Problem Defraging Sys Drive (C:)

Please excuse. I am not sure if I am in the proper newsgroup. I am
shotgunning this to every Win98 newsgroup that I am coming across.

I have tried looking this up on the new, but the only thing that it relates
to is WinME

I have an old system that I uses for subscription mail.

I had about 100MB mem w/Win98SE

Due to the age of the mother board, I have to use something called EZ Bios
as I am running a hard drive that is greater than 32 gig.

I have two hard drives. Drive C, E, and F are logical drive and Drive D is
a single 4 Gig hard driv. Problem is this. I keep getting messages from
Norton stating that Drive C is heavily fragmented (over 82%) and needs to
have defrag run on it. When I try and run any of the following software;
Norton Disk Doctor, Optimization Wizard, Speed Disk, Win98 Scan Disk or
Win98 Disk Defrag, I get the following message "Unable to operate on Drive C
because it is in use by unknown disk utility. Please close unknown disk
utility to operate on Drive C".

Now I use Drive C as my system drive and I put nothing on the drive
directly. When I try and install, I try and have everything go to Drive E;
however, sometimes software does not give me that option.

I have turned off everything that I can find. Have to be careful if I boot
in DOS and try this as I am not sure of the EZ Bios would be working and I
do not want to screw up Drive C (Defrag might not see complete Drive C, etc)

I would appreciate any and all help. One thing, I really would prefer not
to have to reformat Drive C. Drive C is 7.3 Gig with 5.6 Gig free.

Thanks in advance

SomeOne

Start the computer in SAFE MODE, and then run Windows' Scandisk and Defrag utilities
from there, not Norton's.

Please post back with your results. Give us any error messages received word for
word, please. Also please post back with the exact error messages you receive from
scandisk and defrag when you originally tried. Did it really state "unable to
operate because the disk is in use", or did it state because the "disk is locked"?

Also note that the info you read on the web re: your issue, that stated it applied
to Windows ME, may also apply to your Win98 system.

Why do you even have the Norton programs installed on the system that you only use
for mail? They cause more system problems that they fix.

How to Start Windows in Safe Mode
http://www.pchell.com/support/safemode.shtml

Getting into Windows Safe Mode
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

How to start Windows in Safe Mode
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial61.html

--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.net/
http://dts-l.net/goodpost.htm


"SomeOne" <SomeOne RemoveThis @Example.Com> wrote in message
news:UGs0k.121$js1.91@newsfe24.lga...
> Please excuse. I am not sure if I am in the proper newsgroup. I am
> shotgunning this to every Win98 newsgroup that I am coming across.
>
> I have tried looking this up on the new, but the only thing that it relates
> to is WinME
>
> I have an old system that I uses for subscription mail.
>
> I had about 100MB mem w/Win98SE
>
> Due to the age of the mother board, I have to use something called EZ Bios
> as I am running a hard drive that is greater than 32 gig.
>
> I have two hard drives. Drive C, E, and F are logical drive and Drive D is
> a single 4 Gig hard driv. Problem is this. I keep getting messages from
> Norton stating that Drive C is heavily fragmented (over 82%) and needs to
> have defrag run on it. When I try and run any of the following software;
> Norton Disk Doctor, Optimization Wizard, Speed Disk, Win98 Scan Disk or
> Win98 Disk Defrag, I get the following message "Unable to operate on Drive C
> because it is in use by unknown disk utility. Please close unknown disk
> utility to operate on Drive C".
>
> Now I use Drive C as my system drive and I put nothing on the drive
> directly. When I try and install, I try and have everything go to Drive E;
> however, sometimes software does not give me that option.
>
> I have turned off everything that I can find. Have to be careful if I boot
> in DOS and try this as I am not sure of the EZ Bios would be working and I
> do not want to screw up Drive C (Defrag might not see complete Drive C, etc)
>
> I would appreciate any and all help. One thing, I really would prefer not
> to have to reformat Drive C. Drive C is 7.3 Gig with 5.6 Gig free.
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> SomeOne
>
>
>