I'm not stupid [some may disagree] but when I try to de frag it turns itself back to the start after 10% saying things have changed but I'm not running any thing I'm on win 98se any sugesstions?

You need to run this from within Safe Mode and with everything unloaded - nothing in your system tray should be running, etc.

That's what usually causes it - something else running that is a background task.

Joe

Think its something to do with the anti virus software you are running.

It's all been explained fully on this Forum before - try doing a search.

Thanks Joe - you know better than me.

Some processes run in the background, not sure about 98 I havent used it for 6 years or so, on 2000 and XP you they can be shut down from the Task Manager, but that is their inheritence from NT.
To get around that, restart your computer in Safe Mode and defragment the disk from there.

extaxman - I never even though about the anti-virus stuff!

Good call - I think that that would be stopped if you boot up in Safe Mode, anyway.

Joe

THanks all how do I run in safe mode?

Press f8 repeatedly while rebooting. Wait for the boot menue and select 'Safe Mode' ;).

Originally posted by vidster
Press f8 repeatedly while rebooting. Wait for the boot menue and select 'Safe Mode' ;).

If you're not quick enough to catch the time to press F8, put in a blank floppy disk in your drive when you boot up. Asssuming it boots from a floppy before your hard drive it will halt with the error something like: "non system disk, press any key"

Eject the disk and then keep jabbing F8.

Don't forget to turn off the screensaver as well before you defrag, and ensure only "EXPLORER" and "SYSTRAY" are the two processes running.

you probably don't need to go as extreme as safemode.
Just disable your screensaver and close all running programs.

This includes everything in the taskbar (next to the clock).

Give it a few minutes to settle down, and then start the defrag.

that was easy![ perhaps the people in the brackets are right ]Ta everybody after 1hr 37min I got! 100%!!!

is there anything better than microsoft version of defrag and clean up software? preferably freeware cos i'm rather impoverished at the minute! :)

I much prefer to use something like Disk Keeper, a lite version of which i think is available from their website, rather than the inferior built in windows defraggers.

http://www.executive.com