I have a mulitboot system with OSs from Win 98SE to Win XP SP2. Recently when I wanted to do a defrag of my C: drive, where Win98SE is installed, the defrag would not start. I get 1% completed, then it reverts to 0% completed and keeps going back and forth between 0% and 1% completed. Are there any issues defragging a drive on a multiboot machine? Should I try the defrag from WinXP, since that would be the controlling OS, being the last OS that was installed? Thank you. P.S. All partitions are in FATs(16 or NTFS) which can be seen by all the other partitions.

If you don't mind the rigmarole. - Turn off all startup items. - Disable Screensavers and Antivirus tool. - Run disc cleanup (dump internet cache too). - Run scandisk (thorough option). - Then try the defrag again (prefarably from safemode) and it should work.

The easiest way that I have found to defrag running Windows 98 is: Restart the computer from the start menu, at the first sign of a re boot start tapping the F8 key. You will go into a screen where you will have some choices. Use the ARROW keys to scroll down and select SAFE MODE then hit the ENTER key. When you are in Safe Mode there is nothing running that can interfere with the defrag. Berore running defrag I always do Scandisk and run CCleaner to tidy things up. That helps the defrag to run smoother and faster. When defrag is completed just re boot and you are back in Windows 98.