Defrag question

[johnnymk]

I don't know if I have a hard drive ready to fail or not. I attempted to defrag Drive C the other day and of course it stated that I should use scandisk to check for errors.
When I use scandisk, the procedure repeats itself over and over. The blue squares which proceed to the right go approximately 80%, return, then go to about 20%, and this repeats itself over and over.
I then try defrag and it goes to 7%, back to zero, back to 7% and this repeats itself. I used BCM diagnostics to analyze my hard drive and everything comes up OK. What's next?

[Jeffbx]

What OS are you using? If it's W2K or NT4, you should schedule a scandisk to run at boot time.

The Defrag is looping because something is writing to the hard drive while defrag is running. Every time the drive content changes, defrag will start over. Turn off any virus scanners, drive/system utilties and any other programs running in the background. Then run it overnight - it may take a while.

[johnnymk]

Windows 95. I did turn off everything . Would the cordless mouse interfere with defrag?

[qmanchu]

The cordless mouse itself shouldn't bother the defragmenting process. However, its utility program might cause it to restart. Check your task list (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and make sure nothing except "systray" and "explorer" is running, if possible. You want to minimize the number of other applications that could be accessing your hard drive. Good luck. :)

[MusashiM]

Is this a repost?

Someone else had this same problem, and it was recommended to them to start in safe mode and then defrag while in safe mode...

Of course, I'd also suggest not running scandisk on thorough. It takes too much time, and doesn't really do anything that will help you defrag better...

[OC]

Win95? Boot into Safe Mode, then do Defrag. Even with nothing in the background or the systray, Win9x LOVES to play with itself and give you fits. Safe Mode avoids most of that.

-OC