Defragmenter restarts at 10% Complete...

[brlase12]

I looked in my system information and noticed I only have 58% system resources free and I have learned from this forum that defragmenting the drive can fix this and help the problem I am having with dropping frames capturing DV through firewire at any resolution above 352X240.
So I tried to run the disk defragmenter and it starts, but everytime it hits 10% complete it restarts saying "Drivers contents changed, restarting..."
Does anyone know why it is acting this way?
Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Shabubu]

Shut down ALL the background apps.. press ctl-alt-del and close anything you don't need.

[brlase12]

Thanks - after nearly six hours, it just finished but the results are lower than I expected. I went into the system information again after it was finished and it indicated only 76% system resources free. Is this normal after a defrag? I thought it would be more like around 96%. Is there anything else I can do to improve this number better yet?

[Shabubu]

Those system resources refer more to the amount of RAM and cache free than how defragmented things are. How much RAM do you have ??

[brlase12]

I have 248MB as listed in the system information.
Also:
Pentium III
WD 40GB 7200rpm
Win98SE
Thanks for your help.

[vhelp]

brlase12,

you have to be aware of one other important thing in addition to the above. . .

DO NOT MOVE YOU MOUSEY AROUND AND CLICK ON ICONS, OR LAUNCH
ANY APP OR ANYTHING TO CAUSE YOUR HARD-DRIVE TO ACTIVATE!!!!!

Doing the above in any way/shape/click will cause your Defrag to START
ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PERIOD!!!!!!!!!

turn off:
* ms office FASTFIND
* virus apps
* any app that sits in the background

Later.

[devinemi83]

crtl+alt+delete doesnt always kill all the programs, I would recommend a program called, End it All. It s free and it solved the same problem, that I was having,
also, try defragging in Safe Mode, it seems to make it go a little faster with almost no interruptions at all

[nfl2k2]

I had the exact same problem. I got norton utilities and the defragment program worked great, give it a try.

[Joel0607]

I had a similar problem with defrag (as well as scandisk) restarting in the middle of the process.

I don't know why, but disconnecting the ethernet cable from my computer stopped the problem. If you have your computer networked with others (as I have 2 comps sharing a DSL modem) try disconnecting from the network during the defrag, then reconnect later.

By the way... defragging in safe mode is a good idea partly because it frees up alot of system files that would normally be running and therefore LOCKED. These files, if running in the background, will not be moved during defrag which will cause you to have an incomplete defrag. (You know if you watch your defrag screen, you see all those clusters that WILL NOT be moved? Those are windows/system files and ANYTHING that is currently loaded in the background.)

[sommersby]

the amout of ram you have on your puter has very, very little affect and the oercentage of resources used by your puter. As miconception by alot of people who try and free up more respurces by buying more ram, You have to find out what prgrams are hogginf the rescources, the easiest way to do this is run msconfig and uncheck programs in the startup tab and check your resources after each reboot untill you find the offending programs.

[Hollywood004738]

You can also edit your system.ini file - changing
shell=explorer.exe to
shell=defrag.exe

this will run only defrag and load nothing else.
after it's done, change it back.