Defrag problems

[Project86]

I got a WD 30 gig hd that I've had for a few years. Due to some recent projects I've been working on (archiving photos/videos/apps, video editing, converting sound libraries, etc) and my general lack of paying attention, the drive is extremely fragmented. The trouble is, I can't seem to make it through a defrag. I have tried the built in Windows thing, O&O defrag, and Diskeeper, and none of them make it past 20%. They either hang and lockup Windows, or else they just sit with no activity for 10+ hrs at a time. I know it takes a while, but sitting at 19% complete all night with no appearant HD activity doesn't seem right to me. Any ideas (other than the blindingly obvious "your drive's dying")?

[FireFox]

You might be running out of system resources...

What are your system specs? Have you killed all unneeded programs before running defrag? Is you HDD almost full?

More info please :D

Foxy

[JigPu]

What OS are you using? Back when I still ran Win98, the exact same thing would happen to me :-/

I'd try clearing up some diskspace if you can (most defraggers have a horrible time if they've got 20% or less space free), and moving large (100MB+) files to another drive to try speeding it up.

JigPu

[Project86]

I'm running XP with sp2, I have about 7 gb free on a 30gb drive. I didn't do any special boot, so all sorts of crap is running in the background. Maybe that is the problem? I'll try to do a bootup-defrag and see how that goes.

[Vrykyl]

try running a program like O&O in safe mode, that was the only way to get my 250gb hdd past about 30% when it only had about 1gb left on it......

[shadowdr]

From command prompt,type chkdsk C: /v /x /r and answer y to run at startup.If it also hangs at a specific spot or keeps dropping to a lower percentage then you will need to start a repair install but chose the command console instead of the repair function and type chkdsk /? for the switches.I beleive it is chkdsk /c from the console but the /? will tell you for sure.Sometimes it must be done twice,and it will take a while to complete but inconsistancies will be repaired and the defrag should then complete.