Defrag help!

Sorry, I posted this here cuz I'm at the end of my rope. I am currently using a HP Pavilion equiped with XP, 448MB RAM and a 1.5 Ghz Processor. What I need to do is defrag the HD which is 40GB, 7200 RPM, 2MB cache. However, everytime I try to defrag the drive ( in safe mode mind you), I get the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH with the message "Kernel Stack error: Buffer Overflow". I've ignored this for months but now I'm down to 9GB and my computer's performance has slowed down to a crawl. I contacted HP about the problem and they said to send it to them ( for a fee :( ) and they can fix the problem in 2-3 weeks.... 2-3 weeks?! , thats not satisfactory to me at all, so I throw my woes unto you computer gurus of AO. I have no doubt in my mind that you guys will come through!...... Please Respond! (Precaution)

Have you tried a defrag utility, other than the one that comes bundled with XP? I use O&O defrag, which can be found here: http://www.oosoft.de/english/products/oodefragv4/. You may want to try and remove unnecessary stuff from the drive to free up more space, particularly before you defrag. Delete any unnecessary programs that you don't use, and maybe delete a bunch of old (space-hogging) system restore points.

Your HD space remaining shouldn't affect your overall system speed that much, other than swapping, but even then, you'd have to be using a very memory-intensive prog, such as Photoshop, to notice the difference (which would be severe, in the case of Photoshop). You might want to disable unecessary services for XP to free up some sys resources. There's a good guide by BlackViper here: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm.

Hope this helps somewhat, good luck.

Corn

What file system are you running XP on? If you are using a FAT file system you will need to defrag it, but a defrag on an NTFS filesystem does not necessarily accomplish a lot. Before you jump all over my back on this one, listen to what I have to say.

Quote:

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...NTFS handles space management much more efficiently than FAT32. Cluster sizes play an important part in how much disk space is wasted storing files. NTFS provides smaller cluster sizes and less disk space waste than FAT32.

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http://www.theeldergeek.com/ntfs_or_...ile_system.htm

It basically has to do with the cluster size as was said(i.e. the smallest chunk the disk is broken into) NTFS can use clusters as small as 512 bytes, whereas FAT32 uses 4 kB clusters. This leads to much less internal fragmentation on NTFS drives.

In terms of performance make sure you have a properly sized swap file set up. THe rule of thumb is usually to create a swap file that is 150% of your RAM. You can set this somewhere in Control Panel/System.

Good luck!

I use the NTFS file system. I don't have a defrag utility except for the one bundled with XP so I will try using O&O. I am not sure how to set a swap file size. Can someone be more specific?

Thanx for the replies!

I don't have XP installed, but I'm pretty sure it is similar to 2000 in this regard.
In 2000 you click Start/Settings/Control Panel.
Go into System and choose the Advanced Tab. Click Performance Options...
You can then change the size of your Virtual Memory (i.e. paging file i.e. swap file). Again the rule of thumb is 150% of your RAM size. For example, if you have 256 MB of RAM set it to 384 MB. If you have 512 MB of RAM set it to 768 MB and so on...
I believe that this is set this way by default though when Windows is installed, but if you changed your memory configuration this needs to be changed accordingly. Or it may have just randomly changed somehow (and we all know about those random events).
Good luck!

Right now its at 384 and when i try to change it to 671 and then press "Set" the computer restarts and it goes back to 384. Whats up with that?

Do you mean the computer restarts itself? Or its asks you to restart it? Are you logged in as Administrator when you do this? You need to be otherwise you don't have enough rights.
If it is restarting itself, and you get the "Kernel Stack error: Buffer Overflow" when you try to defrag you may have much more serious problems.

You might also want to try to do a disk cleanup and scandisk. These are both standard Windows tools. Good luck!

Hello,
It sounds to me like instead of running a defrag you might want to run a virus/adaware scan first. I would be willing to bet that if you are running ntfs system and it has come to a crawl that it is not a fragmentation problem. Give it a try, you might be surprosed....

scat

Have you tried running scandisk on the disk before defrag? It could be you have an error on the disk (possibly in one of the defrag files) causing it to act up. Do a thorough scan, that scans the surface, and get a coffee while your waiting. It could take a _long_ time.

I will try both of your suggestions. Right now I have AVG installed and Spy Bot Search and Destroy and Ill run both of those progs. Thanx