Hello Jim,

I assume your friend is running a Win9x version of Windows. It's not unusual
for Scan Disk to restart several times, especially if it's been a while
since it was done, so don't worry if it does. The key to defragmenting is to
stop all activity on the computer so that nothing is working but the
defragmenter as even the slightest interruption will cause it to restart at
the beginning. Start by bringing up the "Close Program" window. Hold the
"Ctrl" and "Alt" keys down and tap the "Delete" key. Next, "End Task" on all
entries, one at a time, until only "Explorer" remains. I emphasize "all
entries except Explorer". Also insure there isn't anything scheduled to
start automatically such as a screensaver. Then run the Defragmenter.

If it still doesn't complete without interruption then something is active
in the system. It could be one of the programs attempting to access the
internet or another possibility is spyware. It could be virtually anything
causing it and it might require some detective work to find it. If it's a
Win98/SE system the defragmenting could be speeded up immensely by replacing
the "defrag.exe" file located in "C:\Windows" with the one from Windows
Millennium. If you know someone who has Millennium you could copy it from
their system. I have it also if you're interested. Good luck...

Sven Swanson, Sr.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Bernhardt" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 1:35 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Scandisk & Defrag


Hey Guys,
    I'm trying to help a friend with her computor, the problem is when I try
to scandisk or defrag the computor times out because it says a program(s) is
writing to the harddrive. I shut down screensaver, all energy saving
features, went into msconfig and took out everyting except systray and it
still interupts scandisk. My question is how do you check to see what
programs are running in the backround...Thanks in advance for any help on
this subject...Jim

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