CPU Load 100% Windows 98SE

My CPU load is at 100%. Normally it is around 0 - 3%. In background I only have Explorer, Systray, Scanreg, and Stimon running. I went to PC Pitstop to test my system and the results were terrible. My CPU load was at 100% and my hard drive was fragmented at 20% AFTER running disk defragmenter. I also have Diskeeper 8.0 Home Edition installed and this program stopped working. When starting Diskeeper the system freezes and I have to reboot my system. It only occurs when Diskeeper is run. The error log in Diskeeper shows the following results:

3\01\2005 06:40:38 PM The Diskeeper Module DKSERVICE.EXE has reported the error " "(0xc0000005) while calling SetData on clsid {
3\01\2005 06:43:00 PM Diskeeper FAT engine has failed to analyze on drive C. The volume could not be locked.

The only recent change I made was the removal of a secondary hard drive I had installed as a slave drive. I checked my BIOS and the secondary drive is gone with my correct C: drive as the master. It appears my hard drive, after the removal of the slave drive, has changed to locked or unlocked. I don't know what it should be.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have you run something such as RegSeeker to see if something in the Registry is still looking for something on the now removed drive ?

I will gamble on the fact that there is.

Even ( if you have it ) Norton Windoctor would help. But still might not do it fully.

Removing a drive is more than just a simple unplug.

BillyBob

 

One thing that I see that is strange is that you say that Scanreg is "running in the background ". Are you doing Crtl>Alt>Delete to see the running programs or is this from Msconfig startup tab? Scanreg should not run in the background, only at boot.

One or two things I suggest you do:
Go to Safe Mode and run Scandisk.
You should be able to run Windows Defrag or Diskeeper in Safe Mode.

I like BillyBob's reasons. Further to that, if you have a Dynamic Drive Overlay/Disk Manager installed (maybe it was on the slave drive) that could cause the problems.

Matt
PS (and may relate to what B-B was saying) If you run an antivirus (not in your list of background programs) see what happens if you disable it from running at startup.

 

Thanks for the replies. Here's the story. Installed and ran RegSeeker. Found 385 entries. Deleted them all. No affect on my system. Ran ScanDisk and Defrag in SafeMode - still nothing. Went to PC Pitstop and ran all tests. These are my test results:

http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=JYV8MW4NP7RSRF66

Click-on Disk and Windows under the heading "subsystems ". "Disk" will show CPU Load and fragmentation and "Windows" will show what's running in background. I am pretty sure the problem is with my HD. The CPU Load is at 100% and the HD is fragmented at 13% after running Defrag. Fragmentation level has always been around 0 - 3% after running Disk Defrag. There are no error messages while Defrag. It runs to normal completion but does not defrag the drive. I am very sure Diskeeper had something to do with this when I had both drives installed. After removing the slave drive, Diskeeper no longer works. When Diskeeper is run now, it freezes my system and I have to reboot using Ctrl/Alt/Delete. Diskeeper has somehow lock-out my C: drive. The slave drive never had any system or program files installed. It was used for only data files. There is no Disk Manager installed. Thanks for your assistance. Hope to be hearing from you again.

 

AH-HA

I would bet that you have found the problem. I can't help because I never used Diskeeper.

I think ( and think only ) that it would have involved both drives and should have been UN-INSTALLED before removing the drive.

Diskeeper IS or MAY BE looking for the 2nd drive.

BillyBob

 

I will be happy to uninstall Diskeeper if I can get my system back to normal. If I'm reading your note correctly are you saying I should reinstall the slave drive, remove the Diskeeper program, and then I can remove the slave drive? If this is the case then why does my system run so poorly all the time? I'm only guessing but I think Diskeeper has somehow locked the slave drive eventhough it is no longer installed. This is the last message in the Diskeeper Error Log File:

3\01\2005 06:40:38 PM The Diskeeper Module DKSERVICE.EXE has reported the error " "(0xc0000005) while calling SetData on clsid {
3\01\2005 06:43:00 PM Diskeeper FAT engine has failed to analyze on drive C. The volume could not be locked.

Is it possible Diskeeper is still looking for the removed slave drive which was the D: drive? All I want to do is get my system back to normal with or without Diskeeper. Thanks again.

 

PLEASE wait for more help from someone that may well know more what needs to be done before diong anything.

I think you think correctly.

But MY THINKING could be wrong.

BillyBob

 

jackpan

Just a thought. When you took out the slave drive, did you change the jumper on the master? Sometimes the single drive needs to be set to a stand alone master to avoid problems.

I don't know if this will cause Diskeeper to work but if no you might try to uninstall it and reinstall.

 

Thank you Bmoore1129 for jumping in here.

You beat me on the jumper deal as that was going to be in my reply this AM.

I thought about that too. But having NO IDEA at all how Diskeeper works I have to wonder if it might ( as jackpan mentioned ) need the 2nd drive back to uninstall it correctly and fully.

Also would the above error message mess things up ?

And if Diskeeper is indeed loading I believe it would need to be prevented from loading at startup before it would even think about uninstalling.

BillyBob

 

The jumper on the master was never touched by me. I always assumed it was set as the master drive. The slave drive came out of my old PC which I reformatted and used solely as a storage drive - no system files or programs. Your reply created two new questions:

1. What is the difference between the master and stand alone?
2. When viewing the jumpers, the stand alone is on the left, master in the middle, and slave on the right. Is this correct?

My HD is in a hard to get to position. Before I remove it I want to make sure first. Thanks.

P.S. I removed Diskeeper. Getting my system back to normal is more important to me than Diskeeper.

 

I can do NOTHING other than agree with that thinking.

Did that get the system back to normal ?

If it did it is GREAT NEWS.

If not, it is back to the drawingboard.

BillyBob
PS.

I personaly can not answer the jumper question.

BB

 

If confronted with this type of problem, I'd first like to know if this box has been online. and if so what protection it has (e.g.firewall), and whether spybot, adaware and a good antivirus (see 'Links' below) have been run and when. I wouldn't worry about defragging.
Pests can certainly cause this type of problem.

 

One would have to know what the drive is in order to comment.

 

The difference between master and stand alone is that master needs to be set when there is a slave drive present on the cable. Stand alone is set when the drive is the only one on the cable.



One thing I wonder about is if the slave HDD was partitioned as an extended partition of the master drive. Now that the slave has gone, the partition records are wrong, which could certainly cause problems with Diskeeper. Any comments?

Matt

 

Comment;
is there an ECHO in here ?

It would be nice to know what the full story is on that.

If the case be that the jumber is set to Master and it was changed to Stand alone ?

Would it cause more problems ?

BillyBob

 

jackpan

PLEASE talk to us.

There is a possibility that you made a mistake. You are not the first one to do so and certainly will not be the last.

I did not have anything such as Diskeeper to deal with but I did not do a proper preparation for removal of a 3rd HD once. And before I got things back inline it came VERY Close to a wipe out and start over.

I had moved programs etc. to the 2nd but FORGOT ( failed ) to change the shortcuts or fix up the registry. All data and programs were safe BUT the system just did not know where to find it. I had more ( A LOT MORE ) can't find errors than I could even begin to count.

I think others involved here will know exactly what I was up against.

BillyBob

 

I just spent nearly an hour replying to your questions. I pressed the submit button and my system froze. Lost everything. My system is getting worse by the minute. One more time. My primary drive is a MAXTOR 6L020J1. There are 3 settings to choose from; master, slave, and cable select. I guess Maxtor calls the stand alone cable select. My system has ALWAYS been set to cable select.

http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=602


The slave drive came off my old PC. I reformatted it (wiped it clean), set the jumper to slave and installed it. I never had any system files or programs on the slave. When I removed the slave drive I also removed the Diskeeper program. I am positive Diskeeper is the cause of my problems. Diskeeper operates the same way Windows Defragmenter works. You select the drive you want to defrag and press start.

My system is virus free. I am a fanatic when it comes to maintenance. If I forgot anything please let me know. I'll be happy to answer your questions. Listed below is the driver page for my system. Perhaps the IDE driver has to be reinstalled. I just don't know anymore. Thanks a million for your help.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...&prodSeriesId=32853&lang=en&cc=us&swEnvOID=20

 

Thank you for getting back to us.

In what order did you do that ?

Diskeeper then the HD ? Or the HD then Diskeeper ? I have a feeling that it could make a lot of difference.

Doing things in the wrong order has caused me problems more than once.

These are the things we need to know in order to make suggestions. I personally can not help if it is a Diskeeper problem. But I am sure there are others that can.

More good info.

If it was on cable select I believe it needs to be connected to the proper connector on the cable. I can not help there but I know darn well others can.

BillyBob

 

Well, that would have caused a problem right there. One can't have one HDD jumpered as CS with another jumpered as slave. They should have both been jumpered CS or alternatively, your master jumpered as master and your slave jumpered as slave.

 

According to Maxtor you have a style C drive and there are 4 options (not including a capacity limiter) for pinouts with DS being the correct setting for a stand alone master. Left to right there is a single pin followed by 4 pairs of pins. Put your jumper on the first (furthest left) pair labeled DS for a single drive setup. Again - this per your drive mfg for a Maxtor 6L020J1.

Having said that, I personally always use CS and would put a stand alone on the terminating connector of an 80 wire 40 pin cable. However, since you are having problems and we know you had your drives jumpered incorrectly when you had two drives installed, you'd be well advised to try things the way your manufacturer recommends they be done.