the compatiblity of your hardware and software if you should considering upgrading to XP; otherwise it could cost a few bucks.

[ebook88]

Many Thanks to all of you!

I did backups of all my really important stuff yesterday. Please tell me how I can reformat my hard disk without losing all my precious programs?

Can programs be backed up as well? Because it was such a long time ago, I probably had misplaced some of the program diskettes, and can't remember from where I have downloaded some interesting pieces of software plus some software that were downloaded and paid over the NETS. I am talking about thousands of dollars worth of software. How did you people do that? My computer is partitioned into 2 drives, C drive contains all the programs and D drive all the data. C drive is the one that can't defragment; but D drive is OK and can be defragment. You see, the D drive had not been used for 5 years and I only recently migrated my data there last year.

Is there a way where I can smoothly migrate my Windows95 and office and other software from C to D drive without reinstallation? Need your help again. Thanking you in advance.


ebook88

[jamesrpm]

Download and run Belarc Adviser, it will give you a list of all the hardware and software on your system. Handy to have so you can check off backed up items .

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

[mike breck]

Hi again ebook88,

Most people tend to backup data and not programs. You usually just reinstall the programs from CDs, Floppies, or Zip files after Windows has been reinstalled. This is where making a backup of every good program you've downloaded from the net becomes important. I save all the Zip files to CD-RW or CD-R. I used to save them to Floppies using Winzip.

I would suggest you do an inventory and see how many programs you have copies of before formatting the HD. If only a few are missing, then you might decide they are not worth bothering about.

If you're missing any important programs that you purchased over the Net, then if they're still available, download them again and save the zip file to D: drive. If you have have a note of the Password or CD Key, then you will be able to reinstall and activate them again.

With some smaller programs, you might be able to get away with copying the folder to D:, then copying the folder back to C: after reinstalling Windows. You would then just double-click on setup.exe from within that folder to run setup again. This will work as long as the folder contains all the files you need and you have your password.

The only other way to save all the programs is to use a program like Powerquests Drive Image. Unfortunatley, this takes an image of the whole partition, including Windows, so by restoring the image you would be restoring the damaged installation of Windows you already have. That, of course, defeats the whole purpose of formatting and doing a clean install of Win95.

[glc]

My concern here is that the C drive may have some bad sectors - a "nuke and pave" would just be putting everything back on a damaged drive. Before you do anything else, please download the appropriate hard drive diags and run a full test on your drive and report the results. Then we can discuss the best options depending on the results.