Can't defrag

**mendhak** · Sep 27th, 2002, 12:33 AM

Last night, right before sleeping, I left my hard drive to be defragged. When I wake up, it was still checking for errors on the hard drive. And it was at 2%, after which it would start at 0% again.

I decided to check for errors (solely) and found out that it couldn't complete the error check because a certain process was writing to the hard drive. A Lot!

Using filemon, I found out that the name of the process was Kernel32

and it was writing to a file named win386.swp

What is win386.swp and why wasn't it there before?
Any solutions?

**Vanguard-MnC** · Sep 27th, 2002, 01:48 AM

i had that problem too. if you used norton utilities 2002 to defrag, it works just fine

Edit: ok, ill give you more detail

norton utilities closes the running programs for you so you can defrag without anything interfering. it also comes with bunch on neato features like the windoctor thing

**OrdinaryGuy** · Sep 27th, 2002, 01:53 AM

lol.. wierd... ok... looking at it... your computer either has very little RAM (16 MB) or u have a bunch of crap loaded... win386.swp is your swap file and its only used when your really running low on memory.

Solution: Close all programs... unload all not needed processes and threads (use a process viewer). Once that is done.. if u have any good program... defrag your RAM... once u have done that... u could start the error checking again. The reason behind this is that if u have enough free RAM... windows wont write to the swap file

**mendhak** · Sep 27th, 2002, 01:56 AM

I have 160MB RAM, so it is enough. I did notice that kernel32 was writing exactly 0 bytes to the swap file each time.

I'll try that out, I think it'll work.

defrag your RAM...

Defrag my RAM?

**OrdinaryGuy** · Sep 27th, 2002, 02:16 AM

you could also temporarily disable virtual memory for your system tasks (that would stop kernel from writing to the swap file).

1) Right click on My Computer
2) Switch to the "Advanced" tab

over there.. you should find some button that allows u to do so... just explore.. i am running Windows XP and that option is no longer exists...

After your system tasks are over... DO NOT forget to enable it again

**DiGiTaIErRoR** · Sep 27th, 2002, 08:18 AM

Windows is weird. It'll use swap before RAM.

**BrandonTurner** · Sep 27th, 2002, 02:12 PM

did you try defraging in safe mode?

**parksie** · Sep 27th, 2002, 02:54 PM

Try disabling virtual memory (yes, it'll complain like a bastard) then doing it in Safe Mode as suggested.

**Rick Bull** · Sep 27th, 2002, 05:24 PM

Originally posted by mendhak
Defrag my RAM?

You know you can actually get a utility that does that. Can't really see much point myself.

**parksie** · Sep 27th, 2002, 05:29 PM

If they're clever and align things along cache lines then maybe...

Best idea is just to restart though, or get an OS that doesn't suck

**OrdinaryGuy** · Sep 27th, 2002, 09:53 PM

lol yeah.. Im sure Mendhak is running Windows 95/98. This problem doesn't occur on Windows ME +

Windows XP actually allows me to work while my HD is being defragmented.

**parksie** · Sep 28th, 2002, 05:18 AM

Yash - that's a feature of NT, that it can do that. Since it can guarantee nothing's going to mess with the disk, it can properly schedule all the disk access calls

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