Windows XP Professional Edition Defrag has just erased FS2002!!!I ran defrag on my Hard-drive, as I usually do, to keep things running the best possible way, but was shocked to find out that the partition (D:) where I install my games to was practically empty. This is a 45 Gb partition and I had used about 6 Gb, between FS2002 and IL-2. When I checked, after defrag, it was a bit over 1 Gb used. IL-2 folder is completely gone, has for FS2002 about four folders survived...This leaves me deeply sad, because I

Change your forum nickname? Might not be a bad idea.... no sense in asking for trouble, is there? LOLSorry. I'm not really laughing at you. I know the frustration you must feel. I just changed to a new 2nd computer that came bundled with WinXP Home Edition. So far, the OS has operated reasonably well, but then again I don't have any partitions either. But I do have all my work documents on here. I guess I won't be defragging any time soon -- just in case.Good luck rebuilding.Question: In the future, can you defrag your partitions separately?-Lindy :-wave

Hugo what a pitfall... I'm still on win98, but have considered going to XP. One thing to note: I've been adding and tweaking things in FS2002 for over one year... I can't count the number of hours I've spent getting things just right (as am sure you did as well). I couldn't image losing all my work, which is why I bought a second hard drive for backup.. I suggest you get a second Hard drive, and in the future back up important files there...Sorry I can't help... Cheers

HugoI cannot imagine how this may have happened to you. In XP's defence, I have been running it for 12 months now (only 1 crash). I defrag my 3 partitions weekly. The first 5 months was using XP defrag and the last 7 months using Norton Systemworks.I can only speak very highly of XP, especially when compared to Win98.

"The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturnare composed entirely from lost airline luggage" :-lol :-lol :-lol

Hi Hugo,As someone said you should really change your login name.Second, I recently went up to XP from 98 and encountered dramaticand nightmary problems since then BUT, the guilty element was definitely not XP, but a faulty DDR ram 512 stick.Same: crashes during defrags, even worse, during copying files,all sorts of ....So check carefully your hardware, may be you also recently changedthe memeory or added some more RAM for XP purpose.If so, beware, and change it back, since these problems do notoccur at regular periods but usually at the WORST moment.Regards, and good luck.Arnie.

Thanks everyone for the kind words... ;) I

Norton Ghost and a backup hard drive, are must have's for me. The major crash is out there waiting for us all sooner or later. :-eek

yep..I'vehadmy share...How much space does norton ghost require for backup...Is it compressed or do you need to save the entire hard drive ???

>Hi Hugo, >>As someone said you should really change your login name. >Second, I recently went up to XP from 98 and encountered >dramatic >and nightmary problems since then BUT, the guilty element >was definitely not XP, but a faulty DDR ram 512 stick. >Same: crashes during defrags, even worse, during copying >files, >all sorts of .... >So check carefully your hardware, may be you also recently >changed >the memeory or added some more RAM for XP purpose. >If so, beware, and change it back, since these problems do >not >occur at regular periods but usually at the WORST moment. >>Regards, and good luck. >>Arnie. Yes, I had exactly the same problem when I upgraded to XP. I was absolutely furious with this supposedly 'most stable ever' product. I had just installed extra RAM a couple of days before without any problems under 98. XP seemed to be fine until I started copying files from my old HD - then started crashing at random moments. I thought I was well and truly screwed for a couple of hours - it just didn't occur to me that it might be hardware as checked everything I could think of. I eventually saw sense though.I got a utility called MemTest (can't remember where) which thoroughly checks your memory for every conceivable problem and it reported a problem with the new memory stick I had installed. Took the memory back to the shop and replaced it. Still had problems! Aaargh! So then I formatted my HD, reinstalled XP and tried again thinking that it must have somehow been a bad installation or my HD was failing somehow. Perhaps a virus. After a couple of days, it dawned on me that it was actually the memory slot that was bad. Removed the memory from that slot and everything has worked absolutely perfectly ever since. Apart from when my HD failed last week, anyway.The golden rule is: if you want to keep it, back it up. Thing is, who actually does? We would all quite happily spend money on faster processors, bigger hard drives, better graphics cards. Spend money on some kind of backup device? Nah.

>...After a couple of days, it dawned >on me that it was actually the memory slot that was >bad. Removed the memory from that slot and everything has >worked absolutely perfectly ever since. If you have fast memory in two adjacent slots, it can be a heat problem. There are recommendations out there that, if your board allows it, then put your two memory sticks in slots 1 and 3, not 1-2.Art.

Hi,What filesystem did you use, FAT32 or NTFS? If I'm correct FAT32 can address max 32GB. Maybe that caused a problem.Egbert

Jerry, I am seriously considering your suggestion! I think I

>>...After a couple of days, it dawned >>on me that it was actually the memory slot that was >>bad. Removed the memory from that slot and everything has >>worked absolutely perfectly ever since. >>If you have fast memory in two adjacent slots, it can be a >heat problem. There are recommendations out there that, >if your board allows it, then put your two memory sticks in >slots 1 and 3, not 1-2. >>>Art. A heat problem? I hadn't heard that before. Is there anything that doesn't run hot these days? Probably just the keyboard - but maybe if you type fast enough that will overheat and stop working too ;-)I thought that I'd pretty much nailed heat problems in general with a bunch of too noisy fans. I hadn't taken into consideration airflow around my hard drive - it's a 7200 rpm - and I suspect that it was heat that killed it (only 6 months old). I'm not sure about the memory slots thing, I seem to remember something about using only consecutive slots, but that might be going back to old days. Thanks for the suggestion - makes this forum worthwhile.

I defragged once about 5 years ago. Defragging is way overrated. Also have WinXP on two machines. Neither one has crashed yet or done anything it wasn't suppose to do. One of them has been running for over a year with an absolutely perfect record. I highly recommend XP. My Win98 machine crashes at least once a week. It's either an "illegal operation" error or a "fatal exception" error. Never have any problems like that with XP.