defrag & C:WINDOWS/0, 4, 6, 8, 9

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Steph: Are you 100% sure that there is no trace of any virus or spyware on
your computer? What you have described sounds a lot like a virus or spyware
infection.
--
Ted Zieglar


"Steph." <Steph@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5DF6BCD8-8BDE-4EE9-939C-B1F5A46513C2@microsoft.com...
> I tried defragmenting (in safe mode) my C drive (a few times) and I am
left
> with 21% still fragmented.
> The report showed that files c:windows/0 had over 800 files that could not
> be defragmented and file c:windows/4 had over 400 files
>
> When I rebooted, I was warned that I was critically low on space. My "C"
> partition is 16 Gig and it only contains Windows XP sp2 and some safety
> software such as antivirus, antispyware and firewall.
>
> When I look in Explorer, I find the following strange files:
> C:WINDOWS/0 1 375 440 System file
> C:WINDOWS/4 1 375 440 System file
> C:WINDOWS/6 1 375 440 System file
> C:WINDOWS/8 1 375 440 System file
> C:WINDOWS/9 1 375 440 System file
>
> I also had this critically low space problem a few months ago and the
> problem was the System Volume Information that was full due to the System
> Restore not functionning.
>
> Unfortunetly, I do not remember how I had cleared the System Volume
> Information file and my System Retore has never worked since I reformated
> back in September.
>
> Any help?
>
> Stephane
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

I am absolutly, positivelly certain I do not have any virus or spyware.
I am running continuously Norton antivirus, Ad-Aware, Microsoft Antispyware,
SpySweeper and ZoneLab and do a full scan of ALL drives every night..... I am
a little fanatic, but absolutly sure not is gonna get in my machine!
Steph.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ted Zieglar" wrote:

> Steph: Are you 100% sure that there is no trace of any virus or spyware on
> your computer? What you have described sounds a lot like a virus or spyware
> infection.
> --
> Ted Zieglar
>
>
> "Steph." <Steph@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5DF6BCD8-8BDE-4EE9-939C-B1F5A46513C2@microsoft.com...
> > I tried defragmenting (in safe mode) my C drive (a few times) and I am
> left
> > with 21% still fragmented.
> > The report showed that files c:windows/0 had over 800 files that could not
> > be defragmented and file c:windows/4 had over 400 files
> >
> > When I rebooted, I was warned that I was critically low on space. My "C"
> > partition is 16 Gig and it only contains Windows XP sp2 and some safety
> > software such as antivirus, antispyware and firewall.
> >
> > When I look in Explorer, I find the following strange files:
> > C:WINDOWS/0 1 375 440 System file
> > C:WINDOWS/4 1 375 440 System file
> > C:WINDOWS/6 1 375 440 System file
> > C:WINDOWS/8 1 375 440 System file
> > C:WINDOWS/9 1 375 440 System file
> >
> > I also had this critically low space problem a few months ago and the
> > problem was the System Volume Information that was full due to the System
> > Restore not functionning.
> >
> > Unfortunetly, I do not remember how I had cleared the System Volume
> > Information file and my System Retore has never worked since I reformated
> > back in September.
> >
> > Any help?
> >
> > Stephane
> >
>
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

=?Utf-8?B?U3RlcGgu?= <Steph@discussions.microsoft.com> had
writtennews:5DF6BCD8-8BDE-4EE9-939C-B1F5A46513C2@microsoft.com:


> Any help?
>
> Stephane
>

Try right clicking on C:/Properties/Tools/Error checking, select
both options and reboot. I do that at least one a month.


--
Barney __________________________
Talk is cheap! Thats why I can afford it.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Yep, I tried that too.
No differenece.  
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

"Barney" wrote:

> =?Utf-8?B?U3RlcGgu?= <Steph@discussions.microsoft.com> had
> writtennews:5DF6BCD8-8BDE-4EE9-939C-B1F5A46513C2@microsoft.com:
>
>
> > Any help?
> >
> > Stephane
> >
>
> Try right clicking on C:/Properties/Tools/Error checking, select
> both options and reboot. I do that at least one a month.
>
>
> --
> Barney __________________________
> Talk is cheap! Thats why I can afford it.
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:57:04 -0800, Steph.

>I tried defragmenting (in safe mode) my C drive (a few times) and I am left
>with 21% still fragmented.
>The report showed that files c:windows/0 had over 800 files that could not
>be defragmented and file c:windows/4 had over 400 files

>When I rebooted, I was warned that I was critically low on space.

Were you short on HD space when defragging?

Something to know about Defrag; it is NOT a troubleshooting tool. Not
only can it not fix stability issues, it is very likely to corrupt
your data if you do this on an unstable system.

>My "C" partition is 16 Gig and it only contains Windows XP sp2
>and some safety software such as antivirus, antispyware and firewall.

>When I look in Explorer, I find the following strange files:
>C:WINDOWS/0 1 375 440 System file
>C:WINDOWS/4 1 375 440 System file
>C:WINDOWS/6 1 375 440 System file
>C:WINDOWS/8 1 375 440 System file
>C:WINDOWS/9 1 375 440 System file

That looks like arbitrary data being viewed as if it was a directory.
Can happen if the "directory" attribute on a file is set (only applies
to subdirs, not root) or if junk is dumped into a dir's cluster space,
or the dir's pointer is set to the wrong value.

None of these things happen normally, and even bad exists aren't
likely to do this. But a barfed Defrag could, as can bad hardware
that renders file system operations insane.

If random stuff is viewed as "directory", the "files" in it will be
insane too - garbage names, crazy file sizes, nutty dates, etc.

>I also had this critically low space problem a few months ago and the
>problem was the System Volume Information that was full due to the System
>Restore not functionning.

Other way round; SR wasn't functioning because it was full.

You can free up a lot of space by:
- reducing SR's allocation
- reducing IE's dumb-ass massive web cache (in each account)
- clearing temp and Internet cache files

Only when you have freed up quite a bit of space, can you do these
things (in this order) to try and free up some more:
- compact Eudora email mailboxes
- compact Outlook Express or most other email app mailboxes
- compact Outlook's single huge .PST file

Eudora has the smallest mailboxes, because they don't contain
attachments, and so needs the least space to compact in.

Next come email apps that have one mailbox stored in one file, which
is most of them. Worst is Outlook, because that stores all mailboxes,
and everything else it fiddles with, in one huge file.



>---------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Cats have 9 lives, which makes them
ideal for experimentation!
>---------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

I have freed-up all the space I could.
Deleted all tmp and log files.
Outlook is very small (I don't use it for mail). I use Thunderbird for mail
and I did compact the folders.
System Restore as never worked. Whenever I try to get into it to reduce it's
allocation, I get the message that it will only work after reboot.. but never
did.
IE is set with 1MB temp/cookie folder and history for 2 days, so no prob
there.

Soooo, my strange files have dates matching my last defrags. They probably
are some leftover files from defrag, but I just cant't get rid of them, plus
they are using most of my 16 Gig partition that should only contain Windows
and my antieverything programs.
And defrag report says that my mysterious files cannot be defragmented. And
trying to delete them comes back saying that they are system files in use
????

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 07:29:06 -0800, Steph.

>I am absolutly, positivelly certain I do not have any virus or spyware.

Uh-huh...

>I am running continuously Norton antivirus, Ad-Aware, Microsoft Antispyware,
>SpySweeper and ZoneLab and do a full scan of ALL drives every night..... I am
>a little fanatic, but absolutly sure not is gonna get in my machine!

If Norton misses a malware, either because it's newer than Norton's
definitions, or for some other reason, then there's nothing further
that Norton can do - it's lost the battle, and can only survive if the
malware does not make the most of the advantage it has.

Scanning everything every night from INSIDE the infected system is a
worse than a waste of time - because you may provoke a payload.

But no need to postulate malware if he lets his free C: space go down
to near-zero, and does a defrag under those conditions. Especially if
he has undiagnosed bad RAM or failing HD as a background problem.



>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Running Windows-based av to kill active malware is like striking
a match to see if what you are standing in is water or petrol.
>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 18:13:01 -0800, Steph.

>I have freed-up all the space I could.
>Deleted all tmp and log files.
>Outlook is very small (I don't use it for mail). I use Thunderbird for mail
>and I did compact the folders.

OK; looks good. Did you clear and shrink your web cache in each
browser, for each user account? That can waste a huge mount of space!

For sound reasons, each web browser will generally use a different
cache for each user account. What is unsound is the size of this
cache, as defaulted by the web browser.

Netscape and Firefiox use 50M or so, which is a bit too much and can
be scaled back to 10-20M if you'd rather have the disk space.

But Internet Explorer defaults to a % of the HD, and that can mean a
cache of anything from 256M to over 1G, per user!

>System Restore as never worked. Whenever I try to get into it to reduce it's
>allocation, I get the message that it will only work after reboot but never did.

Odd for XP; I've not seen that behavior at all. Do you have some
other software that does the same sort of thing and that might
interfere, such as GoBack perhaps?

>IE is set with 1MB temp/cookie folder and history for 2 days, so no prob

Agreed. As you can tell, I reply as I read, else I wouldn't have
written quite a lot of what I did ;-)

>Soooo, my strange files have dates matching my last defrags.

Ugly.

>They probably are some leftover files from defrag

Defrag should not be creating files at all - or certainly not like
this. Scandisk (Win9x) and ChkDsk can create files when lost data
cluster chains are recovered, but Defrag isn't supposed to do this;
it's supposed to look for errors and, if found, back out and tell you
do do file system repair. Even when the repair tools create files,
they are always in the root of the volume (or in a recovered dir
that's off the root) and always have typical names.

>...but I just cant't get rid of them, plus they are using most of my
>16 Gig partition that should only contain Windows and my
>antieverything programs.

>And defrag report says that my mysterious files cannot be defragmented. And
>trying to delete them comes back saying that they are system files in use

Do NOT defrag a sick system!!! A file system containing insane files
that can't be deleted etc. IS a sick system.

Back to basics; in fact, given the risk of data loss that applies
here, I'd go right back to this:

http://cquirke.mvps.org/pccrisis.htm

My logic is as follows:
- normal healthy systems don't generate huge insane files
- therefore this system is either:
- abnormal (malware), or
- unhealthy (flaky hardware)
- either way, data can be lost at any time
- either way, defrag is contraindicated



>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
Tech Support: The guys who follow the
'Parade of New Products' with a shovel.
>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -