defrag hangup

I can't defrag my computer. It gets to 2% and hangs up. I've waited hours and nothing more happens. I tried to reinstall Windows 98 and it says there is something wrong with my autoexec.bat or config. sys. Never touched them before. Any ideas?

 

In general, on a Windows 98 machine using the defragger that came with the system...

Make sure that you clean up your drive as much as is possible by removing files from temporary folders, temporary internet files cache, the recycle bin and anywhere else you can.

Clean up the desktop as well.

10% free space on the hard drive, at least, is useful.

If you are having problems running the defragger, run SCANDISK first and fix what it finds that is wrong.

You should probably start the defragger right after a fresh reboot. You need to shutdown all programs running in the background including those running in your system tray before you start.

Don't do anything with your system while it is defragging.

If the defrag restarts and is successful at restart, it may be that you have a lot of fragmentation. If this is the case, it may restart a number of times. However, it will zip right through what it already defragged on the previous pass. It shouldn't hang on the restart longer than about 30 seconds or so.

 

What's in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files?

 

Thanks, I'll give it a try

 

It is never a good idea to install windows when booting off of the hard drive. Create a startup floppy to do this. Control Panel\Add Remove Programs, click on Start Up Disk tab, then click on Create Disk. Always a good idea to have one on hand.

 

I would suggest http://www.powerdefrag.com/
Never misses a beat and the price is right! The version 2.10 beta for W98 is free.