WD SE gets fragmented quickly - please help

[jy88888888]

Hi,
I've got the WD SE 80Gb and have many sub-folders in the My Documents folder. I have around 300 mp3s and after defragmenting the drive, I restart the computer. No problem so far...........

After 30 minutes of browsing and playing various mp3s, it takes a while for files to show up on the screen when I click another folder. I've set the virtual memory settings to 784Mb and I have a XP1700+.

What's going on?! Should I format the HD?

Thanks!

AMD VS INTEL - AMD anyday

 

[sturm]

How much memory and what os are u using?
When it takes awhile for the files to show is the hard drive access continuous or not?
Is everthing on one drive/partition or two?
Next time you do a reformat and install, make a partition just for the swap/virtual memory file. That will help keep the drive from fragmenting.
Is dma enabled on the drive or is it running in pio mode?

 

[jy88888888]

I've got 256 DDR and Win98SE. Can't hear the hard drive but after about 30 mins of selecting and playing mp3s, switching to another folder causes files to show up after a brief delay.
Everthing is on one partition.

Can you explain how I put the swap file on to a second partition? - I've heard that this method isn't that effective at keeping a hard drive less fragmented or am I wrong?

And DMA is enabled.

Thanks!

AMD VS INTEL - AMD anyday

 

[gaviota]

What version of windows are you using? How much free space do you have? Hard disks get very slow when you have little free space left.
Take a look at the Windows tweaking guides at www.tweaktown.com - they have lots of tweaks to improve the perfomance of your memory, disk, swapfile, etc.

__________________________________________________
It's not important to know all the answers, as long as you know how to contact someone who does.

 

[dinkster9]

he said right in his post, win98se. Sounds like your hard drive needs a better defrag, d/l one from somewhere, sometimes the one that caomes with win98 doesn't work very well. Also it sounds like your drive might have some fatal errors, maybe fixable, who knows. If you are maxing out your hard drive this can cause problems, free up some space.

If push comes to show, everytime this crap starting happening to me under windows earlier additions, it was time for a reinstall. (format and reinstall better, but a pain in the ass, just a reinstall on top of itself works well too) this can sometimes clear out some random driver that has gone crazy and it killing your system.

If non of that helps, i'm at a loss.

"sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick"
*grabs a stick and places it into the flames* mmmm, smores

 

[gaviota]

You're right, I hadn't seen the Windows 98SE information on his second post.
I've had this happen to me in Windows ME, but not in 98. Computer suddenly becomes really slow, and a format and fresh install fixes the problem. Anyway, 98 and ME are very similar, so maybe you should try it.
You should also try posting this same question in the Windows 98 forum.

__________________________________________________
It's not important to know all the answers, as long as you know how to contact someone who does.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by gaviota on 05/02/03 01:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Teq]

Ok try this...

Set your minimum and maximum swap file sizes the same... for win98 about 256mb should be enough. Windows is lousy at maintaining dynamicly sized swap files, the bigger you make them the worse it gets.

You will find your swap file settings in SYSTEM.INI in the 386Enh section, just edit it with notepad and reboot.

You can put the swap file in a different partition but unless that partition is on a second hard drive all you will do is swamp the system in useless head seeks.

If you have 256mb of ram or more, try turning off the swap file altogether. Unless you are running a bunch of killer aps you probably don't need it in the first place.


---><font color=green>It ain't better if it don't work</font color=green><--- <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by teq on 05/02/03 02:19 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[dinkster9]

no no, not me, him. It was just my suggestion. yes ME was bad, very bad, 98se was very okay for its time, but its time has gone. A re-install should do the trick. takes less than an hour even on mediumly old systems, you should'nt have to reinstall anything if you just reinstall. But a fresh install is always better for performance.

"sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick"
*grabs a stick and places it into the flames* mmmm, smores