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Contents
| 1. About Safe Mode |
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| Safe Mode is a minimal start-up mode which has been an integral part of the Windows operating
system since Windows 95 right through to Windows Vista (except Windows NT). The original
purpose of Safe Mode was to provide a clean diagnostics environment for technicians when troubleshooting
things like driver conflicts. Safe Mode is only one level up from scary DOS and, being
a low-level element of Windows, it remains unknown territory, like DOS, for most of today's computer
users. To some extent that is unfortunate because, on occasions, switching to Safe Mode, temporarily,
can mean all the difference between success and failure for certain disk maintenance and rescue
tasks. |
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| The advantage that Safe Mode provides, when appropriate, is that only the barest minimum
of drivers, services and registry keys are loaded. Both the StartUp folder and the registry
'Run' keys are ignored. This means an assortment of startup programs, TSRs, and most of
the things whose icons inhabit the Notification Area/System Tray, are bypassed. The overall
effect is usually to neutralise the risk of any conflicts during low-level tasks. |
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| 2. When to use Safe Mode |
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| The use of Safe Mode in its original role, as a diagnostics tool, never really took off.
That was because the kind of conflicts it was anticipated might need to be rectified in a Safe
Mode environment never materialised to any great extent in Windows 95, ditto in successive versions.
However, Safe Mode is still with us, even in Vista, and it is a good job too because completely
different uses, which were never foreseen back in 1995, have subsequently transpired.
We cover a few of them next, just for the record. You could skip straight past them if
you just want to know how to get into Safe Mode (section 3),
or if you want to know about Error-checking in Safe Mode (section 4),
or if you want to know about running Disk Defragmenter in Safe Mode (section 5). |
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| (a) Installing/Uninstalling programs One time when it used to be advisbale
to switch to Safe Mode was if a new program or game would not install satisfactorily, or would
not run properly after being installed. Uninstalling the rogue game or program, and then
reinstalling it while in Safe Mode, would usually fix any installation issues. Bad installs
have been much less of an issue since Windows XP came along. In fact, XP will sometimes
return an error message if you do try to install a program in Safe Mode - one reason being if
an application is programmed to look for a download connection (which it won't find while in
Safe Mode) in order to update itself. Notwithstanding that, for all versions of Windows,
it is always wise, in the case of programs which you know will be invasive on the operating
system at a low level, like firewalls and anti-virus, to at least try to install them in Safe
Mode first. This will increase the chance of a trouble-free install. Similarly,
it is equally wise to uninstall such programs in Safe Mode - as a way of trying to be safe rather
than sorry. |
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| (b) Editing the registry Most of the time, the registry can be edited
in normal mode should the need arise. However, it is not unknown for the instructions
for manually removing registry entries made by malicious software to require the registry to
be edited in Safe Mode. That is to ensure no background process or internet activity can
interfere with the operation. |
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| (c) Registry cleaning Registry cleaner tools are designed to run in
Windows' normal mode. However, people have been known to trash some of their applications
by letting a cleaner fix all the errors found on its first-ever scan all in one go - never realising
it might have been safer, possibly completely safe, if they had done the scan and clean while
in Safe Mode instead of normal mode. This tip is not so important for subsequent runs
of a registry cleaner as the much lower quantity and complexity of finds after that first run
will not carry the same risk. |
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| (d) Restoring settings Another use for Safe Mode is if you have a need
to restore some intrinsic Windows' setting back to a default arrangement. For example,
in the event that your Taskbar were to inexplicably disappear one day - which would obviously
be extremely serious - booting into Safe Mode, and then back into normal mode, without doing
anything else, is a trick by which the errant Taskbar could almost certainly be brought back
from the dead. |
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| (e) Disk maintenance Most PC owners know Windows includes two utilities
which should be run periodically to check the hard disk surface is in good condition and to
keep file fragmentation under control. These tools are Error-checking (known formerly
as ScanDisk or Check Disk) and Disk Defragmenter. These two tools require exclusive access
to the hard disk (i.e. no other programs trying to write to the hard disk while they are running),
otherwise the tools will be plagued by repeated restarts and may never be able to finish.
The solution to this has, traditionally, been to run them in Safe Mode, though there are differences
in the case of XP and Vista, which are covered further down. Safe Mode can be entered
by the methods covered in section 3 next. Section 4, further down, is about
using Error-checking. Section 5 is about using Disk Defragmenter. |
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| (f) Virus and Trojan removal Viruses and trojans have become so sophisticated
that it is not uncommon to find anti-virus programs will detect and remove parasites only for
them to reappear of their own accord later. If that happens to you, the best thing to
do is to do a virus-scan in Safe Mode as this may bypass the files and/or registry keys being
locked down by the parasite. Even then, you may also need to run freeware malware detection
or removal tools like Hijackthis, Spybot etc. (but not an additional anti-virus program, as
that could conflict during installation). Some of the supplementary tools may give an
enhanced performance if also run in Safe Mode, so it is always worth checking in a tool's Help
file or in a search engine for further guidance in that respect. If you can't find anything,
assume the tool needs to be run later i.e. with Windows fully loaded. |
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| 3. How to enter Safe Mode |
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| The ability to run in Safe Mode depends on the version of Windows being used and the type
of mouse or keyboard being used. If you encounter a problem accessing Safe Mode, after
trying the methods below, you could check in the 'Tips' box in the right hand column to see
if your system is falling foul of any of the few known limitations. |
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| There are two commonly recognised ways of entering Safe Mode. The usual one is during
startup of the PC - by pecking on the F8 key (Ctrl key on some systems). A lesser-known
method is after startup of the PC - by using the System Configuration Utility (msconfig.exe).
However, if you are still running Windows 98 or 98SE, there is a third and better way which
can be applied when either starting or restarting a PC - this involves putting an ordinary
floppy disk in the floppy drive (which will cause the bootup process to stall), followed by
a single press of the F8 key. This is a very clean way of entering Safe Mode which, unlike
the F8 key pecking method, always works first-time every time and, unlike the msconfig method,
does not require lots of navigation steps to be remembered. Full details in item (a)
below. |
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| Seeing a Safe Mode desktop for the very first time can be quite disconcerting for computer
users with CRT screens. That is because the regular display drivers are not loaded, so
the screen would revert to a heritage screen resolution (640 x 480 VGA format) that could throw
the desktop icons and background theme into some disarray. However, the words "Safe
mode" appear in all four corners of the screen (including for XP and Vista), as a reminder
your normal desktop has not been permanently affected (see Fig 3). Many fundamental
features of Windows still remain fully functional in Safe Mode, including the Taskbar, Task
Manager, Start button, Programs' menu, Accessories' menu, System Tools, Control Panel, Add-Remove
Programs, even the Quick Launch toolbar. But do NOT test any of those, not when it is
your intention to run Error-checking or Disk Defragmenter, as you would risk spoiling the virgin
environment Safe Mode is otherwise providing. |
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| In Safe Mode, very few icons will be showing in the task tray, which is exactly what is wanted, ideally only the clock. The fact that active, low-level
programs like anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall and internet connection have not been started up is what allows disk maintenance tasks to probably succeed in Safe Mode when they would fail in normal
mode. |
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| Exiting Safe Mode, after use, is simply a case of using the Start button's menu to shut down or restart the computer in the normal manner. |
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| (a) Floppy Disk Method of entering Safe Mode (Win98 &
98SE only) |
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| If your OS (operating system) is Windows 98 or 98SE, insert an ordinary, non-bootable 3.5" floppy disk
(new or used) in the floppy drive and carry out a normal start (or restart) of the computer. When the boot process stalls at a black screen with an error message in the bottom left corner
(see Fig 1), remove the floppy. You now have two choices. Either press Shift+Enter, and Win98 will boot straight through to Safe Mode. Or, press the F8 key briefly until the screen starts to move on or the PC makes a burring noise, release F8, and the screen will step to the Startup menu (see Fig 2). Choose the "Safe Mode" option by entering 3 [or release the Num Lock key and scroll down with the arrow keys], then press Enter. The computer will continue booting until arriving at the 'Safe Mode' desktop. If you use the F8
key option, remember not to release the key before the computer has reacted. If you press F8 too briefly, the Startup Menu will be bypassed
and the PC will boot into normal mode instead - forcing you to begin all over again! |
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| (b) Ctrl key, Shift Key, F8 key, or Msconfig methods of entering Safe Mode (All
Windows' versions) |
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| If your version of Windows is later than Windows 98SE, you cannot use the floppy disk trick
described in item (a) above. You will have to enter Safe Mode by an alternative (trickier)
method involving the Ctrl key, or Shift key, or F8 key, or msconfig. The actual procedures
vary according to each version of Windows. To find the recommended method for your particular
version, refer to the Windows' Help file on your computer. This is accessed via the Start
button > Help (or Search). Scroll down the Index listing to 'safe mode' or, if the
term Safe Mode is missing from the index, type 'safe mode' in the Help's search box and find
the article that way. |
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| There may be more ways of entering Safe Mode than are given in your Windows' Help file.
If you want to see all of them for your particular version of Windows (and each and every other
version, for that matter, including multi-boot systems), click one or other of the external
links below... |
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| 4. About Error-checking (aka ScanDisk or Check Disk) and how to use it |
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| (a) Errors The Error-checking tool's dialog allows you to choose to
run it in 'Standard' or 'Thorough' mode. Standard mode takes only a minute or so to complete,
so nothing is lost by running that as a preliminary exercise. Assuming it finishes satisfactorily,
follow up by running it in the 'Thorough' mode. Always do a 'thorough' check before running
the defrag tool. That is because, if Error-checking finds any bad sectors on a hard disk,
they will be marked so they are not written to when you save files, install programs, defrag
the drive, or save a restorable image of the drive to a (virtual) partition on the same drive.
Error-checking can fix other disk errors too, if any are found. A few bad sectors or other
errors on a hard disk are not necessarily anything to worry about. However, if later scans
were to reveal a rising number of errors, that would be a warning your hard disk could be on
the way out. |
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| (b) Backing up Because an error-check should, invariably, be immediately
followed by a defrag of the same drive (Vista excepted) it is highly advisable to back up any
data files which you keep on the drive or partition you are about to check. Doing this
before you do the error-check will eliminate the risk of you forgetting to do it later before
you run the defrag. |
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| (c) Starting the check Once you have backed up, disconnect from the
internet or network by your normal method of doing so, and switch off any attached peripherals
such as a printer, scanner, or cable modem. Turn off, if normally enabled, Screen Saver,
Power Management and TaskMonitor (how).
Finally, close any programs or windows you have had open. Restart the PC into normal mode
for the new settings to take effect. When the computer has booted to the desktop, do not
open any programs - so as to keep the environment clean and the memory clear. To run Error-checking
(all Windows, including XP and Vista), open your (My) Computer folder > right-click on the
C: drive's icon > Properties > Tools tab > at 'Error-checking', click 'Check Now' >
at the window which appears, if more than one drive is available, select the C: drive > tick
all the appropriate boxes to ensure the scan will be a thorough error-fixing scan > Start.
If you are using Win 95, 98 or Me, the scan will now begin. If you are using XP or Vista,
you will be told the PC will be restarted - it will automatically restart in a safer mode (denoted
by a grey screen in Vista), then the scan will begin. |
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| By observing the preliminaries in the preceding paragraph, Error-checking will usually sail
straight through its scan without repeatedly stopping and restarting. If, however, Error-checking
does keep restarting and, assuming you are, therefore, using Windows 95, 98 or Me, close all
open windows and restart the computer again, this time into Safe Mode, as per a method from
the preceding section 3(a) or 3(b), and run Error-checking from the Safe Mode desktop.
Bear in mind there is absolutely no point in attempting to do a defrag in normal mode if Error-checking
kept restarting in normal mode as the defrag would keep restarting too. |
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| (d) Normal restarts When Error-checking first starts to scan, you may
notice the progress bar making a couple of restarts very early on. Those initial restarts
are normal and nothing to worry about. After a few minutes, the progress bar will show
the scan to be in its main phase, denoted by a message like "Scanning disk surface (data
area)..." and an indication it has checked, say, "Cluster 1,000 of 900,000".
It pays to keep a close eye on the progress bar during the early part of this main phase.
This is because, if a restart occurs, the progress bar quickly jumps back to where it left off.
If you were looking away from the screen at the moment that happened, you would never know the
scan had been interrupted. However, if the progress bar reaches a stage whereby the first
number of clusters exceeds 10% of the second number of clusters, without having made a restart,
you can relax as the check is almost certainly going to continue without restarts. Error-checking
can take one or more hours to complete, depending on disk size and processor speed. So
go away from the computer and do something else while the task is in progress. |
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| (e) Problem restarts If you see, from the progress bar, that repeated
restarts are occurring, there is absolutely no point in letting the check continue any longer,
so click the Cancel button. That is because, even if Error-checking did eventually complete,
if you live that long, it would still not be safe to follow it with a defrag, not while it is
known restarts are occurring. If you do not hit the Cancel button, Error-checking is pre-primed
to stop by itself, but not until it has made ten time-wasting restarts. |
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| Restarts are an indication that, despite all your efforts to create a safe environment for
the tool, some other program is still writing to the hard drive at the same time Error-checking
is running. Whilst this is extremely unlikely to happen in Safe Mode, it is not entirely
impossible. And, while restarts by Error-checking are harmless, merely time-consuming,
restarts by Disk Defragmenter could be a very different matter. You should not attempt
a defrag if you are aware that Error-checking will not complete without restarts. |
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| Should you be unlucky enough to suffer restarts during error-checking even in Safe Mode,
close its window. While still in Safe Mode, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the Close Program
window or (Win 2K, XP) right-click on the Taskbar > Task Manager and open the Applications
tab (see Fig 4) if there is one. There should be no applications showing in a Close
Program window except, perhaps, 'Explorer' (which stands for Windows Explorer). If Explorer
is there, do NOT end that application. In the extremely unlikely event that any others
are there, select them one at a time and click the End Task button to remove them all (other
than Explorer, if there). If you can see a 'Processes' tab, do not end anything listed
under it unless you are certain you know what you are doing (a search on Google for particular
Processes by name is a way of determining if any are superfluous and can be safely shut down).
When you are finished, close the window with the End Task button and run Error-checking again.
If the progress bar shows that restarts are still occurring, it is time to try our exclusive
firewall trick. Cancel and close Error-checking's window again, click Start > Programs
> browse to your firewall program and start it - so that its icon reappears in the task tray
(note: only your firewall program, not your anti-virus program). Run Error-checking again
until it makes its first restart > cancel Error-checking and close its window > right-click
on the firewall icon in the task tray and shut it down. Now run Error-checking again and,
with luck, it will run straight through this time. We have absolutely no idea why this
trick should work but we have seen it succeed time and time again. If you are lucky, and
it works for you, you should obviously run Disk Defragmenter straight afterwards while everything
is still in a favourable state. Also, if it worked, you will probably find, when you next
want to do a scan, that the same trick will also work in Windows' normal mode - provided, of
course, that you have disconnected from the internet and shut everything down out of the task
tray first. |
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| If even our firewall trick failed to kick-start your system into behaving, there is nothing more
that can be done in Safe Mode. So, come out of it by clicking Start > Shut Down >
Restart, and your computer will reboot into normal mode. We have seen a few cases where
Error-checking would fail even in Safe Mode only to find it will then run okay in normal mode - with a little
help as follows. Make sure you are still disconnected from the internet, then right-click on each of the
icons in the task tray and shut them down until the clock and the volume control are the only
two left. If any won't shut down properly, disable them from within their respective programs'
options. Then press Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the Close Program window and end all running
applications (all except Explore and Systray, if they are showing). Close the window and start Error-checking. |
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| If Error-checking now works as expected in normal mode, you will probably kick yourself for having spent all that time in Safe Mode. But that's life, switching to and from Safe Mode is known as a way of kicking a wayward Windows back into behaving, though only sometimes. |
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| If Error-checking has failed in both Safe Mode and normal mode, despite all the above lines of attack, there is one more thing you can try if you are using a Windows 98 or Me system. Disconnect from the internet and unplug your modem > then click Start > Programs >
Accessories > System Tools > System Information > Tools > System Configuration Utility > Startup tab > make a written note of the items with ticks against them (so you can retick
them accurately later), then untick everything except the "System Tray" item, including
anti-virus, firewall and TaskMonitor > click the General tab > make sure there is a bullet
against "Selective startup" > untick "Process System.ini file" > untick
"Process Win.ini file" > Apply > OK > when asked if you want to restart your
computer now, click No > close all open (or minimised) windows > restart the computer
back into normal mode. If there are any icons in the task tray, go through the usual
process of right-clicking on them to shut their programs down until nothing other than the clock
and volume control is left. Then run Error-checking. |
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| If that enables Error-checking to complete its scan, run Disk Defragmenter straight afterwards while your system is still suitably configured. |
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| (f) Infected machines If, despite everything we have suggested above,
you are still left with a system on which Error-checking will not run without it keeps restarting,
the reason might be that your machine is infected with malicious spyware, adware, or worse.
You can try to flush your system out - there are free tools that can be downloaded from filehippo.com
to do just that - and try again. Otherwise, you will just have to forget about being able
to run Error-checking and Disk Defragmenter satisfactorily. |
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| (g) Loose ends If one of the above procedures did succeed in making
Error-checking run without interruption, (100% success in our own experience, on uninfected
machines), you will probably want to follow up immediately by running Disk Defragmenter.
More about that in section 5 below. Either way, when completely finished, make sure
that you have reversed any temporary changes that needed to be made to your system, have restarted
the computer to ensure the restored settings take effect, and have got your firewall and anti-virus
back up and running in the task tray before you try to reconnect to the internet.
Finally, be sure to reconnect your phone line and check the phone is not in use or off the hook
before you try to connect to the internet as inadvertently doing so can sometimes cause a modem
to terminally lock up. |
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| 5. About Disk Defragmenter and how to use it to consolidate your hard disk's contents |
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| (a) Error-check first Before defragging a pre-Vista system, you must
have successfully run Error-checking first because that will (i) fix disk errors, if any,
and (ii) establish there is no risk of restarts occurring during the process of defragging.
Either of those issues could fatally interfere with the defrag process. |
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| If Error-checking was unable to complete without frequently restarting, do NOT run Windows'
Disk Defragmenter. Rerun Error-checking again, in accordance with the preceding section 4
above, ensuring you do whatever is necessary to arrive at a situation whereby Error-checking
will run without restarting. Only when that has happened are you ready to run
the Disk Defragmenter. |
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| (b) Backing up The process of defragging is intrinsically very safe.
Nevertheless, when you run Disk Defragmenter, it is carrying out major surgery to the files
on your hard disk. If the operation is halted unexpectedly by a power failure, blown fuse,
pulled plug etc., the consequences are unpredictable. In theory, your data should be safeguarded,
and running Error-checking in Safe Mode immediately after an interrupted defrag should recover
your hard disk without any data loss. But don't count on it - a defrag gone wrong remains
the most common cause of emergency calls to expensive professional data-recovery companies.
So, before defragging, always take the precaution of backing up all your vital data, not forgetting
saved e-mails, Address Book entries, DUN settings etc., to external media.
In fact, do it before even running Error-checking is what we advise, so you won't forget.
Similarly, if you have not imaged your C: drive for some time, or not at all, again be on the
safe side and do that before defragging. Use Ghost, Drive Image, Drive Backup or True
Image to image your drive, whichever one of those lifesaver utilities you have got. And
make sure the image is stored on a different drive or partition from the one you are about to
defrag - just in case the defrag throws a wobbly. |
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| (c) Spring clean Prior to defragging is an ideal time to clear out any
unwanted clutter from your C: drive, such as temp files, temporary internet files, cookies,
histories, logs, index.dat files, saved e-mails, and to prune the contents of folders
like My Documents, My Images, My Music, My Videos, Temp, Tmp, and Recycle Bin. Ideally,
do not empty the Recycle Bin completely prior to cloning a drive as we once read that an empty
bin could cause problems for some disk-imaging tools. Be aware that removing redundant
data files after you have defragged, instead of before defragging, would serve only to
accelerate the re-fragmenting of your drive, so do the clean-out first. |
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| (d) Infected machines Do not risk running Defrag if you know or suspect
your PC is infected by virus, trojan, worm, dialler, spyware, ad-ware or keylogger. Clear
the infections completely first. |
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| (e) Consistency Stick to the same Defragmenter tool each time you defrag.
The standard one that comes with Windows is suitable for all conventional drive configurations
and, being by Microsoft, can be assumed to pose the least risk, and not to give false or misleading
readings about how much a disk is fragmented. If you want to use a third-party defrag
tool, make certain it is written for your current version of Windows. Do not, for instance,
risk using one that was written for, say, Windows 95, to defrag a Windows 98SE system - and
so on up the version ladder. |
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| If you convert any of your partitions from FAT32 to NTFS, or if such a conversion is allowed
during an upgrade to a later version of Windows, the FAT32 defrag tool previously used may not
work on NTFS, in which case you would need a different defrag tool. |
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| (f) Vista The defrag tool in Windows Vista is radically different from
what has gone before. Some commentators have described it as 'dumbed down' and advocated
using a 3rd-party tool in its place. But worry not. The new Disk Defragmenter is
now capable of switching itself on and off so that it can run automatically in the background
at times of low CPU usage. This is a big change from earlier versions where the system
was more or less unusable when defrag was running. You no longer have to worry about closing
open applications, or terminating the processes running in the Notification Area, or trying
to do a defrag in Safe Mode or lockdown. The main consequence of this change, however,
is that, if you click the 'Defrag now' button to try to initiate a current defrag, this manual
defrag will probably never actually finish. Think of it now as a hands-off process that
progressively defrags in bits and pieces, on an ongoing basis, as and when practicable.
Because of that change, the traditional progress bar has had to be dispensed with, and all you
would now see in Disk Defragmenter's window would be a tiny, slowly-turning icon in the shape
of a doughnut. If a manual defrag did ever finish, the doughnut would stop spinning and
a green tick would appear over the icon - but the chances are that it never will stop.
Simply accept that as being normal. There are people, however, for whom this is too much
of a change from what they have been used to. And their solution is to use a third-party
manual defragmenter like the one, say, from auslogics.com/disk-defrag/. This free tool
is designed to run in a Windows' locked-down mode (similar to disk-imaging programs) so should
be able to side-step the traditional restarting problems with no need for any special preparations
nor Safe Mode. But this defeats the object of Vista's defragger which is designed so you
no longer have to stop doing other things in order to do a defrag. If you do resort to
using a third-party defragmenter, please remember that it should, ideally, still not be run
until you have successfully run Error-checking first - even if the tool does not prompt you
to do so - so that will add even more time to the exercise. |
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| If you want to know how much a Vista disk is defragmented, you have, unbelievably, to go
back to the dark ages of command line instructions - not even Windows Vista can shake off Microsoft's
DOS heritage. Click Start > Run > type in cmd > Ctrl+Shift+Enter > type in
defrag c: -a -v > Enter. This should cause the C: drive to be analysed and, with luck,
info will be displayed about the degree of fragmentation. If you have split your hard
disk into several smaller, more-manageable partitions, and you currently only want to defrag
one of the partitions, that is something else that can only be done in Vista via a command line
instruction. It requires special syntax and there are lots of articles on the web covering
this in great detail. |
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| (g) Starting Disk Defragmenter (all Windows' versions) Once you have
cleaned up, backed up, and successfully run Error-checking, you are ready to run Disk Defragmenter.
For Windows 95 to 2000, use the same mode and setup you used when you successfully ran Error-checking,
whether that was in Safe Mode or normal mode. To begin the Windows' defragger - for all
systems, including XP and Vista - open (My) Computer > right-click on the C: drive icon >
Properties > Tools tab > at the defragmentation area, click the Defrag Now button. |
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| Once defrag has started, leave it be. Do not tempt fate by trying to use the computer
to do other things, not while it is defragging - not even if you've got away with it before,
is our advice (Vista excepted). And do not mess with the buttons for Stop, Pause, Details
or Close - except, if it becomes apparent, despite all the precautions, that Defrag keeps
restarting (on a Windows 95 to XP machine, not Vista), then the Pause button could be used to suspend the defrag
while an attempt is made to track down and disable the errant program that is still trying to
write to the disk at the same time as the Defragmenter. |
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| (h) Frequency There are no rules on how often a disk should be defragged.
If you've got Vista, defragging could be going on all the time, in the background, on a never-ending
basis. But, with the different defrag tool on earlier systems, where there is a definite
start and end point, manual defragging can be done whenever the fancy takes you. In theory,
it could be scheduled, via Task Scheduler, to run at a specific time or period but, if
defragging won't complete on a system except in Safe Mode, there is no point in trying to schedule
it. The more often you run it, the less time it tends to take the next time. Apart
from that, though, the benefits of defragging frequently are never obvious. In our own
case, the only time we make a special point of (i) spring-cleaning the C: drive followed by
(ii) defragging the C: drive is if we are about to make a fresh drive-image of the C: drive.
That way, the hard work involved in the cleanup and defrag is not short-lived because it is
preserved, in the image, and would be restored anytime the image was restored. We think
that's a nice system to follow. And, as we don't find ourselves having to make new drive
images very often, we don't have to defrag very often either. |
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| (i) Equilibrium If you defrag a disk today and do it again tomorrow,
tomorrow's defrag will take considerably less time. That is a vivid demonstration that
defragging does achieve something dramatic, at least in the short term (but it is only the defrag
that will be markedly quicker, not your PC). If you then wait three months before defragging
again, the defrag will take a long time again. But, if you wait six months before
the next defrag it will not take twice as long - in fact it will not take much longer than the
previous one. This is because a stage is eventually reached whereby the amount of fragmentation
occurring balances out against the amount of unfragmentation which can occur as result of existing
data files being edited, resaved, deleted etc. So, although the system is in a continual
state of flux, a sort of status quo eventually pertains. This explains why people who
never defrag get away with it without any apparent consequences, and why frequent defragging
is not something anyone needs to be obsessed about. |
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| (j) On completion If you had to make any temporary changes to your system
or disable or disconnect anything, in order to successfully complete a defrag (i.e. on pre-Vista
machines), remember to reinstate everything afterwards, and to restart the computer to ensure
the restored settings take effect. For more detail on specifics, see the final paragraph
in section 4 headed 'Loose ends'. |
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| 6. End result |
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| After successfully running Error-checking and Disk Defragmenter, you will definitely have
a faster, smoother, cleaner, tidier, quieter and longer-lasting hard drive. However, the
said improvements, real though they all are, will normally be totally imperceptible to the user
in real terms, given the sheer efficiency and over-capacity of modern hard drives. |
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| Fig 1 Booting any version of Windows into Safe Mode is achieved via black and
white DOS-like screens. However, the screen in the first clip, below, will only occur
on old computers with a floppy disk drive (i.e. when using a boot procedure given in section
3(a)). |
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| Fig 2 (below) The screen clip below shows a DOS-like Startup screen typical
of what will appear when booting any version of Windows into Safe Mode. Pressing the down-arrow
key on the computer's keyboard until 'Safe Mode' is highlighted, then pressing Enter, will cause
the bootup to continue into Safe Mode (see Fig 3). |
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| Fig 3 (below) You will know you have successfully booted into Safe Mode when
you arrive at your usual desktop but with the words 'Safe mode' displayed in each corner of
the screen (see just above the Start button in the screen clip below). |
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| Fig 4 The figure below relates to an item in section 4(e) about "Problem
restarts". |
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TIPS 1 to 13 |
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T1 |
Windows 3.1 |
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Nobody is still using Windows 3.1, of course. But, for the record, at the time the
landmark v3.1 prevailed (i.e. before 1995), Windows was entirely DOS-based, so Safe
Mode was not needed and was not in existence. |
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In addition, ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter were not integral within Windows 3.1.
Windows 3.1 made do with DOS variants of both tools. Note that those DOS equivalents must
never be run on later versions of Windows (not that you would be likely to have them) due to
incompatibilities with Windows' later 'long file names' capability and the FAT32 file system. |
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T2 |
Windows 95 |
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At the time of Windows 95 (i.e. before 1998), msconfig.exe (the Windows System Configuration
Utility) was not part of Windows, hence was not an available method of accessing Safe Mode in
Win95. |
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T3 |
Windows NT |
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At the time of Windows NT (i.e. before Windows 2000), Safe Mode, and Microsoft's versions
of ScanDisk and Defrag, were not then part of NT systems. |
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T4 |
Windows 98 & 98SE |
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No anomalies. Except that you could not use Safe Mode to install programs in Windows 98
if you also wanted, as was popular at the time, to use a third-party uninstaller utility, such
as WinDelete, to monitor the installation. That was because the drivers needed by such
monitoring tools would not be loaded when in Safe Mode. Uninstaller programs were commonplace
before the internet came along and gave us all much better things to be doing with our computers!
Although a few uninstaller apps are still around, most of the original ones, including WinDelete,
were killed off when Windows XP came along (because of improvements in the way it controlled
program installation and removal) and because most third-party programs had started to include
pretty efficient uninstallers. |
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T5 |
Windows 2000 |
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Windows 2000 did not support the use of a serial mouse in Safe Mode. It was necessary
to use the keyboard to navigate in Safe Mode using the arrow, Tab, Alt and Enter keys.
Slower than a mouse but still easy enough. |
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Windows 2000 was not shipped with the msconfig utility but Win 2K could be patched
with the msconfig file copied from an XP machine such as one at work or in an icaff. |
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T6 |
Windows XP |
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XP did not support the installation of some programs while in Safe Mode, but there was no
harm in trying that way first. If an install failed, an error message would be displayed
- meaning you would have to revert to installing in normal mode. There were no other Safe
Mode anomalies except if the PC used a USB mouse and/or a USB keyboard (see items 8 & 9
below). |
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T7 |
Windows Vista |
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No anomalies with regard to Safe Mode have surfaced (at 10/08) except if the PC uses a USB
mouse and/or a USB keyboard (see items 8 & 9 below).. |
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T8 |
USB mouse |
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A USB mouse may not work in Safe Mode. If possible, swap over temporarily to a serial
or PS/2 mouse. Otherwise you will just have to use the keyboard to navigate the menus
using the arrow, Tab, Alt and Enter keys. There was a time when no computer had a mouse
- all navigation had to be done through the keyboard, so it's no big deal once you put your
mind to it. |
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T9 |
USB keyboard |
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A USB keyboard may not work until Windows has booted fully. This would prevent using
the F8 key method during startup. In this situation, use the msconfig method to access
Safe Mode after startup. If you then find the USB keyboard won't function when in Safe
Mode, and you can't do everything you need to do by a non-USB mouse alone, you're stumped.
You'll have to give up on Safe Mode - restart the computer back into normal Windows. |
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T10 |
Internet |
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An Internet connection is automatically disallowed in Safe Mode, provided you choose the
plain 'Safe Mode' option from the Startup Menu. This is one of the biggest benefits of
switching to Safe Mode as it ensures there is no danger of unwanted outbound or inbound internet
intrusions while doing disk maintenance tasks. |
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T11 |
Error-checking, ScanDisk, Check Disk |
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What's in a name? 'Error-checking' also goes under the name of ScanDisk
for pre-XP Windows and Check Disk for XP and Vista. Names may also vary depending on which
Windows' route you take to arrive at a dialog for starting the tool. The different names
all mean the same thing basically. |
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Time required Error-checking, if choosing its 'Standard' mode', only
takes a minute or two to finish, so there's no harm in running that in the first instance. However, if then choosing 'Thorough' mode, the one you really need, this will usually take one
or more hours to complete. As soon as you are satisfied it is going to finish without
continually restarting, the best thing to do is to walk away and do something else, and leave
the PC to do its stuff. |
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Partitions If you have divided your hard drive from being a single C:
drive into several, separate partitions, say C, D & E (strongly recommended), you will find
that Error-checking will offer to do more than one drive at a time. However, there is
no point in telling it to do so because Error-checking will stop after checking the first partition
and will not continue to the next one until you tell it to. Better, therefore, to scan
one partition at a time. Disk Defragmenter (prior to Vista), on the other hand, definitely
limits you to defragging drives (partitions) one at a time. This is for damage-limitation
reasons i.e. in case something were to go wrong. Note that our strong recommendation to
run Error-checking in Safe Mode (for pre-XP systems) would only apply when doing the main C:
part of a partitioned drive. On all other partitions, you will find that both Error-checking
and Disk Defragmenter will run in normal mode, without any risk of interruption (all Windows'
versions). That is because there will be no Windows, or no booted Windows, on those other
partitions trying to write to them. |
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Error files In the (rare) event that Error-checking finds errors on
your drive it will ask if you want to save them. Always answer yes because they could
contain vital information. The files concerned are given a name like FILE0001.CHK (i.e.
with the .chk extension). The files will probably be somewhere in your root (C:) directory.
Use Notepad to open the files and peruse the content. If the information looks important,
keep it. Otherwise, delete the CHK files to free up disk space. |
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Improper shutdowns If you exit Windows 98 or Me improperly, ScanDisk
will run automatically when you restart the PC. You can see it happening because a progress
bar displays across the bottom of the startup screen. This is a minimal DOS version called
chkdsk.exe, not the full Windows' version called scandskw.exe on pre-XP machines (but, confusingly,
called chkdsk.exe on XP machines). That minimal chkdsk.exe version is similar to running
the Window's version in 'Standard' mode as opposed to 'Thorough' mode, so only takes a minute
or so to complete. Do NOT attempt to run the DOS version directly from Windows 98 or Me
at any time. |
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T12 |
Defrag |
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Before installs Defragging before installing any new software
will give the new program a hugely increased probability of mainly being installed in contiguous
clusters. This therefore sounds like a great thing to do - though nobody ever bothers
as far as we know, not even us! |
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Choosing the drive When you open the defrag dialog, it has the C: drive
already selected by default. You therefore need to be careful not to start it running
with C: still selected if it is some other drive, partition or removable disk you mean to defrag.
Realising your mistake halfway through and stopping Defrag in its tracks is not something we
would wish to recommend. |
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Progress When you first tell Defrag to start, on pre-Vista systems,
you may see the message "Drive's contents changed. Restarting..." a couple of times
during the first few seconds. These particular instances of this message are nothing to
worry about provided the progress bar (missing from Vista) then quickly climbs up to the '10% complete' mark. The progress bar may well stick at 10% for a good ten minutes or more. This is also normal and, provided the progress bar eventually climbs past 10%, without repeatedly
restarting from zero, as it surely will provided Error-checking did, you can be assured it will continue successfully, in time, all the way through to 100%. |
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Time required The time it takes to defrag a drive or partition can vary
widely because it is proportional to the size of the disk, the amount of data on it, the amount
of used space on it, and how much the drive has been written to (fragmented) since the previous
defrag. Sometimes it can be quicker than Error-checking, other times it can take a lot
longer. If the ratio of used space to free space on a drive or partition is very high
(something to be avoided), it could take all day. Indeed, if the free space on a drive
is less than 15%, it probably won't defrag at all. If you have a partitioned hard disk,
and keep all of your data files and all of your larger third-party programs on the D:
partition (which is what we always do), this practice can result in a dramatic reduction in
the time a defrag will take, particularly of the C: drive but also the D: drive. Even
the combined time of doing C: followed by D: will be far less than if you keep everything on a single C: drive. |
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Once you've set a defrag in motion, the best thing you can do is leave the computer alone and go and do something else. After half an hour, check how far the progress bar has moved. That will give you an idea of how much longer it will take. We do NOT recommend trying
to do any other work on a PC while it is carrying out this major manipulation, not even if you've got away with it in the past or the tool says it's okay. It's just tempting fate.
Vista would appear to contradict that advice as its defragger is supposedly running in the background
all the time without you having to start it. However, Vista's defragger also includes a special running process with the specific purpose of switching the defrag on or off according
to the amount of system usage. So, if you are using the computer, defragging will probably be paused automatically until you've stopped using it. |
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NTFS In February 2007, PC Advisor mag said "Defragmenting is not
as beneficial on an NTFS drive as on FAT drives. In XP, files that cannot be defragmented
are probably locked because they're in use by Windows. Try running the defragmenter after
starting Windows in Safe Mode." Which is what we've advocated throughout. |
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TaskMonitor If you use Windows 98 or ME, and TaskMonitor (not to be
confused with Task Scheduler) was one of the background programs you had to untick in order
to get Error-checking and, hence, Disk Defragmenter to run without interruption, there is no
need to retick TaskMonitor on the Startup tab after completing the disk maintenance. That
is because the computer, by now, has built up an adequate profile of your usage of programs.
Leaving TaskMonitor off after that will help to ensure an extremely reliable Windows system
- provided it hasn't been infiltrated by any parasitic stuff off the internet. |
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Removable drives It was never commonly appreciated that you could defrag
any magnetic disks, such as floppy disks, Zip disks or external hard drives, including with
Windows XP if fitted with any such hardware. Or, at least, you could on FAT-formatted
systems. You cannot defrag removable optical disks or flash drives. But older removable
media (like floppies or Zips) could be defragged and, in addition, could always be defragged
without trouble in Windows' normal mode, no need for Safe Mode. That was because other
programs would not be trying to write to them, so there was no risk of interruption. If
you have any removable drives on your own machine, test by running Error-checking on it first
before risking Defragmenter. Defragging a nearly-full 1.44MB floppy will take about ten
minutes. It is doubtful if many people ever bother defragging a floppy. However,
if you have got any floppies that you write files to fairly regularly, then doing a periodic
defrag will speed up future saves quite noticeably for a while and, consequently, will extend
the life of the floppy drive mechanism. Even if you do not use floppies all that
often (assuming your computer has a floppy drive, few do these days), defragging a floppy disk
is also an excellent way, for anybody who has never manually used the defrag program before,
to get a quick taste of how to use it, before beginning a much lengthier exercise on the main
hard disk. A defrag of a floppy, because it takes such a short time, can also be done
with the 'Details' window open. The Details view (pre-Vista systems only) displays an
interesting graphical representation of the unfragmentation process. In the case of a
250MB Iomega Zip disk, a defrag will take about 25 minutes. Like a floppy, it can be defragged
in normal mode, no need for Safe Mode. And, again, the 'Details' window can be left visible
without seriously extending the time the defrag will take. Before defragging a floppy
disk or Zip disk containing valuable data, do ensure you have an up-to-date copy of the contents
on the hard disk, or elsewhere, just in case of a power failure midway through the defrag! |
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Optimisation If you are a Windows 98 or ME user, the Disk Defragmenter is able to optimise your applications for faster opening as part of the defrag process. The number that will be optimised is fifty by default. This figure is excessive.
Twenty is sufficient for prioritisation. The figure can be changed with a fairly simple
registry hack. This tip should really be read in conjunction with our separate article
on using the TaskMonitor program to full advantage. Making the change involves adding
a new registry Key called MaxApps with a DWORD value of 14. The change will be seen when
you next regenerate an Optlog.txt file. The separation line will have moved from being
immediately above the 51st application in the list to just above the 21st application, and will
say "Maximum Number of Programs Eligible for Optimization Reached". There will
be a further item, at the bottom of Optlog.txt, under Control Parameters, stating "Maximum
apps = 20". If you are interested in making such a change, you can google for instructions
by searching for "+maxapps +registry" (without the quotes). Remember, this
smart optimisation feature is not available to users of Windows XP or Vista, only to Win98 & Me users. |
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Sensitive files If you ever store or download highly sensitive images
or other files to your hard disk, which you subsequently want to remove irrevocably, do not
underestimate the value of defragging in this respect. No matter whether you have merely
deleted the files, shredded them, or even wiped them, the icing on the cake is to also defrag
the disk as the final step. |
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T13 |
Problem Floppies |
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If you never use floppy disks yourself, skip this tip. |
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New computers do not come with 3.5" floppy drives built in anymore. But they
are still available as external USB devices, and are also still commonplace on computers in
icaffs, at least in the UK, where floppies continue to be the most popular way by which people
transfer small files, or larger split or zipped files, between machines. This tip re problem
floppies had never been documented anywhere else before appearing here. |
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Some computer magazine journalists have been known to say floppy disks are unreliable.
On the contrary, if your floppy disks are used only in your own floppy drive on your own PC,
they will almost never fail, not even when very heavily used - in fact, probably not until such
time as the floppy drive itself is wearing out. However, use one of these perfectly good
floppies in the floppy drive of somebody else's computer, or on a computer in an icaff, and
that is when the risk of premature failure suddenly becomes real. And it can come in two
shapes. First, you may have used the other computer to download something off the internet
onto the floppy but, in doing so, it somehow appears to corrupt the file system on the floppy.
When you get back home, you routinely virus check the floppy (as it's been in another machine)
but, despite being clean, when you try to open the floppy to see the downloaded files, you get
a message that Windows cannot read from the device. Not only have you apparently lost
the downloaded data but, in this case, there is apparently no option but to throw away what
had been a healthy disk before it was used on the other machine. There is just one thing
you can try, which has only a 50-50 chance of working. Remove the floppy disk, spin the
disk to a new position by turning the spindle with your fingers, then reinsert the disk in the
floppy drive. Now, before doing anything else, open Handy Recovery (this is a free recovery
utility you ought to have on you C: drive already - if you haven't, download it now and install
it). After opening Handy Recovery, in the left pane, click the Down arrow and select the
A: drive, then click the 'Analyze' button. If the downloaded files successfully appear
in the right hand pane, right-click on one of the files and, if the 'Recover' option is available
(i.e. not greyed out), click Recover and choose to save the file to the Desktop. If this
works, you will have recovered the data you had downloaded and you should be able to reformat
the floppy, which will make it as good as new. The second kind of 'failure' you might
experience is if you already had data on the floppy which you were going to copy to the other
machine, perhaps to email to somebody via, say, Hotmail. But, for no obvious reason, the
floppy drive on the other machine decides to corrupt the floppy disk, which you will know has
happened if you see a disconcerting message that Windows could not read from the floppy device
or if the computer hangs. The standard message always infers the floppy is no good (when
it's really the drive) - making you think you will have lost all the work you had on the floppy.
Not necessarily so. You may not have lost the data, nor even the floppy. When you
get back home, put the 'unreadable' floppy back in the (good) floppy drive on your own machine.
Scan the floppy for viruses (just routine, as it's been in a different machine). If it
scans clean, or won't scan, open the Windows' Error-checking tool and set it to check just the
A: drive, to do a thorough check, and to automatically fix any errors it finds. If Error-checking
fails to run, the floppy is scrap and the data is definitely lost. However, if Error-checking
does run, you are in with a good chance of recovering both the data and the floppy. If,
as the check proceeds, you find it is being interrupted by error messages, this is further confirmation
you have been the victim of a dodgy drive on the other computer. Clear the messages as
and when they occur, so that Error-checking can continue, and let it completely finish if it
will. If Error-checking eventually hangs, use the Close Programs dialog (aka Task Manager)
to end Error-checking. In this event, the floppy will, ultimately, have to be thrown away
but, before doing so, use Windows Explorer and/or a recovery utility like Recover 98 or Handy
Recovery to see if any files on the floppy are visible and can be copied over to the desktop
before you throw the disk. Usually, though, you will not see any error messages during
the error checking, and it will complete its operation without further aid. When that
happens, study its end summary report. If it shows some bytes were detected in "bad
sectors", you may have to bin the floppy but, again, not just yet. Now open Windows'
Disk Defragmenter tool and run that on just the A: drive. On completion of the defrag
(maybe 10 minutes), close all open windows, so you are back to a clear desktop and Taskbar,
and do a normal Restart of your PC. After the PC has booted up, use Windows Explorer to
look at the contents of the bad floppy, and try opening each data file on it one at a time.
For every file that opens satisfactorily, close it and, if it is one you want, copy it over
to My Documents. With luck, you will be able to salvage most if not all of the data files
that were on the floppy. This tip will not work every time, admittedly, but, eight times
out of ten, in our experience, this technique (i.e. Error-checking + Defrag + Restart) will
bring most if not all of the spoiled contents back from the dead. Afterwards, do a 'Quick'
format of the floppy and note whether or not it reported any bad sectors. Immediately
follow the quick format with a 'Thorough' format. Run Error-checking again and, if it
now reports no bad sectors, as it probably will, not only will you have saved all your 'lost'
data but the floppy disk will be just like new again, fully usable, as if nothing untoward had
ever happened - at least, not until the next time you are unlucky enough to put it in some other
machine's dodgy drive! |
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