Advise please!!

Hey there all you computer genii,

For some reason my FS9 has been causin me some trouble lately (unexplained crashes...apparently random) so i just decided to doa complete reinstall. Plus I thought it might be a good opportunity to do some "spring cleaning" (remove unused planes, scenery etc)

Anyway, my query is, how best to go about defreging my hard drive. I dont think its ever been done on this machine (its a little over a year old now) and it seems to be slowing down ever so slightly (i may be imagining it but i don't think i am). I've heard this bein talked about all over the place...whats the best software to go for, is their any free software available etc...

I think it's a good idea to do this bedore i start puttin FS back on...

Thanks in advance for any advice

Cillian

Cillian,

Sorry to hear about the computer problem. The problem you have mentioned does not really sound like it had anything to do with the fragmentation.

When you said 'crashes', does your FS9 crash and you go back to Windows desktop, or does the whole computer shut down/restart?

Honestly, in my humble opinion, Windows XP Disk Defragmenter is good enough for this task. You can open it from All Programs>Accessories>System Tools

Hope you will get it fixed soon.

Naresh

ya...i know its not to do with fragmentation its just i thought it would be a good idea to clean up the system while i was at it.

As for the problem with FS it seemed very wierd, and random as i said. First i thought it was a problem with the PMDG 737 cos it first happened while flying that (and kept happenenin while taxiing from the gate at miami). I tried the same flight from MIA with a different plane and worked no problem so thought i t prob was PMDG. So i reinstalled that but sine then its crashed (just to the desktop) twice.

It seemed to show some pretty wierd symptons just before it crashed aswell. For instance yesterday when it happened...first most of the options on the toolbar disappeared, then the whole toolbar disappeared. after another moment or two, the screen went black and then returned to windows.

Anyway...thanks for that Naresh i didn't realise that windows came with software for that job.

Hi Rod

Well thanfully my graphics weren't acting up...and i sincerely hope its NOT a problem with the graphics card, the machine is only about 15 months old.

Naresh, Turns out there's defragmenting software with our Anti virus so I've run that plus all the other various checks that i can...now hopefully when i put it back on it will be as good as new and maybe even run a bit smoother