Member Avatar for Blade10878

I am looking into buying a registry cleaner, but I am not sure which is best, and the free trials don't really prove anything to me. So anyone who has bought a registry cleaner software could give me some info i would appreciate it.

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Short version: do not buy a registry cleaner — it won’t fix the ScanDisk/defrag problems you describe and Microsoft warns against routine registry-cleaning tools. As said, those products are at best cosmetic and at worst destructive; the thing stopping Scandisk is almost certainly a file or driver being kept open during normal startup (as suggested), or physical disk errors, not “registry junk.” (support.microsoft.com)

Practical steps (before anything else: BACK UP important data). Create a Windows ME Startup Disk (Add/Remove Programs → Startup Disk → Create Disk) and boot the machine using the Minimal/Command Prompt option. From the A:> prompt run Scandisk with automatic repair and a surface check; e.g.:

scandisk /all /autofix /nosave /surface

(Use /nosave only if you accept that lost fragments will be deleted — that can remove recoverable fragments, so back up first.) Those Scandisk switches and the offline-startup method are the documented approach for Windows 98/ME. (wizcrafts.net)

If you cannot make a floppy, bootable rescue media (CD/USB) will do: tools such as Hiren’s BootCD or a similar rescue environment let you run offline disk checks and copy files off the drive before further work. If Scandisk/boot tools report bad sectors or hardware errors, run the drive maker’s diagnostics (Seagate/WD utilities) and plan to clone/replace the drive if tests fail — file-system fixes won’t help a failing disk. (hirensbootcd.org)

One more angle: check startup items and malware. Use an on-demand scanner (Malwarebytes) and an autorun/startup inspector (Autoruns from Sysinternals) to find programs that write to disk early in boot and could block repairs; disable non-Microsoft entries, re-run Scandisk from the startup disk, and only then consider anything that edits the registry. If those steps still don’t fix things, cloning your data and doing a clean XP install (as you planned) is the safest path. (malwarebytes.com)

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Member Avatar for sypher

Registry cleaners are a rip off IMHO. What problem are you trying to fix by running a registry cleaner? If it’s simply to improve system performance or reliability than you probably will not see much of a difference.

Member Avatar for Blade10878

i just thought it would help my computer out, it is in need of some work, I cannot perform scan disk because something is writing to my harddrive, i cannot perform disk defrag cuz there are errors on my hardrive. I have tried running scan disk in safe mode, and then restarting in regular windows and running scan disk again and it still says something is writting to hard drive, i have no viruses and have tried alot of things, i just figured a registry cleaner was the answer to my problems

Member Avatar for sypher

What OS are you running? 98?

Member Avatar for Blade10878

I am currently running Windows ME on my pc, but I will be upgrading to XP before I intall MX Studio, on mac i run os 10

Member Avatar for sypher

I would recommend doing a clean install when you make the move to XP. In the meantime, if you cannot run scandisk or defrag in windows you might want to try booting into safemode and try running them there.

Member Avatar for Blade10878

In the meantime, if you cannot run scandisk or defrag in windows you might want to try booting into safemode and try running them there.

I have already done this before, after I have done both in safe mode i reboot to normal mode, and run scandisk, it stills gives me the scan disk has restarted 10 times, something is writing to your hard drive message, and I become stuck at square one.

Member Avatar for Catweazle

You are having problems because obviously you have something loaded at startup which is running in the background. Until you determine what it is and correct the behaviour, of course it will return once you boot as normal.

I'd suggest you submit a HijackThis log to our 'Viruses, Spyware and other Nasties' section for attention, after you've read the pinned topics in that section and followed the instructions in them in an effort to clean your system of unwanted intruders.

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