On 15 November 2010 09:46, J. Roeleveld <jo...@antarean.org> wrote: > My guess for the error: "There is insufficient diskspace to defragment this > drive" > Solution: Copy documents over onto an external drive > Then delete the copied documents from the harddrive and then run defrag.
It would be easier to suggest solutions if we knew what the *exact* error was when trying to run defrag.exe Insufficient disk space is often caused by a corrupt page file, which on a MSWindows machine is typically on the same partition as the OS. The solution would be to: a) Boot into safe mode (pressing F8) then disable System Restore: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial56.html b) Disable page file and reboot. Then enable it again and reboot. c) Move/delete a load of the MSWindows updates uninstall files from the C:\WINDOWS directory; first google for something like this to find out what you can mv/zip/delete and what not: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Hotfix_backup.htm c) Clean all *.tmp files, and empty directories: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/maintenance/ht/manualtempxp.htm d) Delete all Internet files from Internet Explorer. e) Install MS Security Essentials and give it a full scan. f) Then run defrag.exe. g) Reboot, then use MyDefrag to defrag the drive, using the System - Monthly defrag pattern. Precautions that would pay dividends in the longevity of your niece's WinXP would be to: Shrink the MSWindows OS partition (using gparted LiveCD) to something like 25-30G and create one more large partition. Move all personal data there and change the paths of all MSWindows applications to save their docs in the new partition instead of MyDocuments, et al. Create a new page file into the new partition and remove the old page file. When you boot into Safe Mode set up a passwd for the administrator account and change your niece's privileges to plain user. Teach her how to use the admin account to manage her MSWindows Updates and install remove programs. Viruses will not be able to install when she goes wild on the Internet without her running them as administrator. HTH. PS. Personally, I would create yet one more partition, install Ubuntu for her and give her a 10 minute induction course on using Linux ... then come back in 3 months and uninstall WinXP all together ;-) -- Regards, Mick
