I was really stymied. No matter what I tried, and everything I tried was an approved solution-finding technique, nothing worked.
The only thing I could think of was that I didn't have enough free space to run either Defrag or SpeedDisk. But, according to my system and to the system's manufacturer, I had enough free space and therefore space shouldn't have been a problem to run either product. After exhausting all of the other possibilities, lack of space was the only thing I could conclude. Unless of course, the computer was rebelling becasue it felt unloved and unwanted since it hadn't been used for a while.
I spent the next day going through every program on the PC and removing everything I didn't need. After all, I was using other machines for most of my work and I really needed this one for miscellaneous work, none of which involved video, digital photos, music, product testing, or similar tasks.
At the end of the day I had more space on the computer, although what I deemed essential, such as the full operating system and the antivirus software, continued to take up a significant amount of space. The computer's C drive was still fairly full, and D and E were less cluttered.
I turned off Norton Antivirus, started SpeedDisk and a few hours later I had three totally optimized drives. My programs loaded faster and everything worked smoothly. Since I'd removed many of the programs I expected faster performance. Still, I felt that optimization did make a difference and it has continued to do so during the time I've been using the PC. I've successfully run both Defrag and SpeedDisk without any problems whenever I felt that optimiztion was necessary.
As to the problem itself, I meticulously followed the PC manufacturer's directions regarding necessary space and as it turns out, that information was incorrect. I actually needed much more space than the manufacturer recommended because any type of defragmentation program, whether it's Defrag, SpeedDisk or some other product, needs space in which to defragment your files and programs completely. If you don't have enough space, the program gets stuck and just doesn't go anywhere. Essentially that's what Endless Defrag really was - a stalled optimization process.
It was a painful, time-consuming lesson and my computer churned endlessly with no noticeable results until I found the problem. This problem didn't occur just because the PC was a Windows 98 machine. The exact same thing can happen with all of the other Windows operating systems, so be aware and advised.
Next time, before I run any defragmenter I'll check for available space first and try the other solutions only if I'm certain space isn't the problem.
