Software not responding after running Disk Defragmenter

I own a very small Dell laptop I take with me on trips. I use it primarily to do searches in the area I'm in and to check my emails. Very simple stuff. The other night I decided to run spybot, ad-aware, easycleaner, virus scan, scan disk, and disk defrag. Not one single problem except my HD was about 35% fragmented. After rebooting tried connecting to the Internet. Much to my surprise the system hung with the ever popular hour glass icon sitting on the desktop. Had no choice other than to press ctrl/alt/delete. Two error messages appeared:

Explorer Not Responding
Iexplore Not Responding

The Iexplore line is highlighted. Selected "End Task" and the connection went through. Can not find a reason for this. It has never happened before. Is it at all possible a very small capacity laptop could run better if Disk Defrag is not run?

These are the laptop specs:

DELL Latitude XPi CD
OS: Win98SE
150 mhz
48mg RAM
2gb HD
HD 30% full
90% free system resources

This laptop never had a system error. ScanDisk and Disk Defrag were run in Safe Mode. My startup has only four items running; the bare minimum at startup. This machine is error free. Did a System File Checker. All is well; no missing or corrupt files. The system only hangs after running Disk Defrag.

Thanks for reading.

 

Delete the Applog folder from C:\Windows. This is a hidden folder so you'll have to have your view set to allow you to see hidden files and folders.

Corrupt data in that folder often causes defrag to hang. The folder and files will be rebuilt automatically later. The purpose of this folder is hold information as to what files you use most often and then when defrag is run, it places those programs and files on the fastest part of your HD. That all works great until it gets corrupt. Delete the folder and run defrag with fingers crossed.

Edit: Applog Deletion reference.

 

Are you sure it's the disk defragmentor that's causing the problem?

It's quite possible that one of the other programs is the cause of the problem. I think they all make backups by default. I'd try restoring the backups from adaware and spybot. If they don't do it, try restoring the backup from easy cleaner.

The way I'm understanding your post, you can run defrag (and the other programs) ok but you have problems after doing so. Is that correct?

 

Thanks for your posts. Greatly appreciated. I'll try to answer your questions in order.

1. Scan Disk and Disk Defrag BOTH ran successfully. Neither hung while processing.
2. According to Microsoft the applog folder should be deleted if defrag hangs. This does not apply to me.
3. Spybot, ad-aware and easycleaner restored. Same results.
4. "The way I'm understanding your post, you can run defrag (and the other programs) ok but you have problems after doing so. Is that correct?" YES After running Disk Defrag the system hangs while attempting to connect to any website. Iexplore Not Responding. In order to continue must End Task.
5. At startup the following jobs are running: ScanReg, SystemTray, (2) LoadPowerProfile
6. I always run Scan Disk before Disk Defrag.

Thanks again.

 

A reinstall of Win98SE did the trick. I have read articles saying this should be done a couple times a year to clean out garbage files that have collected over time. This is the absolute truth! After the reinstall even Disk Defrag ran faster and acquired more free space on my HD. One small problem that took a couple of minutes to fix. The reinstall did not recognize my wave device modem. In the Device Manager it came up under "Other" devices. Since I knew it was manufactured by 3Com and the model was Megahertz, I manually selected each and rebooted. Problem gone. For those who plan on doing what I did, I strongly suggest you follow this set of instructions.

http://9337387.home.icq.com/main29.html

That about wraps it up. This thread can now be closed. Thanks for the help.