Hiya all you helpful souls..... Here's my report: Usig F8 to enter SAFEMODE, I started DEFRAG at 9:23am..... it stayed at 10% for over an hour. I phoned my friend Tony and asked two questions: 1. How long should it take to defrag 6 gigs. 2. How much would it cost for him to do it. I mentioned the getting stuck at 10% and he said that it probably encountered a very huge file...... sure enough, shortly after that comment, it went from 10% to 26% to 46% to 54% to 64% to 76% to 85%..... then, incrementaly reaching 100% at 11:02 am..... about one and a half hours. I am online again so don't know yet whether this has helped to speed up this system with 384 megs RAM. thanks again mjh To unsub or change your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk To access our Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/ //www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/ For more info: //www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=pctechtalk