Disk Defragmenting to Windows 2000

[windows runner]

Hello

just looked at defragmenting the main Disk C, and find I only have 5% free space. The disk has not been touched for about four weeks just used, feel that Semantec Norton internet security may have something to do with this. I had bought it for a couple of years and now it is supplied with my ISP connection to broadband. The system has been updating through Norton much more than normal and it may have been that the software from the ISP has caused a problem when loaded!

I am trying to find a quicker solution to Defraging the disk than keep trying over and over with the standard defragger. Before this problem I had about 39% free space , if I remember correctly.

Any ideas or suggestions.

Thanks

WR.

[AlanHo]

I would back up the complete disk - preferrably using Acronis - to an external drive before carrying out any surgery - like......

- using Windows Explorer to browse the disk and delete all old files no longer worth saving.

- download CCleaner and run it to remove all redundant and temporary files.

- look carefully at the installed programs and uninstall any that are no longer of interest.

- run CCleaner once more to clean up any stray deletions

This should free up enough space to defrag the disk.

I personally would not have anything to do with Norton on my computer - it is too much trouble. There are a number of free anti virus and anti malware programs that will protect you adequately without using Norton which is resource hungry.

If this fails to leave you with at least 30% free space on the disk - it is time to either buy a bigger drive or better still, instal a second hard drive to store all data.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Also make sure that you don't have any malware on your system.

If Alan's suggestions don't yield substantial results, try ExplorerXP to see where all that disk space is used.

[andsome]

I too agre 100% with Alan, especially with the tip about getting rid of Norton. The only problem is that it can be a pain to get rid of because it is so invasive. You will almost certainly need to download their removal tools to do a complete job. I would also suggest that once you have tidied everything up, try Diskeeper for defragging the hard drive. You can still download Diskeeper free, but you will probably like it so much that you will update to the pro version. It is relatively cheap for a lifetime licence, and has many extra features including Boot time defrag, which really does speed things up. :D

[Irene]

On andsome's recommendation, some time ago, I tried Diskeeper.

After the trial period, I decided that it was too good to give up, so I purchased the licence. :D

You can download a free trial HERE

[andsome]

On andsome's recommendation, some time ago, I tried Diskeeper.

After the trial period, I decided that it was too good to give up, so I purchased the licence. :D

You can download a free trial HERE

So women do occasionally listen then. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[windows runner]

I would back up the complete disk - preferrably using Acronis - to an external drive before carrying out any surgery - like......

- using Windows Explorer to browse the disk and delete all old files no longer worth saving.

- download CCleaner and run it to remove all redundant and temporary files.

- look carefully at the installed programs and uninstall any that are no longer of interest.

- run CCleaner once more to clean up any stray deletions

This should free up enough space to defrag the disk.

I personally would not have anything to do with Norton on my computer - it is too much trouble. There are a number of free anti virus and anti malware programs that will protect you adequately without using Norton which is resource hungry.

If this fails to leave you with at least 30% free space on the disk - it is time to either buy a bigger drive or better still, instal a second hard drive to store all data.

Thank you all for your replies. I have tried Alans suggestion with CCleaner. It installed well and quickly after a five minute run it suggested over a gig of files to remove, so I checked the list it offers and could not any points I thought would cause trouble, so I ran the cleaner.

About four minutes later it had cleaned the files and I had just over an extra gig of free space, very impressive. I have tried opening and closing a few apps and email and the web browser, they all appear to work and the email and web browser are opening slightly quicker.

Thank You.

The registry integrity part I have not tried I would not say I have a working knowledge of this. But the sections for obsolete software and unused file extensions I wonder if that may be worth trying or would it cause damage.

The suggestion of using Diskeepr by Irene and Andsome I will look into in the very near future.

Like wise, Pat thank you, and I will check out ExplorerXP.

The use of Norton has been over 4 years and although it has been fairly good, it has been getting very resource hungry in the last two years. My current ISP, is BT, they are offer Norton inclusive and when they did I did not buy a yearly update / subscription. B.T said their version would just load on top of my existing software, I wonder if it may have been better to have removed the existing and then a clean install.

WR.

:flowers:

[andsome]

I would back up the complete disk - preferrably using Acronis - to an external drive before carrying out any surgery - like......

- using Windows Explorer to browse the disk and delete all old files no longer worth saving.

- download CCleaner and run it to remove all redundant and temporary files.

- look carefully at the installed programs and uninstall any that are no longer of interest.

- run CCleaner once more to clean up any stray deletions

This should free up enough space to defrag the disk.

I personally would not have anything to do with Norton on my computer - it is too much trouble. There are a number of free anti virus and anti malware programs that will protect you adequately without using Norton which is resource hungry.

If this fails to leave you with at least 30% free space on the disk - it is time to either buy a bigger drive or better still, instal a second hard drive to store all data.

Thank you all for your replies. I have tried Alans suggestion with CCleaner. It installed well and quickly after a five minute run it suggested over a gig of files to remove, so I checked the list it offers and could not any points I thought would cause trouble, so I ran the cleaner.

About four minutes later it had cleaned the files and I had just over an extra gig of free space, very impressive. I have tried opening and closing a few apps and email and the web browser, they all appear to work and the email and web browser are opening slightly quicker.

Thank You.

The registry integrity part I have not tried I would not say I have a working knowledge of this. But the sections for obsolete software and unused file extensions I wonder if that may be worth trying or would it cause damage.

The suggestion of using Diskeepr by Irene and Andsome I will look into in the very near future.

Like wise, Pat thank you, and I will check out ExplorerXP.

The use of Norton has been over 4 years and although it has been fairly good, it has been getting very resource hungry in the last two years. My current ISP, is BT, they are offer Norton inclusive and when they did I did not buy a yearly update / subscription. B.T said their version would just load on top of my existing software, I wonder if it may have been better to have removed the existing and then a clean install.

WR.

I don't think that this would have helped. I am suspicious of any so called inclusive software. The catch is that usually the vendor, in this case BT, will have received a generous kick back from Symantec, and you have been paying for it ever since. The first thing to do is to ensure that you have an AV program and firewall downloaded and saved to a folder, don't go back on line until the new programs are loaded, and don't load them until Norton is uninstalled. To uninstall it have a look at their website first and download and save any removal tools. Then uninstall using the programs own uninstall facility, followed if necessary by using the downloaded removal tools. Then, and only then install the new programs. If you are prepared to pay for the best, I recommend Nod 32 Full security suite. If you want free, then AVG are recommended by many on here, and also Comodo firewall. Links can be obtained on a Google search. :D

[windows runner]

I would back up the complete disk - preferrably using Acronis - to an external drive before carrying out any surgery - like......

- using Windows Explorer to browse the disk and delete all old files no longer worth saving.

- download CCleaner and run it to remove all redundant and temporary files.

- look carefully at the installed programs and uninstall any that are no longer of interest.

- run CCleaner once more to clean up any stray deletions

This should free up enough space to defrag the disk.

I personally would not have anything to do with Norton on my computer - it is too much trouble. There are a number of free anti virus and anti malware programs that will protect you adequately without using Norton which is resource hungry.

If this fails to leave you with at least 30% free space on the disk - it is time to either buy a bigger drive or better still, instal a second hard drive to store all data.

Thank you all for your replies. I have tried Alans suggestion with CCleaner. It installed well and quickly after a five minute run it suggested over a gig of files to remove, so I checked the list it offers and could not any points I thought would cause trouble, so I ran the cleaner.

About four minutes later it had cleaned the files and I had just over an extra gig of free space, very impressive. I have tried opening and closing a few apps and email and the web browser, they all appear to work and the email and web browser are opening slightly quicker.

Thank You.

The registry integrity part I have not tried I would not say I have a working knowledge of this. But the sections for obsolete software and unused file extensions I wonder if that may be worth trying or would it cause damage.

The suggestion of using Diskeepr by Irene and Andsome I will look into in the very near future.

Like wise, Pat thank you, and I will check out ExplorerXP.

The use of Norton has been over 4 years and although it has been fairly good, it has been getting very resource hungry in the last two years. My current ISP, is BT, they are offer Norton inclusive and when they did I did not buy a yearly update / subscription. B.T said their version would just load on top of my existing software, I wonder if it may have been better to have removed the existing and then a clean install.

WR.

I don't think that this would have helped. I am suspicious of any so called inclusive software. The catch is that usually the vendor, in this case BT, will have received a generous kick back from Symantec, and you have been paying for it ever since. The first thing to do is to ensure that you have an AV program and firewall downloaded and saved to a folder, don't go back on line until the new programs are loaded, and don't load them until Norton is uninstalled. To uninstall it have a look at their website first and download and save any removal tools. Then uninstall using the programs own uninstall facility, followed if necessary by using the downloaded removal tools. Then, and only then install the new programs. If you are prepared to pay for the best, I recommend Nod 32 Full security suite. If you want free, then AVG are recommended by many on here, and also Comodo firewall. Links can be obtained on a Google search. :D

Thanks you I will have a good read of their respective websites to glean some ideas on waht to use.

WR.

[Sunray]

Norton is coded by the Prince of Darkness himself :lol:. It can single-handedly bring a system to it's knees; I've seen it happen too many times.

There are other free alternatives to Norton, for eg, AVG Free is pretty good (for a free program) and runs on few resources.

Comodo is a good firewall, but not 100% sure if the latest version runs on Win2k, you may need to go with V2.4

Spybot S&D is a good spyware scanner.

And even if you have all these, nothing beats safe surfing habits and common sense.

Finally, if you have only 5% free disk space, you should still be able to defrag with the latest Diskeeper version (2008 Pro). It defrags quite nicely in low space conditions. DK recently defragged one of my 250GB drives filled with thousands of 10-20MB and some larger sized files, and I am pretty sure that there was only about 4% free space left before the defrag,.

[rong]

Didn't know Ozzie was into compute software, no wonder it keeps causing problems. :0

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Finally, if you have only 5% free disk space, you should still be able to defrag with the latest Diskeeper version (2008 Pro).

There is also a free version (Diskeeper Lite 7); google to find a number of download sites.

[Sunray]

Finally, if you have only 5% free disk space, you should still be able to defrag with the latest Diskeeper version (2008 Pro).

There is also a free version (Diskeeper Lite 7); google to find a number of download sites.

Yes, DK lite was a great defragger back in the day, but it's grown a bit long in the tooth now, and lacks most of the features of new versions (it was also crippled then, with some functions grayed out). Among the free ones, I'd still pick that over 'auslogics' or whatever, any day of the week for XP, but it does not work with Vista. I think the major shift for Diskeeper was with the 2007 version which introduced a new approach to defrag. The 2008 releases improved upon the idea quite a bit.

Didn't know Ozzie was into compute software, no wonder it keeps causing problems.

:lol: