Unable to Defag Win 95 Hard Disk 1

[dddave]

I have a Pentium with 32 MB RAM, running Windows 95a and IE 5.5. I boot up and run ScanDisk in DOS, with no errors shown. The PC runs slow, so I want to defrag the hard disk. After booting into Windows, I remove all active running programs - Zone Alarm, PC-cillin 2000, etc., so that only Explorer and Systray are running. I try to run Defrag and I get the indication that the hard disk is 5% fragmented), I get errors indicating that I should run Scandisk. The error is that "Windows could not access part of this drive, Click Help and carry out the instructions for running ScanDisk aand choose the Thorough option. ID No. DEFRAG006". I then go and run Scandisk and get three errors, that three folders were unable to be opened in MS-DOS mode because it's MS-DOS name, including the names of any folders in it, is longer than 66 characters. Each time I chose Ignore Error and Continue to each choice given. No errors are detected.
I have done this many times with the same result. What should I check to see how I can run Defrag?
David

 

[Mosaic1]

Try booting to Safe Mode and running from there.

 

[reghakr]

David,

Right-click on the icons in the tray area and choose "exit" or "close".

Then tap the Alt_Ctl_Del keys and end task on all items except for explorer and systray.

Then right-click on the desktop, choose properties, click the Screen Saver tab and select (None) from the drop-down list.

Then run scandisk, then defrag.

Also try this site:

http://badour.freewebsites.com/html/scandisk.html

I would suggest at the very least another 32MB of RAM.

reghakr

 

[Mosaic1]

I would also say that you shouldn't be surprised if you have bad sectors on the Hard Drive.

 

[goway]

Start the computer in safe mode (press the f8 key at startup - will give you choices on how to start the computer - select 3 - safe mode).
When computer has booted turn off - screen saver and run degrag - if the system insists you run scandisk run it - under options (before running scandisk - set it up to automatically fix errors - check box). This usually fixes this type of problem.

 

[dddave]

I want to thank everyone as booting to Safe Mode, running Scandisk (had error trying to run Defrag first) in Windows, using Thorough, Autofix errors; and then running Defrag worked great.
As already expained in my original message, I was running only Explorer and Systray only. I do not run any screen savers. As for another 32MB RAM, don't use that PC very much and the amount of RAM is sufficient for my use at this time.