ScanDisk Won't Run... Any Ideas?

[Hitman]

Hi There, I've been trying to run a defrag on my c drive and it won't get past the ScanDisk, so I tried running a ScanDisk by itself. It starts scanning, checking the file allocation tables, then checking folders, then it goes back to checking the file allocation tables, then checking folders. It does this 10 times then gives me an error that says:
"ScanDisk has restarted 10 times because Windows or another program has been writing to this drive. Quitting some running programs may enable ScanDisk to finish sooner. Do you want to continue receiving this warning?" Yeah Right, it never gets done...

I disconnected my DSL, I did control-alt-delete and cancelled all the programs except for Explorer and Systray and I still get this msg. I've been putting off fixing this for a really long time and who knows what the drive looks like. This is an old computer and it's running slow so I'm hoping a defrag will help it out. Any ideas on what I should do here? Thanks!

Hitman...
Dell "OLD", 32mb Memory (I can hear you laughing...), C & D Drives, C is mostly full!!!

[Hitman]

Sorry, forgot to mention it's a Windows 98 System...

Hitman...

[Quantax]

Try it in Safe mode. If that doesn't work, reboot to the startup menu by holding down the Control key. Select the "Startup with command prompt" option, then type in Scandisk C:

[Hitman]

Hi There,

Safe Mode did the trick... Thanks for the help!

Hitman...

[Sylvander]

Keep the C: drive "lean & mean".
I move as much as possible off the C: drive [and keep it as small as possible].
The "Windows" [98] & "Program Files" folders account for 95% of the 1.33 GB of used space on my C: drive. My C: partition is only 1,600 kB FAT32 with 4 kB clusters.
All the data that changes day by day [or are considered vital] are re-homed on another physical drive [although another partition would do].
When I "jump back" I still have up to date:
a. My Documents.
b. E-mails for all identities.
c. Internet Explorer Favourites.
d. Temporary Internet Files.
e. Re-home the Windows Address Book as shown here http://tinyurl.com/24q6l . Use the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab FileName” to specify its new address. [Its normal home address [in Win98] is C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book.]
f. Any other vital data you wouldn’t want to lose.

This helps speed up defragmentation and keeps backups of the C: drive small.

If you use Zone Alarm, take a look at your "C:\Windows\Internet Logs" folder and note how much space it uses. There is a way to greatly reduce [the space used by] the contents of this.

Get a copy of DiskFrontier from http://dl.winsite.com/bin/downl?500000031670 and use it to study your HDD space usage, to find folders/files using the most space which aren't needed.

[Chendo]

Safe mode is good but U can also try stoping every process on Ur PC except Explorer and Systray and then should have no problems. Every icon on the systray (next to the clock) should be turned off or when starting Win press the Shift key until the process of starting finishes (that sound funny) this will keep programs from Ur start-up folder from loading then press ctrl-alt-del and end all but the 2 mention before.