HELP! Ran JKDefrag on XP for the first time and completely lost audio.

[jwool814]

I've been using MyDefrag 4.3.1 on XP SP3 with extreme confidence for months now with no problems. It crashed one day- I tried to rerun it, it crashed again. I uninstalled, rebooted, reinstalled, tried to run it and it crashed again. I uninstalled it, rebooted, downloaded new install file for Mydefrag 4.3.1, installed it, rebooted, attempted to run it and it crashed again. I uninstalled it, rebooted, downloaded, installed (robooted) and attempted to locate the settings file to adjust the value but couldn't locate it. I ran debug anyway and it crashed.  I uninstalled Debug, rebooted, downloaded JKDefrag  and ran it with no problems. Rebooted upon completion and realized I had lost ALL audio (No XP sounds, no mp3 , wave or video audio of any kind.) Please help. I have no idea what happened. Cheers!

NOTE- I just checked Device Manager and I have NO DEVICES LISTED AT ALL. What the..!!!

[Darlis]

It's unlikely that MyDefrag itself is the cause for your problems, see [FAQ]How Safe Is MyDefrag?

The error description "MyDefrag crashed" is not very helpful. There should be MyDefrag.debuglog with more details. Maybe it's even the "Program hints" crash. Look here for a solution.

Having no devices listed in the device manager is strange, indeed. It could be damaged system files, wrong configuration or insufficient permissions. Executing

Code:

sfc /scannow

could help (you probably need you XP-CD for that).

[jwool814]

Thanks for the response!

Last night I restored to an earlier point and everything came back to "Normal".

This system is a new XP install with all of the service packs installed correctly. It's typically very stable.

I like to keep my system leaned out and I keep a lot of services and processes turned off using System Profiles. Do you think I might have some critical process turned 'off' when it should be 'on' when running MyDefrag?

I don't have a log. I never was able to get Debug configured to run appropriately for the recording of evaluation results- so that's why I resorted to JKDefrag.

Even though my system is functioning normally now I'm very skid-dish now about re-running either program again.

I wish I could, I loved MyDefrag. It totally tuned my drive to perform and kept it sorted out fantastically! Any suggestions?

[Darlis]

I like to keep my system leaned out and I keep a lot of services and processes turned off using System Profiles. Do you think I might have some critical process turned 'off' when it should be 'on' when running MyDefrag?

I don't know if there is a service that MyDefrag needs in particular but the Task Scheduler service for example is responsible for managing the prefetch files. (There is bug in MyDefrag that let's it crash when it encounters an old prefetch file)

I don't have a log. I never was able to get Debug configured to run appropriately for the recording of evaluation results- so that's why I resorted to JKDefrag.

Afaik MyDefrag creates a log when it crashes, independent of the current debug setting. Make sure that the directory MyDefrag is installed in has write permissions.

Even though my system is functioning normally now I'm very skid-dish now about re-running either program again.

Like I said, MyDefrag is pretty safe and just moves files around. There are only three things that can go wrong:
1. A bug in the Defragmentation API (XP SP3 is known to be stable, though)
2. A program expects a file at a certain location (like boot managers and encryption software)
3. Faulty hardware.

[jeroen]

Do you think I might have some critical process turned 'off' when it should be 'on' when running MyDefrag?

MyDefrag does not depend on any services. It's ok to turn off any and all services as far as MyDefrag is concerned.

[BloodySword]

I think he has a virus.

[Keatah]

I would try to find out the problem that is making your system unstable in the first place.
Either mal-ware or perhaps a hardware issue such as memory reliability. Try memtest86 and see what comes up. Even just 1 error in 16 billion is enough to hose your system!

I doubt any defragger would make your system behave like you describe.. Been observing this stuff since 1985..

[nandu2u2]

It sounds to me like Windows update installed a new audio driver for you that does not work.