Gerry said:
Norman
A Disk Defragment Report is a good source of background information.
Disk Defragmenting is only component of housekeeping but I have asked for
the Report for other reasons. If you read the whole thread you would see
the computer is marginal for Windows XP
--
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Norman, Gerry (and anyone else who cares to listen)...
With respect to only the general topic of defragmenting (since the topic has
arisen!) and not bearing directly upon the OP's problem...
During the Win9x days there was a standing joke at the shop where I was
working as a computer technician. When we techs arrived at the shop bright &
early Monday mornings we would invariably see a number of customers (new &
old) standing in line outside our door with computers in their hands (as
well as lying at their feet) waiting for the shop's door to open. The
standing joke around the shop was "Looks like the defragmenters were busy
over the weekend, huh?".
Invariably many users who were having no problems with their PCs prior to
defragmenting their HDDs certainly did encounter problems of one sort or
another following their attempt at "defragmenting" their HDD. And it didn't
seem to matter whether the OS's defragmenting utility was used or whether a
third-party program had been used. In nearly every case the only "fix" was a
reformatting of the drive and a reinstallation of the OS. Now I have to
emphasize that the preceding events occurred during the Win9x days.
Admittedly (based upon our experience with the XP OS environment) those
problems arising from the defragmentation process going awry seem to have
pretty much disappeared. The XP defragmenter is apparently much more
reliable in that it doesn't seem to cause the mischief its predecessors
sometimes caused (or at least were culpable in some respects). Ditto for the
latest generation of third-party defragmenters based on limited experience
we've had with them.
How effective the defragmenting process is in achieving "real-life"
improvement of a system's performance is another story. In our experience,
very little, if anything, is gained by the great bulk of PC users. (There
was an interesting article on defragmenting in (I believe) PC World a few
years back. After rather exhaustive testing, they concluded that the
defragmenting process yielded no significant performance improvement
affecting the XP OS for the vast majority of users, whether the XP
integrated utility was used or a third-party defragmenter was employed in
the process.
When we're asked about the value of defragmenting one's HDD, our standard
response for must PC users is that by & large the process is unnecessary to
achieve better performance of one's system. But if you feel you *must*
"defragment", do so twice a year - on New Years Day and Independence Day
(we're talking USA here). That's more than sufficient in our opinion, again,
for the vast majority of PC users.
There are (naturally!) certain exceptions to the point-of-view I've
expressed above (at least based upon reports I've received from a number of
users). It seems (according to these reports) that if the user is heavily
engaged in decoding/encoding video files and/or creating, deleting, or
modifying a *huge* volume of files on a very frequent basis, then there
*might* be valid reasons for undertaking more-or-less routine defragmenting
operations.
I'm aware that contrary viewpoints will be expressed re this issue, so let
me hastily say that if you are one of those who regularly defragments their
HDD(s) (either through the "built-in" XP utility or some third-party
"defragmenter") and believes that by so doing your PC performance is truly
enhanced, then obviously you should continue to do so.
In no way would I wish to dissuade those who feel they're deriving some
value from regularly defragmenting their HDD(s
Anna
