You should Defragment this drive, always.

I used to go to defrag and if it wasn't long since I did it before, it would tell me I do not need to defrag this drive.

Now, when I do, it will say I should defragment this drive. If I come back to it soon, I can see it has no red lines but it always says I need to defrag the Drive (volume). Even if I just get done, go back it still says I should defrag. What changed? Thanks, Chirs.

 

Chris--Perhaps of help
http://www.andreasroom.com/blog/archive/2004/01/18/defrag.aspx
If that does not work, can you post the exact message you are getting?

 

Also try from a DOS windows:

fsutil dirty query c:

after a startup. If it says that the dirty bit is dirty it may be that your HD is perhaps unhealth and Windows will always set the bit for a scandisk during boot. The autocheck can be disabled but it is not recomended (although I had a case that reinstalling Windows fixed the problem and the bit never was set again).

 

Do you by any chance have a second non microsoft defrag utility such as norton speed disk installed?
The XP windows defrag is based on executive software diskeeper lite and runs in the background to optimize the drive . Since different utilities sort files in different order, having two can result in each constantly reporting the drive is fragmented.
Do you have any multipurpose utility (ontrac, mcafee, norton system works, etc) installed?