Failure to Defragment Hard Drive
Defragmentation Failure . I am running a Windows XP Pro . I recntly purchesed and set up an external hard drive, My Book Essential, Western Digital, 1 Terobyte . To be used with my and my wife's computer to backup our complete hard drives, interchanging at the USB port. When I try to Defrag my 80% full hard drive it hangs up at 3%, stateing, "paused for volume shadow copy ". I am not sure if this problem is due to the external hard drive or what? I am choosing to defrag C:/ only. Any suggestions? Email removed for privacy2 people need an answerI do too
April 25th, 2010 2:41am

What defragmentation program are you using? There are several good free defragmenters available for download. I would recommend you try Ultimate Defrag. Link below. http://download.cnet.com/UltimateDefrag-Freeware-Edition/3000-2094_4-10582157.html Regards, JoelSometimes deciding which battle to fight is the toughest battle of all.. Please visit my website @ http://repairbotsonline.weebly.com/ If I can take the time to answer you can take the time to vote to enable others to find solutions easier.
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April 25th, 2010 3:03am

I am having just EXACTLY this same problem, except I have an older and smaller "My Book" Western Digital-- 400 gigs I think. I used it to store some files last night-- didn't use it for a backup of whole computer and I unplugged the thing-- both power and connection to my computer-- but I am getting the same thing. None of the help I have been able to find on these "volume shadow copy" topics seems to remotely help. It is all about server products and formatting discs, which I don't use or do. Someone please answer this JaqqN's highly intelligent and useful question.
May 9th, 2010 9:44pm

Volume Shadow copying is your system restore. Click start > run > type services.msc Locate System Restore Service > Right click and choose Stop. Once you have completed the defrag re-enable it. Your system restore points will not be removed. Regards, Joel Free computer support and diagnostics -->> http://repairbotsonline.forumotion.com/
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May 9th, 2010 10:56pm

JaqqN-- Just thought I would let you know I think I figured out my problem-- may work for you. I was using the "My Book" external hard drive just to store some files-- not for backup of my whole computer. I had taken my Smart Sync. Pro off my startup menu because I had gone to online backup. Evidently when I used the "My Book," hard drive, it fired up my Smart Sync Pro enough to start it doing the "shadow volume copy" even though I had rebooted. So, I added Smart Sync Pro back to my start menu, rebooted, then clicked on the external drive that it couldn't find -- it sends a message like "cannot find G:--Dell : " or something like that. I basically said "OK" or don't worry about it or quit or something like that. After that, closed out of Smart Sync pro and ran the defrag and it worked just fine. You may have a similar issue. Good Luck, Glenn
May 9th, 2010 11:45pm

RE: My previous reply. JaqqN-- well, what I said above in my previous answer worked for a while, then the dreaded volume shadow copy reared its ugly head again. I was a bit frustrated, so I decided to do a bit of surgery. I uninstalled smart sync pro, hamachi and one other thing that I thought might be causing the problem. I then redid the settings on my Norton 360, Carbonite, File Cure, and a couple of other things-- any software that I thought might be looking at my entire D drive (D is my primary data drive). I then rebooted, but still had the problem. Sooo, since I was already in the mood for surgery, I went to the control panel, into "Administrative Services" into "computer management" then "Services and Applications" then services. I was just kind of hunting for anything promising and in the list of services I found one called "MS Software Shadow Copy Provider" (I had overlooked this initially -- thanks for putting the MS right at the front of the description Microsoft-- that really helped a lot. I bet if you were alphabetizing a list, there would be a lot of things filed under "The" like "The Bridge, The Zebra . . . . "). Anyway, that had one of those ominous warnings saying if you stop it "any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start." Again, not very helpful (It would have been more helpful if they provided some details like "some examples might be . . . ." or said "you will, however, be able to restart your computer with working functionality and can restart the Volume Shadow Copy provider" or, if stopping something like this could cause a serious problem, a warning like "stopping this will cause a significant change in how your array, volumes, drives, or whatever works". Better still, a warning like "You probably don't want to mess with this unless you are an IT professional" would actually be pretty darn useful (in those cases where that is actually the case). Anyway, not knowing whether it would mess stuff up or not, since I could find no useful guidance to this problem in any of Microsoft's help materials, I took the plunge, paused the thing (you have that option-- or at least I did), rebooted and then it allowed me to defrag (I really needed to defrag badly-- I had filled the drive up (400 gigs) up to 99% capacity before removing some data to the "My Book" gizmo and even after I had removed 65 gigs of data to make space, a program that I frequently use to download numerous files was still not working properly-- said it couldn't read data off my D drive on about 30% of the applications I was using it on and it requires full contiguous chunks of clean disc space to download data). After defragging-- which took many hours-- I started up the "MS Software Shadow Copy Provider software" again. I let the computer just sit around with that on for several hours (to, hopefully, allow the software to catch up with the changes I had made to my D drive was my logic). After that, I rebooted again, redid the settings (unpaused and turned back) on) on my other applications (e.g., Norton 360, Carbonite, File Cure, etc.), and rebooted again. It seems to be working fine now-- it now allows me to defrag like it used to-- and I haven't noticed any deleterious effects from my shot in the dark actions, so hopefully I didn't mess anything else up by doing what I did. I would love to know from somebody who really understands this stuff if that was the right thing to do in case it ever happens again, if someone would be so kind as to post that information. I can't recommend what I did-- I don't know if I screwed stuff up and just don't know it yet-- but I thought you might like to know. good luck.
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May 10th, 2010 8:11pm

Joel-- I didn't see your most recent post before I put up my last two. (JaqqN-- you undoubtedly want to do what Joel recommends and not what I did.) Thank you very much for the information. I know I did mess around with the system restore, but I don't remember exactly what I did (except I did make it take a restore point before I started my blindfolded hachet surgery). I don't remember thinking to stop the system restore though. Hopefully that was what I did on mine, albeit inelegantly. (And, really hopefully, that was ALL I did to my computer. ) I genuinely appreciate the information-- you can bet I will use it if this problem crops up the future. It sure makes sense now that someone who understands this stuff explains it. Let me know if you ever need advice on how to dig a post hole or use a wheelbarrow-- those are more my speed. Thanks again for taking the time to help-- this Luddite appreciates it a great deal. Glenn
May 10th, 2010 8:20pm

TimeOnTarget As stated in my post above shadow copying is the mechanism used by windows to take a snapshot if you will of your windows files. Disabling system restore will produce the same effect as pausing shadow copying. I have to ask if you even tried my instructions above after I posted what system shadow copying is and how to avoid the error message? Seems all your searching led you right back to what I had suggested. Regards, Joel Free computer support and diagnostics -->> http://repairbotsonline.forumotion.com/
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May 10th, 2010 8:23pm

Joel-- If you would be so kind as to help me with one more issue-- hopefully a simple one for you. How much space do you need to allocate for the system restore function? Is there a percentage that is recommended, or a total amount of space ??? I have twin arrayed 500 gig hard drives-- I never see anything about the second hard drive, so I assume it is strictly for backup purposes. Anyway, I have my hard drive partitioned and my programs on one drive and my data on another. It is the volume with the data that I am especially concerned about-- until I get a new computer with much bigger hard drives (or multiple drives-- don't know what will work or be best), I am really crunched for space. So, I don't want to allocate more space than I need for the system restore, but I for darn sure don't want to skimp on the space I give it to the point its functionality is impaired (as you can probably guess from reading my posts, I need and value the ability to undo mistakes I make on my computer. I work solo-- no company tech support anymore--just a very ocassional visit (i.e., roughly once a year) from a kind friend who knows what he is doing, but is very busy and travels a lot and spends a lot of time overseas. Any advice or guidance you can offer on that point would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Glenn
May 10th, 2010 8:38pm

Joel-- I wish I had-- unfortunately I didn't see your second post at the time I was trying all that stuff and I just hit reply without checking for new posts (won't do that again) when I wrote the posts after your second post. Sorry-- I actually really value the advice you gave--it is now an adobe document (and my SOP ) for this problem. Thanks again-- and sorry for the unnecessary and unhelpful posts I contributed. Once you explained it, it all made sense. Glenn
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May 10th, 2010 8:52pm

"joelj1964" wrote in message news:7d437cf2-4843-4e99-bbf2-55729d2518af... > TimeOnTarget > > As stated in my post above shadow copying is the mechanism used by windows > to take a snapshot if you will of your windows files. Disabling system > restore will produce the same effect as pausing shadow copying. I have to > ask if you even tried my instructions above after I posted what system > shadow copying is and how to avoid the error message? Seems all your > searching led you right back to what I had suggested. Not quite - The Shadow Copy Service does a number of things - a minor and infrequent one of which is service System Restore. One of the major things it does is look after Shadow Copies - which are 'old' copies of files which may nevertheless be useful to you. Such files as amended Office documents, edited movie files and jpg files, etc..etc - not to mention files which are covered by the System File Protection service (which is a different thing to System Restore). As such, yes, it takes a snapshot, but not of the same set of files as System Restore - and not in the same way. Sometimes, you may lose files in a System Restore - and be able to recover them from the Shadow Copy Service. I hope that doesn't muddy the waters TOO much - it's a complex subject, and one I admit I don't know as well as I'd like to. If you want more detail, there's a wealth of data in the MSDN Library http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384649(VS.85).aspx -- Noel Paton CrashFixPC Nil Carborundum Illegitemi www.crashfixpc.co.uk
May 10th, 2010 10:29pm

Noel-- Thank you very much! Far from muddying the water, your explanation added a great deal to my understanding. I'm going to use the link you provided and read further on this. This is an area that strikes me as something I really should get a basic understanding of if I ever have any hope of becoming proficient with computers. To this point, I have been completely clueless about it. There have been a couple of times in the not too distant past when it would have come in real handy to be able to find a backup or earlier version, including when I had to retype a five page letter from a paper copy of a draft-- which took me an entire afternoon (the only time my computer skills look good is if you compare them to my typing skills). You might appreciate this. Two computers ago, I downloaded multiple gigs of information from a government website. Something on it totally fouled up my computer and I worked for days to try to figure out what the problem was so I could get rid of it. That led to me reading a lot of things I didn't understand and me coming up with a diagnosis based on a lot of speculation (or "that kind of sounds like . . . . "). Anyway, when I thought I had finally identified the problem, I called a friend who was a lot more knowledgeable than me about computers (but he had tried to fix my problem and couldn't) and told him that I thought I had identified the culprit -- the PCI Bus-- and I told him I was going to uninstall it and see if that helped. He replied "I'm not sure I would do that-- I think that is kind of like its liver." At that point I finally gave up and bought a new computer and got help migrating my stuff-- minus the problem-- to the new one. Thanks for the great info. All the best, Glenn PS-- I never let those Illegitemi bother me--My secret is that I create enough problems on my own so that I don't have time to worry about anyone else.
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May 11th, 2010 3:05am

"TimeOnTarget" wrote > PS-- I never let those Illegitemi bother me--My secret is that I create > enough problems on my own so that I don't have time to worry about anyone > else. > LOL. You and me both! -- Noel Paton CrashFixPC Nil Carborundum Illegitemi www.crashfixpc.co.uk
May 11th, 2010 10:57am

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757854%28WS.10%29.aspxFree computer support and diagnostics -->> http://repairbotsonline.forumotion.com/
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May 11th, 2010 6:14pm

Nice one! - thanks -- Noel Paton CrashFixPC Nil Carborundum Illegitemi www.crashfixpc.co.uk
May 11th, 2010 8:29pm

Joel-- Yeah, the link you gave has a great explanation -- thanks a lot! This stuff is actually written in a way that I understand-- well, mostly understand. I had done searches, but didn't find this-- I don't know why not. I guess you can add "Searching" to my list of needed computer remedial courses. Have a good one, Glenn
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May 11th, 2010 9:15pm

Joel,I too am having the problem with Volume Shadow. I did follow your procedure but had to re-start my computer to get it defragging without pausing. well I got 55% of the way through the defragging process and it paused again. Any suggestions?
July 19th, 2010 10:23pm

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