Defragging is taking ages! how much longer do I wait?

Question

Its already been 4 hours and its still on 1%. Is this normal and how much longer do I have to wait.

Answer 1

You are right, 4 hours at 1% is too long. Hit cancel.

Open MY COMPUTER, then right click on your C drive. Pick the TOOLS section use the Check Now button. Check both tests, then YES to test after restarting. After it runs the test which might take an hour, then restart into Safe Mode. Then run DEFRAG.

Also, use Disk Cleanup from the START menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools section.

Answer 2

If you have third-party disk cleaning utility such as CCleaner, run it, or manually clear your recycle bin, delete temporary files etc.
Restart your computer. Close all TSR (terminate and stay residence programs ; look for icons on the systems tray; right-hand side bottom of the screen, close all of them including antivirus program etc.) Now run the Defrag. Don't run any programs, let the computer stand alone.

Another approach that i found at techrepublic.com is very interesting, it makes windows run defrag before it loads anything. The defrag will start as soon as you log in. You must be very sure on what you are doing from here on.. make a backup of your registry before you work with registry settings.

1. Click Start >Run Type Regedit.exe
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce.
3. Right-click the RunOncesubkey and select New | String Value.
4. Name the value Defrag and press [Enter] key twice.
5. Type Defrag.exe c: /f in the Value Data text box, then click OK.
6. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows.

No need to re-edit the register to remove those codes, they are removed after the command has been completed.

Answer 3

get a better defrag program!!! the windows one isnt the only one out there, also the other ones CAN defrag the system drive (C:) properly (instead of doing the windows usual and leaving a huge green blob in the defrag chart)
it also depends on the MAIN size of the drive! so if ur drive is 20gb+ dont bother using windows defragger cos it is slow, the speed depends on not just ur ram, processor + processor cache, hdd and cache but it also depends on the effiency of the software, i found the nortron utilities 1996 hdd defrag program was quite competent till 2002 and it wud happly chug away on a fairly large drive (est 40 gb being 70% full) it would take around 1-2 hours and did the job properly too, it needed to be done every month on avarage

Answer 4

For Defrag, the time it takes depends on several factors
1) The CPU Power (i.e. 700Mhz, 3.2Ghz)
2) The HDD Size (40GB, 250GB)
3) System Resources (i.e. AV Scanner)
4) How much stuff is on your PC

Defrag could take 1h 36m or 18h 57m, depends on those factors.
It is best to do it in Safe Mode (F8) and at a time when you are not going to desperately use the machine.

You may also want to consider getting a different defag utility. Diskeeper 10 is good. I think Diskeeper Lite is free, have to search for it.

Also - 4hrs and 1%. STOP there! Thats not right. Close, restart (safe mode?), try again. If still 1%, use something else.

Answer 5

Ensure that you turn off all programmes that are running in the background first or you will never finish! In the lower right hand corner of your screen, you will see a number of icons that tell you what is running - click on them and choose disable/exit. You may also need to check by doing Ctrl+Alt+Dlt and that will bring up the task manager with the running programmes in it. If you have Norton or other anti virus software running, definitely disable that and make sure you are disconnected from the Internet. Last piece of advice - defrag overnight! Good luck.

Answer 6

Depending on how large your drive is and how full it is defrag can take awhile. You can help things be removing your temp junkfiles. Emptying temp Internet Files, and if it still won't move past this point. You can turn off System restore, defrag the system then turn it back on. But be aware that if you do this you will lose all of your restore points.

Answer 7

no its not normal
29 minutes for 12gb on 20gb partition
you should do it weekly ,that way it will not take as long
if the the system has not been defraged fthen do it in safe mode ,it will take a lot longer than 20 minutes
24 hours

Answer 8

Try restarting the computer, Hit F8 before the windows logo appears to get the menu where you can start in safe mode.

Run a defrag in Safe Mode, it should work a bit better.

Answer 9

You're not using your computer at the same time, are you? Every time your memory changes, Defrag has to start all over again. If you're on line while it's running, it'll take forever. Literally.

Answer 10

It may be that the "1%" isn't updating. If you can view the "details" page you can see the progress. It took my computer a few hours to defrag 80GB.