I am trying to run defrag on my windows xp computer. It starts and analyses, then pauses with the message "Paused for Volume shadow copy". It has not frozen, and when i click resume, it seems to start again, but then pauses withthe same message.
I am running Carbonite online backup and thought thios might be the cause, so i paused that and tried defrag again, but the same thing happened.

Any ideas?

Volume shadow copy is probably backing up the old fragmented drive in case you want to undo the defrag. Sounds like a ripe process for infinite loops.

During your defrag turn off Volume Shadow Copy service.

Administrative Tools > Services


You might also like this free defragmenter which is a bit more powerful than windows:

http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/

thanks - that seems to be working. Should I turn Volume Shadow copy back on when Defrag is complete?

By default it is set to Manual. In other words some other process is turning it on.

Probably your backup software. If so then it will be turned back on by said software.

You might want to check however.

Thanks - I have looked and it does turn on. I used the Auslogics Defrag you recommended - Worked briliantly.

Auslogics is essentially a tweaked XP defragger with a different interface. Under the hood, they are not very different.

If you want a defragger that is Volume Shadow Copy Service compatible with Vista (dunno about XP), i think the newer Diskeeper versions (2008) are the only ones currently available.