Don Schlesinger: Freezing question

[Magician]

> Thanks for your help and suggestions,
> everyone.

> While I was out today, my son attempted to
> do it for me. After THREE hours, only 10%
> was done, so he abondoned it and we'll
> probably try again overnight.

> Tedious process!! Is he right that what was
> done is lost and that it has to be done in
> one shot?

The first 10% of the defrag progress bar consists of reading the drive information and a brief check for errors. This is repeated every time you run defrag. The remaining 90% of the progress bar is the actual defragmentation process. Once you've succesfully run defrag through once this part is fairly quick (perhaps an hour). The first time can be hell though.

If any other program writes to the drive during the defragmentation process then it must start again from the beginning! Make sure you close all other applications before you start, and don't run anything else while defrag is running. If defrag still keeps restarting, try rebooting Windows in safe mode and then running defrag.

I've never heard of anyone actually gettin any noticeable benefit out of defragmenting their hard disk, but yours seems to be an extreme case (4 years!). Perhaps it will solve your problem; in any case, it couldn't hurt.

[Don Schlesinger]

> I've never heard of anyone actually gettin
> any noticeable benefit out of defragmenting
> their hard disk, but yours seems to be an
> extreme case (4 years!). Perhaps it will
> solve your problem; in any case, it couldn't
> hurt.

The defrag was 100% complete when I woke up this morning. We'll see if there's any noticeable difference in the way my machine operates.

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions.

Don

[Mister M]

Can anybody state if the speed disc function on Norton System Works is the same thing as "defraging". This only seems to take a maximum of 15 minutes each time whilst Don's method was tedious to say the least.

[Norm Wattenberger]

> Can anybody state if the speed disc function
> on Norton System Works is the same thing as
> "defraging". This only seems to
> take a maximum of 15 minutes each time
> whilst Don's method was tedious to say the
> least.

Don't know and don't care. Norton is now a major source of SPAM. I wouldn't use their products if they paid me.

[Mister M]

Thanks for the advice. can you please suggest a more suitable anti virus system works software?

[Parker]

> Thanks for the advice. can you please
> suggest a more suitable anti virus system
> works software?

Try AVG. It works fine, they don't fill your mailbox with spam, and best of all, the software and the necessary updates are free for non-commercial users. Link below.

As long as I'm talking about viruses, I'd like to stress how important it is to keep the virus definitions for anti-virus software (regardless of which software is used) up-to-date. Updates should be downloaded at least once a month - once a week is even better.

Lately I have noticed a large upsurge in the number of Klez viruses that I receive each day in my e-mail. I suspect that there is a new variant that will get past anti-virus software that has not been kept updated.

Having anti-virus software that is not frequently updated on a regular basis is worse than not having it at all, because it will provides a false sense of security.

Of course, for the enlightened user running a Mac or a Linux box, viruses are pretty much a non-issue.

AVG Anti-Virus

[Mister M]

[Oldster]

[Norm Wattenberger]

I receive about a dozen SPAMs a day trying to sell Norton System Works. Only way they can sell it since most of the stuff is now built in to Windows.

[Norm Wattenberger]

> Having anti-virus software that is not
> frequently updated on a regular basis is
> worse than not having it at all, because it
> will provides a false sense of security.

Actually that's a good point. I don't run anti-virus software at all and I'm connected 24 hours to the 'Net on three PCs. Just don't open any e-mails with viruses.

[MikeyVegas]

And in my opinion, I would recommend to all broadband(cable/DSL) users to have both an antivirus client(updated weekly) and firewall (software or hardware) running on your pc at all times. My favorite software firewall out there now is Zone Alarm (made by Zone labs). Not only is it a good defense against hackers, but it is also free. In terms of AV(Antivirus) software, you can usually find Norton 2003 or McAfee in any retail store FAR(Free After Rebate). Just my 2 cents!

Zone Alarm