External Hdd Tends To Freeze My Pc And Will Not Defrag, External HDD will not defrag

[Tony L]

Hi, can you help,
I've got an 80gb External HDD that i use to put most of my files in, but for some reason over the last week or so it tends to freeze my PC and i've got to wait a while until it unfreezes itself.

Also when i try to defrag the External HDD it only goes to 1%, and i gave it enough time to gefrag i think i let it defrag for about 9hours, and still only goes to 1%.

I've updated all my anti-virus, but did not pick up any virus and i ran my trojan remover that did not pick up anything either.
Can someone help me and tell me what the problem could be.
Many thanks
Tony

[lynx]

How much free space on the drive?

If you've allowed free space to get too low, then defragging is almost impossible and also results in poor performance.

The obvious solution is to temporarily copy some of the data to your internal drive, perform the defrag, then copy the stuff back. Always assuming you've got space on your internal drive that is. If not... :rolleyes:

[Tony L]

I've got about 26.9gb of space left, i know it wont defrag if you got less than 15% free space.

[clocker]

Run diags on the external drive.

[Virtualbody1234]

Could you post details about this external drive?

Is it a prebuilt unit?
Make/Model?

Is it an enclosure with a drive installed?
Enclosure - make/model?
Drive - make/model?
Interface type?
Power supply?

Does it have several partitions? How many? What type?
Is it formatted NTFS or FAT32?

[clocker]

Is this what you meant by "no-brainer"?

[tesco]

If the drive is in use a lot, the defragmentation will never finish.
I used to see this problem when I used windows 98 all the time. It would get to 10%, then start over. Or get stuck at 10%.

Not sure if this still happens with modern programs/OSes.

[backlash]

I'd also recommend not using windows defragger and go with diskeeper 2007.

[clocker]

Could always try defragging in Safe Mode.

[backlash]

tony tends to ask and leave so who knows if this thread will go anywhere.

[Tony L]

Sorry not got back to you guys, my PC has been down.

I do appreciate all the help that you are giving me, and backlash your right i should leave comments if the problem has been fixed.
At the moment the problem has not been fixed, I'm trying all the ideas you have been giving me as soon as it is fixed i promise to let you know so that the thread can be closed. Once again guys please do not think i don't appreciate your help that is far from the truth.
Thanks
Tony.

[Virtualbody1234]

Is this what you meant by "no-brainer"?

Based on his last post... Yes! :yup:

[Tony L]

I've istalled and ran diskeeper, it analyze my internal hdd, but when i try to analyze my external hdd i get this error message:
Diskeeper has detected that CHKDSK is scheduled to run on the volume: HD-HBU2(F) This is due to either a user request, or because the operation system has found errors in the file system. CHKDSK will run automatically during the next system reboot. until chkdsk is run, diskeeper cannot analyze this volume.
I've rebooted my pc but still wont analyze so is it possible i've got a big problem with my exteral hdd.
The HD-HBU2(F) is my external hdd.
Thanks

[lynx]

I'm not sure at what point the system loads the drivers for external usb drives. If it hasn't done it at the point chkdsk would be run then it will never clean up your drive. Since it isn't a system drive you should be able to run this at any time.

Run the following command (from start/run... or a command prompt).

Chkdsk X: /F

Substitute the drive letter of your external drive for the X.

[Tony L]

ok lynx thanks ill try that, get back to you thanks.

[ilw]

I had similar problems ages ago and tried various things but still lost 250GB of data at one stage. External hdds just don't seem to work right with my setup (XP on a 2600 AMD on an Asus A7N8X deluxe). Not sure if it was my motherboard (there seemed to be some usb-hdd issues) or whether i should have gone for FAT32 on the drive (which i believe is less easily corrupted than NTFS), but i just gave up on external drives after my second mass data loss/recovery session.

[Tony L]

Still no joy with fixing the problem. Someone ask me what is my spec on my pc, i dont know what or how to find that. But not sure why they ask that unless it is something to do with hdd.

[clocker]

Still no joy with fixing the problem. Someone ask me what is my spec on my pc, i dont know what or how to find that. But not sure why they ask that unless it is something to do with hdd.
That "somebody" is VB1234 and he always asks for those specs- probably because he's Canadian, eh?
Or maybe just to make sure you're not plugging into an Eazy-Bake Oven or something equally outre.

[Virtualbody1234]

Still no joy with fixing the problem. Someone ask me what is my spec on my pc, i dont know what or how to find that. But not sure why they ask that unless it is something to do with hdd.
That "somebody" is VB1234 and he always asks for those specs- probably because he's Canadian, eh?
Or maybe just to make sure you're not plugging into an Eazy-Bake Oven or something equally outre.

But I didn't even ask about the PC specs... Yet.

[clocker]

Could you post details about this external drive?

Is it a prebuilt unit?
Make/Model?

Is it an enclosure with a drive installed?
Enclosure - make/model?
Drive - make/model?
Interface type?
Power supply?

Does it have several partitions? How many? What type?
Is it formatted NTFS or FAT32?



But I didn't even ask about the PC specs... Yet.
Yeah, but we all know the first question was just foreplay...you'll get to the juicy bits soon enough.

[zaphodiv]

So what was the result of manually running chkdsk?

[Tony L]

Nothing came up with CHKDSK so i tried to use diskeeper but it would come up error ewhen i tried to defrag it through diskeeper.
Ill keep you posted.

[backlash]

u still haven't answered vb's question about make/model of your external drive. why? do you want help or not?

[Tony L]

The make of the HDD is Buffalo/Model is HD-HB80U2-EU.
Thanks

[Virtualbody1234]

u still haven't answered vb's question about make/model of your external drive. why? do you want help or not?

I think you're right.

[Tony L]

I would just like to thank you all who has helped me regards my external HDD.
After going through files after files and deleting some my PC has not froze since.
But i'm still unable to defrag but will continue to find why i cant defrag, but at least my pc seems to be running better.
Once again thanks fort all the help it is much appreciated.
Tony