Defrag of hard drive takes forever

[JW310]

Last night, before I went to sleep for the night, I started the Win98 defrag program. It seemed to run fine (I had all other programs closed, to prevent the defrag from restarting), but when I checked it in the morning (about 5 hours later) it was still going - on about 84%. Rather than disturb it more, I decided I would let it go and hope it finished by the time I got home from school... Well, it was still stuck at 84%. I ran a defrag early last week, and everything went fine. I was wondering what could have caused it to basically hang at 84%. I have a large file on the hard drive (a 650MB Linux ISO file), and I have a feeling that's what it's getting stuck on. I did not, however, run ScanDisk before trying the defrag.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what could have caused this? Thanks!

[Apostle 83]

Have you installed any hardware, new software? If you have a backup, try wiping your hdd and restoring from backup. Is someone bouncing through your system, do you have a trojan horse? Try an anti virus scan. Might not help, but no one else has replied... Restore though, if you can!!

[JW310]

Apostle,
No, nothing has changed since the last time I ran defrag... I might try moving the ISO file from my Windows partition to my Linux partition and then re-running defrag to see if that takes care of the problem... Unfortunately, I do not have any backups of my system. I have no feasable way to backup a 10GB hard drive! Should be a little easier once I get a CD-R/RW drive.

JW

[Apostle 83]

Hey, from what you said, sounds like you have a hacker going through your system to avoid being traced. Happened to a friend of mine. I downloaded the demo version of syshield, can't remember the link... anyone got it? Anyways, next time you run defrag, use it and see who it logs bouncing off you!

[JW310]

Apostle,
Would that be possible when the computer is not connected? I go through a dial-up connection for the Internet, and I am disconnected while running defrag. Thanks for that tip about syshield, though! I'll have to look into that for the times that I am online!

JW

[Apostle 83]

I'm not sure if it is possible while you're off... You might not know if you are on if they poll YOUR system. I.E when you dial up, the server doesn't physically make noise while it connects with you. Also hackers can hide their entrance into your system. Hope this helps.

[AuraEdge]

If you pick up the fone on that line, and its not buzzin, your not connect.
I doubt its a hacker or anything, and probably just got backed up on the large chunk
When you pressed details on defrag, was it still moving stuff?
was your HDD making noise as if it were defragging?
I dont know how when Win98 defrag updates the % number. It may just stall when it hits 84 becuase its busy chunking though the large ISO.
See if your still having problems after moving it.

However i very much doubt anyone is snooping though your system.

[Axel]

When I see a system hang like that, I reboot into safe mode, run scandisk, and then defrag the system without having anything loaded. A real good idea before doing a software load as a matter of course. Also, I've seen some screen savers hang a defrag like that. Typically, I'll disable the screen saver and turn off the monitor if I know it's going to be a long defrag.

[JW310]

It wasn't the system that locked up.... I could still go in and stop the defrag. I don't use a screen saver (waste of elec... just have Power Management turn off the monitor), so that couldn't be it.

I moved that large ISO file to my Linux partition, and will attempt to defrag the HD tonight, before bed... I'll update if anything changes!

JW

[Chainsaw]

Run ScanDisk before trying the defrag this time, sure couldn't hurt. If you still have probs, invest in NU or System Works, it'll track down most any problems, especially with your HD. (It's well worth the investment, you'll wonder why ya didn't get it sooner)

[mattheadfat]

my friends and i were messing around with netbus a while ago, (i've formated my computer long since) but is it possible for these "hackers" (not just dorks with netbus or some other trogan) to get the same results (or similar) without any program on my computer, i'm online all the time and i leave my computer on, is this risky?

[JW310]

Well... I must have done something right this time... I moved the ISO file to one of my Linux partitions, and ran ScanDisk before Defrag. ScanDisk showed no errors. Was out for a few hours this evening, and I set Defrag to run before I left. One I returned, about 5 hours later, the defrag was finished. I have no idea how long it took, but it didn't "hang" as it did times before.

Must have been getting stuck on the ISO file!

Thanks, everyone, for your tips! Glad I finally got that solved!

JW

[john robbinson]

mattheadfat if you check back here heres a link you mite want to look at http://www.nwinternet.com/~pchelp/bo/bo.html