won't defrag <20 GB HDD

Defrag says "not enough memory to defrag this drive" and to close open pgms
and try again.

FAT32. Has 480 MB memory (after AGP), nothing extra running. Error makes no
sense. Defrags other drives of similar size.

???

Most likely is that you have limited the Windows Swapfile and/or have Norton
software installed.

What is the size of your C:\ drive?
Do you have Norton software installed??
Have you limited your Swapfile/PageFile/Virtual Memory???


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Walterius" wrote in message
...
Defrag says "not enough memory to defrag this drive" and to close open
pgms
and try again.

FAT32. Has 480 MB memory (after AGP), nothing extra running. Error makes
no
sense. Defrags other drives of similar size.

???

I have a defrag problem too. I cant use DVD player either. I have CW
shredder, stinger, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spyblaster, AVG free. I followed the
steps in http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;218160 but
the defrag wont go further than 4%. Defrag didn't even start at all from
Maintenance Wizard

"Walterius" wrote:

Hmmm. Thanks for your response, Noel.

I do not use Norton.
I have not knowingly set any limits on my swapfile/pagefile/VM.
My C: drive is 26 GB. (It is a partition on a 60-GB drive.)

The partition that won't defrag is 19.5 GB and runs Win2K. (It is a
partition on a second 60-GB drive.)

The partition that is attempting the defrag is C:, 26 GB, and runs Windows
ME. (Note, it successfully defrags another Win2K partition that is larger
than the 19.5 GB one.)

All six partitions are FAT32:

C: Win ME
D: Win2K, defrags fine
E: spare
F: My Documents
[G & H: optical drives]
I: Win2K, won't defrag

I do the defrags in Win ME because I can defrag all drives with one command,
it has nice visual feedback if I want to watch it, and it is much faster
than the Win 2K defrag program.

This situation--where I can or cannot defrag a Win2K drive in WinME--comes
and goes. I rebuild my systems a lot, and sometimes this symptom occurs, but
usually it doesn't.

"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Most likely is that you have limited the Windows Swapfile and/or have
Norton
software installed.

What is the size of your C:\ drive?
Do you have Norton software installed??
Have you limited your Swapfile/PageFile/Virtual Memory???


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Walterius" wrote in message
...
Defrag says "not enough memory to defrag this drive" and to close open
pgms
and try again.

FAT32. Has 480 MB memory (after AGP), nothing extra running. Error makes
no
sense. Defrags other drives of similar size.

???

I used Ctrl + Alt + Delete to get the close program window to close
everything except Explorer and Systray (& Wuauclt whatever that is - it
wouldn't close). Some things took several times to close. Anyway, then the
computer defragged (the whole C no problem. This is weird, because I've
never had to do this before. Haven't got DVD working yet - maybe the lens
needs cleaning?

"Ross Corben" wrote:

I have a defrag problem too. I cant use DVD player either. I have CW
shredder, stinger, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spyblaster, AVG free. I followed the
steps in http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;218160 but
the defrag wont go further than 4%. Defrag didn't even start at all from
Maintenance Wizard

"Walterius" wrote:

Hmmm. Thanks for your response, Noel.

I do not use Norton.
I have not knowingly set any limits on my swapfile/pagefile/VM.
My C: drive is 26 GB. (It is a partition on a 60-GB drive.)

The partition that won't defrag is 19.5 GB and runs Win2K. (It is a
partition on a second 60-GB drive.)

The partition that is attempting the defrag is C:, 26 GB, and runs Windows
ME. (Note, it successfully defrags another Win2K partition that is larger
than the 19.5 GB one.)

All six partitions are FAT32:

C: Win ME
D: Win2K, defrags fine
E: spare
F: My Documents
[G & H: optical drives]
I: Win2K, won't defrag

I do the defrags in Win ME because I can defrag all drives with one command,
it has nice visual feedback if I want to watch it, and it is much faster
than the Win 2K defrag program.

This situation--where I can or cannot defrag a Win2K drive in WinME--comes
and goes. I rebuild my systems a lot, and sometimes this symptom occurs, but
usually it doesn't.

"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Most likely is that you have limited the Windows Swapfile and/or have
Norton
software installed.

What is the size of your C:\ drive?
Do you have Norton software installed??
Have you limited your Swapfile/PageFile/Virtual Memory???


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Walterius" wrote in message
...
Defrag says "not enough memory to defrag this drive" and to close open
pgms
and try again.

FAT32. Has 480 MB memory (after AGP), nothing extra running. Error makes
no
sense. Defrags other drives of similar size.

???

wuauclt is the Windows Update Automatic Client - which in theory should shut
itself down after a few seconds unless there's something to download - have
you checked?


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Ross Corben" wrote in message
...
I used Ctrl + Alt + Delete to get the close program window to close
everything except Explorer and Systray (& Wuauclt whatever that is - it
wouldn't close). Some things took several times to close. Anyway, then the
computer defragged (the whole C no problem. This is weird, because I've
never had to do this before. Haven't got DVD working yet - maybe the lens
needs cleaning?

"Ross Corben" wrote:

I have a defrag problem too. I cant use DVD player either. I have CW
shredder, stinger, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spyblaster, AVG free. I followed the
steps in http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;218160
but
the defrag wont go further than 4%. Defrag didn't even start at all from
Maintenance Wizard

"Walterius" wrote:

Hmmm. Thanks for your response, Noel.

I do not use Norton.
I have not knowingly set any limits on my swapfile/pagefile/VM.
My C: drive is 26 GB. (It is a partition on a 60-GB drive.)

The partition that won't defrag is 19.5 GB and runs Win2K. (It is a
partition on a second 60-GB drive.)

The partition that is attempting the defrag is C:, 26 GB, and runs
Windows
ME. (Note, it successfully defrags another Win2K partition that is
larger
than the 19.5 GB one.)

All six partitions are FAT32:

C: Win ME
D: Win2K, defrags fine
E: spare
F: My Documents
[G & H: optical drives]
I: Win2K, won't defrag

I do the defrags in Win ME because I can defrag all drives with one
command,
it has nice visual feedback if I want to watch it, and it is much
faster
than the Win 2K defrag program.

This situation--where I can or cannot defrag a Win2K drive in
WinME--comes
and goes. I rebuild my systems a lot, and sometimes this symptom
occurs, but
usually it doesn't.

"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Most likely is that you have limited the Windows Swapfile and/or have
Norton
software installed.

What is the size of your C:\ drive?
Do you have Norton software installed??
Have you limited your Swapfile/PageFile/Virtual Memory???


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to
NG's

"Walterius" wrote in message
...
Defrag says "not enough memory to defrag this drive" and to close
open
pgms
and try again.

FAT32. Has 480 MB memory (after AGP), nothing extra running. Error
makes
no
sense. Defrags other drives of similar size.

???

which in theory should shut
itself down after a few seconds

A "few" seconds is a most irritating 30 seconds.

As a test, I defragged the recalcitrant drive in Win2K. It took hours
because it was totally fragged. I then gave it to the WME defrag, which
again barfed. So it's not too having much defragging to do. It's something
else. It can't even defrag a defragged drive.

Anyway, I can defrag the drive, although it takes far longer in Win2K.

The reasons that the drive defrags in Win2K is that it isn't being accessed
from the OS at the time, and therefore not hitting the problem - how much
free space is there on the drive?? (and how big is it?).

What's the EXACT error message you get? - ALL of it!

Not enough memory could mean a number of things - including that you have
limited the Virtual memory to the point where scandisk can no longer
function properly.
Check out the VM settings in System|Performance|Virtual Memory - make sure
that Windows is set to manage it.


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Walterius" wrote in message
...
which in theory should shut
itself down after a few seconds

A "few" seconds is a most irritating 30 seconds.

As a test, I defragged the recalcitrant drive in Win2K. It took hours
because it was totally fragged. I then gave it to the WME defrag, which
again barfed. So it's not too having much defragging to do. It's something
else. It can't even defrag a defragged drive.

Anyway, I can defrag the drive, although it takes far longer in Win2K.

The only possible difference I can find between the drive that does not
defragment in WME and the drive that does is that I originally formatted the
recalcitrant drive in NTFS and later converted it to FAT32 in Partition
Magic.

All your other questions have been answered, most more than once, in my
previous posts. All parameters including VM are normal.

At this point, unless some other kind poster has new information, I give up.

You didn't answer how much free space there is on the drive - Win ME's
Defragger has to have about 15% free, or it can get uppity.

However, the fact that you used PM to partition and format the drive may be
significant - PM had (maybe still has) a habit of creating non-standard
partitions which react in strange ways at times.
It's for this reason that I always recommend using FDISK to prepare a FAT32
drive for use by windows, unless other factors prohibit it.

Since PM is now owned by Symantec, you can guarantee that it's going to be
impossible to find answers for any problems with older versions of PM (I
assume you used PM6 or earlier?), and hard for any 'currently-supported'
versions

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Walterius" wrote in message
...
The only possible difference I can find between the drive that does not
defragment in WME and the drive that does is that I originally formatted
the
recalcitrant drive in NTFS and later converted it to FAT32 in Partition
Magic.

All your other questions have been answered, most more than once, in my
previous posts. All parameters including VM are normal.

At this point, unless some other kind poster has new information, I give
up.

Ah - finally found something on the Symantec site, that prodded a
braincell----
what's the cluster size on that partition/drive? PM allowed the bad practice
of creating partitions greater than 8GB with a 4KB cluster size - with the
result that scandisk and defrag would run out of steam (not sure whether the
Win2k defragger is also affected or not)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q229154/



--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Walterius" wrote in message
...
The only possible difference I can find between the drive that does not
defragment in WME and the drive that does is that I originally formatted
the
recalcitrant drive in NTFS and later converted it to FAT32 in Partition
Magic.

All your other questions have been answered, most more than once, in my
previous posts. All parameters including VM are normal.

At this point, unless some other kind poster has new information, I give
up.