Unable to Defragment Disc & Scan Disc

Question

I have XPS B533 - Windows 98   I am unable to Defragment Disc Drive C.  I am also unable to Scan Disc Drive C.   It attemps to start and after a few seconds it has to start again.  This start attempt on Defragmenting and Scanning goes on and on but it never gets anywhere.   Defragment Drive C message was ''Driver content changed.'  I don't know what that means.   Scan Disc message was 'We have tried to start scan 10 times. Windows or other program writing to this disc.'   I used to never have any problem in disc cleanup - defragmenting/scanning, but unable to do it now.   I greatly appreciate any help you can give me.   Thank you.

peterfelgate_ce40d3 · Answer

This is caused when a program is accessing the disk whilst scandisk is running, causing scandisk to restart in case the disk contents have been changed. Have you loaded some new software or changed any settings? The classic case often encountered is a screen saver. Try rebooting into safe mode and run them from there.

Also see:

http://www.mytechsupport.ca/support/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=990

klbf · Answer

in windows 98, close everythin thats running inclusing anti virus firewall etc, everything except windows files, and then scan disk will run like peterfelgate said

then defrag will work

don't open anything while scan disk is scanning

baronna · Answer

peterfelgate and klbf:

Thank you for replying.

I disabled Norton Firewall, Norton Anti Virus, SpyGuard, SpyBlaster, and paused Task Scheduler. All of these icons, except SpyBlaster, were in the lower right corner next to clock. I left AAdware and Spybot and Destroy alone because I didn't know how to disable them. It seemed my only option was to delete them.

I tried to Scan Disc and the message kept coming up about starting over 10 times, etc. but I chose to ignore it and let Scan Disc run. It was slowly making progress, but after an hour I stopped it because I had to leave house for awhile.

When I returned, I also emptied my Quick Launch icons...including MSN Butterfly and Windows Big Blue E. I hope this didn't close any MSN or Windows files......the icons were still showing on the desktop.

I then Defragmented. It took much much longer than before, but it finally finished.

I still have to try to Scan Disc again with the security disabled as before, but also with Quick Launch emptied (MSN & Windows Icons.)

I will assume it is okay to empty the Quick Launch to Scan Disc so long as the icons appear on the desktop when I Scan Disc or Defragment. Also, I assume it isn't necessary to delete AAdware and S&D.

If you don't reply, I will take it that it is okay.

I sincerely appreciate your help. Thanks again.

abarickman · Answer

buddy, i got similar problem on my dimension L733r. i cant scandisk or defrag driveC. no problem with the external drives. when i start analyze it says i don't have enough memory or i need to close some programs that are using driving C. i tried closing threads in task-manager, and also removed some programs, and then started getting errors messages stating that files in my system folder were corrupted. however, my computer runs basic applications with plenty of CPU to spare so i am not really concerned, its just that driveC is fragmented to nextweek.

Storage, Drives & Media

Unable to Defragment Disc & Scan Disc

Was this post helpful?