Replies

Hi Al,
I will run CHKDSK as I believe that’s good advice. Also if it is in fact a System Restore file it’s not worth worrying about but should be self correcting over time as new restore points are created. So it should take care of it’s self with time, but hasn’t as it’s been there for at least 3 months now. Perhaps it would be worth while for me to try the Jk3.36 defrag instead of the default Windows XP defrag, do you think? With this comment I’ll stop posting about this issue as I think the members are tired of discussing this. I just want to say THANK YOU KINDLY to all who have taken the time to try and help me out here as I really appreciate all you efforts! Kind Regards, Jeff

Doc, have you ever used the Defraggler program Lief mentioned?

Leif,
Have you had any problems with Defraggler? I’ve read a couple of post where guys have had trouble when using this program in XP and suggested the Jk 3.36 in favor of it. I don’t know of course but am willing to attempt using one if you fellows recommend using them. Thanks for your input, Jeff

Very large image cropped by HansV

Joe,
I’ve plenty of free space (74%), so that of course isn’t the problem as I’ve even tried defragging it in Safe Mode and that didn’t do the trick. In view of what you said I take it and what Doc and others have written that the aftermarket defrag tools are pretty safe to use. So I’m guessing that one of these will do the trick, right? Even so, I’ve read that having one or up to four files fragmented won’t hurt performance of the machine, is this true? I only have one and as I said my suspicions are that it’s System Volume Information. I hope you can see it, but the file that won’t defrag is shown 1/3 of the way up the blue bar. My screen shot also shows the System Volume Info files I’m talking about in the “Most Fragmented Files” box. Thanks for trying to help me figure this out.

Well, that’s the problem as it shows up as a red line in the defrag “Estimate Disk Usage” before & after defragmentation. In other words after defrag is run the red line still there. I’ve no idea how to determine what file it is because after I run defrag it’s not show in the “View Report”. That’s what’s so weird about this as you’d think it would be shown in the Report after defragging because the red line is still shown when you run Analyze and there’s nothing in View Report about it. Maybe this will help, but it’s{the red line} in the first big blue file block of “Estimated Disk Usage before Defragmentation”. I’m showing in “Most Fragmented Files” several files requiring defragging in “System Volume Information”. There’s 3 of these files 3mb each. These are present ONLY BEFORE defrag is run and gone afterward.

Sorry guys but this is all I can tell you other than if you’d tell me how to find out what kind of a file this is and if there’s a program that does this please let me know.

Thanks for trying to help me out, JeffT

HI Doc,
It’s been a while since I was on the Lounge and was glad to see that you’re still here. The reason I haven’t been around is I had/ am having major health issues since last March and April when I was in the hospital for six weeks with a bad staph blood infection. Hope I get better soon…

My question is, I was reading about the defrag issue Jerry had as I’m having for the first time ever since Windows 95 days a file that for some reason won’t defrag. I didn’t try any aftermarket defrag programs like Perfect Disk or the Jk as I was concerned about messing up my machine if I did try one of these. So, is it a big deal to have a file that won’t defrag? Two, would you recommend that I try and fix it, can it cause problems down the road?

Thanks very much in advance Doc for you help because I know if anybody would know about this it would be you! JeffT

Doc,
As you pointed out it probably is safe, however, I’d really like to eliminate the source of the problem. Last night after I read everyone’s input as well as the MS site info you all sent me, I thought about this. The only “Unsigned” driver I have is for my Visioneer 8100 Scanner that I bought at the very beginning of the XP release. Like most, I was using Windows 98 which this software was written for this Scanner. When I attempted to load this driver in XP it wouldn’t work. So Visioneer sent me PaperPort Deluxe 7.0 that they said was “made” for XP but they didn’t have time to get the MS XP signature for it. Well, if anyone has a Visioneer 8100 Scanner you know that it was only in production the first year XP was out and is now a discontinued model. I can’t help but wonder, even though it works fine if this isn’t the source of my XP User Hive Closure issue? At any rate I wish to thank again all of you who offered your great help!! You guys are great and Doc thanks for understanding EXACTLY what my point was about cause and symptom.

Thanks so much,
Jeff

Doc,
As you pointed out it probably is safe, however, I’d really like to eliminate the source of the problem. Last night after I read everyone’s input as well as the MS site info you all sent me, I thought about this. The only “Unsigned” driver I have is for my Visioneer 8100 Scanner that I bought at the very beginning of the XP release. Like most, I was using Windows 98 which this software was written for this Scanner. When I attempted to load this driver in XP it wouldn’t work. So Visioneer sent me PaperPort Deluxe 7.0 that they said was “made” for XP but they didn’t have time to get the MS XP signature for it. Well, if anyone has a Visioneer 8100 Scanner you know that it was only in production the first year XP was out and is now a discontinued model. I can’t help but wonder, even though it works fine if this isn’t the source of my XP User Hive Closure issue? At any rate I wish to thank again all of you who offered your great help!! You guys are great and Doc thanks for understanding EXACTLY what my point was about cause and symptom.

Thanks so much,
Jeff

Joe and Doc,
Thanks very much for the info. I sure wish I knew what was causing this issue on my machine because the UPHClean is like treating the symptoms instead of the cause, isn’t it? However, I guess as long as I’m running this (UPHClean) program that it won’t mess up my registry or my machine will it. Thanks very much for the replies!

Jeff

Joe and Doc,
Thanks very much for the info. I sure wish I knew what was causing this issue on my machine because the UPHClean is like treating the symptoms instead of the cause, isn’t it? However, I guess as long as I’m running this (UPHClean) program that it won’t mess up my registry or my machine will it. Thanks very much for the replies!

Jeff

John, Thank you very much for your reply. I sure don’t or never did want MCE on my machine and as I’ve said many times I do not understand how I got SOME of the components loaded on my machine. I appreciate your info on this so that I have a much better understanding. Thanks again very much and to all of you who have tried to help me figure out what took place here.

JeffT.

John, Thank you very much for your reply. I sure don’t or never did want MCE on my machine and as I’ve said many times I do not understand how I got SOME of the components loaded on my machine. I appreciate your info on this so that I have a much better understanding. Thanks again very much and to all of you who have tried to help me figure out what took place here.

JeffT.

Mark,
I kind of figured this was a shady deal from the get go. It sure will NEVER happen again I can promise you that. It’s sounds to me that this guy got this Installation disc either from his own machine or from someone else machine. However when I registered it with Microsoft it registered just fine with no kick backs or any notification that I had an illegal copy of XP Home. Live and learn I guess, but this has been a pretty bitter experience from the time he built the machine. When I first got my machine back and it was before SP1 was installed it would crash so badly that I’d end up doing a clean re-installing XP 2-3 times a WEEK! When I asked this guy for help and that all I wanted was a reliable machine he told me I’d have to PAY him extra to trouble shoot the software that, that wasn’t in the deal!!!

Needless to say I wasn’t about to give this guy anymore of my hard earned cash and it was about that time SP1 was offered by MS that helped lot. Plus all the hassle of that time of getting new drivers that weren’t available for old programs yet to get them to run etc., etc. Anyway, that’s been long ago now, but you’ve made it pretty clear Mark that he (the guy) did something to get it on here in my Boot .ini and System Properties. That’s the only TWO places I can find any reference to Media Center any place on the machine. At this stage of the game Mark I just want to say a very BIG thank you for all your great help in explaining Media Center to me. I’d sure like to know how I got a OEM XP Home disc that wasn’t stolen or something because if it was illegal and was registered with MS before you’d think MS would have kicked my registration wouldn’t you?? So after a lot of work “I” got my system working pretty darn nice and taking your good advice I’m just going to use it and leave well enough alone. Just like anybody else though, I don’t liked to get hooked or be lied to about anything and I’m sure you understand that.

Thanks once again Mark for the great help and for all you do for ALL of us on this list!!

Kind regards,
JeffT.

Mark,
I kind of figured this was a shady deal from the get go. It sure will NEVER happen again I can promise you that. It’s sounds to me that this guy got this Installation disc either from his own machine or from someone else machine. However when I registered it with Microsoft it registered just fine with no kick backs or any notification that I had an illegal copy of XP Home. Live and learn I guess, but this has been a pretty bitter experience from the time he built the machine. When I first got my machine back and it was before SP1 was installed it would crash so badly that I’d end up doing a clean re-installing XP 2-3 times a WEEK! When I asked this guy for help and that all I wanted was a reliable machine he told me I’d have to PAY him extra to trouble shoot the software that, that wasn’t in the deal!!!

Needless to say I wasn’t about to give this guy anymore of my hard earned cash and it was about that time SP1 was offered by MS that helped lot. Plus all the hassle of that time of getting new drivers that weren’t available for old programs yet to get them to run etc., etc. Anyway, that’s been long ago now, but you’ve made it pretty clear Mark that he (the guy) did something to get it on here in my Boot .ini and System Properties. That’s the only TWO places I can find any reference to Media Center any place on the machine. At this stage of the game Mark I just want to say a very BIG thank you for all your great help in explaining Media Center to me. I’d sure like to know how I got a OEM XP Home disc that wasn’t stolen or something because if it was illegal and was registered with MS before you’d think MS would have kicked my registration wouldn’t you?? So after a lot of work “I” got my system working pretty darn nice and taking your good advice I’m just going to use it and leave well enough alone. Just like anybody else though, I don’t liked to get hooked or be lied to about anything and I’m sure you understand that.

Thanks once again Mark for the great help and for all you do for ALL of us on this list!!

Kind regards,
JeffT.

Mark,
Thanks so much for you very good input! Is it possible or have you seen anywhere that Micorsoft had made any of the Media Center individual components of Media Center available when it first came out as like an Upgrade, Update or trial?? As you say, it’s XP Home with stuff added to it, so in view of that I was wondering if MAYBE the guy that built my machine added something from Media Center to my XP Home OS? Is there anyway you can possibly check with Microsoft and see if they ever had a download of some sort of the components for Media Center available?? I’d REALLY appreciate that if there was some way you could fine out from MS as you are a WMVP they might be more willing to share info with you. Would you please try to find this out for me because I truly believe that is what this guy did thinking he was enhancing my OS. I can’t get in touch with him as he has skipped town as of a year ago. My Full Version of XP HOME EDITION is just that, but it’s an OEM version. If you have a computer business you can buy the OEM version CD instead of the Retail version which is significantly cheaper. I wondered how he sold me a full version for $150!!

BTW, Nvidia does in fact have two driver downloads for XP Home and Windows XP Media Center Edition. The XP Home Edition driver version number is 53.03 the driver version for Media Center is 53.04. As I said though I’ve always installed XP Home Edition drivers and apps and haven’t had any problems. I’d just love to know if MS did in fact make any of Media Centers stuff downloadable, because as I said I really believe this guy would do something like that if he thought it would enhance the OS. He’s the kind of guy that tries to impress people by doing stuff like this.

If you please try to find out if any of the Media Center components were downloadable as a trial or as an add-on that would really mean a lot to me. Thank you so much once again Mark for your input as well as all the other help you give to this list………that’s pretty darn nice of you and I for one really appreciate that!!

Thank you kindly,
JeffT