Unable to defrag and scan disk problems

I have seen this a few times myself. I replace the computer and then reinstall the O/S to test the computer to see if I can make it do the same thing. But most of the times it works fine. It could be a main board hic up or just a error that the O/Scould not handle. Use the computer as a test computer and have fun with it:)

I've never had much success with Western Digital. Although, it may be a motherboard issue, or even flaky RAM. Perform a clean reinstall of the OS and see what happens.

when u scandisk...make sure thats it the only program running.. Check by "CRTL ALT DEL"
end all task except explorer
scandisk again, and check the repair errors automatically.
check for any uninstalation of any software, which could or might be casuing problem, remove from registry , or u could do a scan disk in safemode.

Have you installed the large hard drive cache supplement from Windows Update?

The original default timeouts for Windows 98 do not allow time for a drive with a large cache memory to complete the write functions at shutdown.

This is the most common cause of Windows telling you that it needs to run scandisk at every boot.

If this has been going on for some time, you need to at a minimum clear out the swap file, and I agree with the recomendation to wipe the drive, and reload Windows.

If you wipe the drive, I would go so far as to delete the partition, and start with fdisk.

You didn't say how large the drive is.
Sometimes, Windows 98 has problems with single partitions larger than 32GB.

Even if you have a 20GB drive, I recommend reading the partition article at www.aumha.org

One way to reduce Windows scandisk and defrag issues, is to place virtual memory (swap file) on it's own seperate partition.

Chas

have you tried defragging in safemode? also check
for corrupt system files or drivers, and a virus
scan would be in order.

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