re: Defragmenting my "C" drive, causes error
Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ed
(741 messages posted)
One thing I forgot to mention. Defrag.exe is in origin a DOS-based program, and so
it will fail to complete (exhibiting the symptoms you've mentioned) if it encounters
the notorious DOS "directory limit".
DOS could only read a file if it was not more than 8 levels "deep". Defrag has the
same limitation, because it is running on DOS fundamentally. DOS still can't read
such a file, not even in the version of DOS that ships with Windows ME.
But Windows doesn't have that limitation. So it's perfectly possible you've created
more than 8 levels of subdirectories using Windows. The only time that will ever
be a problem is in running the Defrag program, because Windows was built to overcome
that particular drawback of DOS. In technical terms, the "path" (to the file) is
too long for DOS to read.
Therefore, you should check to see whether your hard disk has any files in a sub-directory
that is more than 8 levels below the C: root directory.
The (very easy) solution is to simply move them, using Windows, to a higher level
directory. Make sure you get them all, because you may have inadvertantly done this
with lots of files. I know I did!
By the way, I strongly recommend that you only run Defrag after running ScanDisk
for Windows in thorough mode and also ScanDisk for DOS (and run the latter
in pure DOS mode, using the Windows ME "Emergency Boot Disk" floppy).
Ed
On Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 6:23 am, elmoticky wrote:
>Keith, As I always say, you guys are great bunch. To
>continue encouraging me to fix this defrag issue is a
>bit of an example. I remember my daughter buying this WinMe in the wee 90`s. In
94
>she gave it to me and a defrag has never been done on it. A quick mind-math tells
>me that no matter what I do, time has taken over this PC. It is slow, but dependable
>to what I do which is only read websites and post in forums a bit. Other than that,
>I have not dumped it because I do not see myself as an addicted computer
>nut who spends his days online. Oh don`t get me wrong, I enjoy great moments and
>escapes while I
>use my computer, but I really do not feel up to putting you and the rest of the
guys
>here at annoyances through the "annoyance" of defraging this
>junk of machine. I really think it will solve nothing as
>far as my use of it. When I removed a ton of pictures
>from the files, I hastly, and without thinking thought
>of the defrag..It was a mistake. I am frustrated and
>you make some valid points in guiding me through in
>this task. I do not trust system restore, as I have used it previously to fix some
>small inconsistencies in
>my files, only to find a monster problem, causing me
>to abandoning this feature completely. Really Keith,
>I will not even attempt to go beyond the 4% complete that my try generated. Again,
>thanks a lot.
>Make no mistake, I will always search you guys out
>whenever I get stumped with an issue..This one does
>not merit any emergency attention, as it just old and
>tired, ready to fold on me. Thanks Keith.
>
>
>
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