I have my computer scheduled to scan disk and defrag weekly I think. Anyway Been working great for a long. But in the last few weeks, it says it can not complete because there is a program writing to the disk. When I try to manually scan it does the same thing.
How can I find out what the program is so I can turn it off in order to fix errors.
Jax

Have you made any changes to software that might have affected it? Perhaps you could try unchecking the boxes in the start menu (go to msconfig) one by one to find out which program is causing the trouble. A restart is required for each change to take effect.

It's quite a common problem for Defrag and Scandisk to be affected by programs running in the background. If you don't want go through the long-winded procedure of finding the individual program that's causing the trouble, you can run the utilities in Safe Mode. This usually overcomes the problem.

Safe Mode disables all but the essential things needed to run the computer. This includes the firewall, so its best to unplug your modem if you have a permanent connection to the Internet.

Are you connected to the internet whilst doing the scan (broadband) it might something as simple as your e-mail that's interupting the scan.

just pull the plug from the back of your modem before running the defrag to check.

Thanks TW,, for reminding me of the safe mode, had not thought of that.
I did it in the safe mode, no error, and got it defragged. It works lots faster. It was nice to have it done every week automatically.
No Fosse,, I have a slow dial up modem and usually turn it off at night.
I am so confused by my start menu. Half of the stuff is probably not necessary, but I just don't know. And there is a list a mile long. Like Scan Registry, System Tray, and a ton of HP crap I am afraid to mess with. It would take a while to uncheck to find what is writing to the disk.
I know there must be a way to tell what program is writing what to the disk.
Like a log with time of action that would id the period while it is unused.
Jax

This article says a bit about defrag in Windows 98 and Windows 98SE. It includes a download link to the version of Defrag used in Windows ME. This is a better one that can be used to replace the version used in W.98(SE). I found it defragged the disk much faster and was affected less by programs running in the background. There was still an ocassional restart of the process but it was so much quicker at doing its job and catching up to where it left off that it didn't matter too much.

If you get bored on a rainy afternoon and want something to do then you could check this list against the background programs that are running on your computer. Perhaps some could be turned off. There are usually some that don't actually need to be running and turning them off makes the computer run better.

Related:
XP users might be interested in this configuration information.