I'm unable to scan & defrag. please help!

charley4 · 25 November 2005 at 4:09PM

I am trying to clean up the computer to find out why it is running so slow, I want to scan and defrag but when I try it says tried 10 times and a programme is still running. How can I switch of any running programmes? I hope someone can help. thankyou.
I have windows 98.

Anic · 25 November 2005 at 4:16PM

This has happened to me before (also Windows 98). I closed down the connection to the internet and it worked fine after that.

charley4 · 25 November 2005 at 4:29PM

thanks for trying to help, but i have had this problem for some time and closing down didn't make any difference,i still couldn't defrag

BlueVinney · 25 November 2005 at 4:30PM

Was that to run scandisk? The only reliable way I've found to run scandisk under Win ME is to start up in safe mode and then reboot into ME. Under ME it keeps restarting and never finishes.

Hope that helps.

-TangleFoot- · 25 November 2005 at 4:33PM

charley4 wrote:

I have windows 98.

Press Ctrl+Alt+Del on your keyboard to bring up the Task Manager, and terminate all running processes except for explorer.exe. Hopefully, you'll then be able to run either utility without further interruptions.

Oh, and don't forget to disable the screensaver and any power-saving features too!

LSM_2 · 25 November 2005 at 4:33PM

Hi, press CTL+AlT+Delete then end all programs except explorer. then run defrag. Some programs won't close on first attempt. Be careful not to press ctl+alt+del two times in a row or you'll restart the pc!!

LSM_2 · 25 November 2005 at 4:34PM

posted at the same time!!

angela110660 · 25 November 2005 at 4:37PM

When I do this (about fortnightly) I shut everything off the screen - even the Help screen after I have chosen my option. Then I do a disk cleanup first, then a basic scandisk and then a defrag. Have had no problems.

-TangleFoot- · 25 November 2005 at 4:49PM

Aha! Just found a Microsoft Support article that provides several answers to this very problem; if the advice outlined above doesn't work, you may want to take a look at it.

pchelpman · 25 November 2005 at 6:52PM

Both scanning and defrag can be interrupted continually if you have other applications/processes running in the background. I always recommend running these two in SAFE mode. If you have XP tap the F8 key during boot up and select safe mode from the menu. Then try again. Should work (unless there's something more serious going on).

Backbiter · 25 November 2005 at 7:56PM

Agree with the advice from pchelpman. Restart in SAFEMODE as per his instructions, run Disk clean up, then ScanDisk and finally Defrag. It's a pretty slow process - can take a few hours - but it is apparently very necessary.