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"Your Computer Does Not Have Enough Free Memory to Defrag the Drive" Error Message

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Article ID:229154
Last Review:August 8, 2006
Revision:4.0
This article was previously published under Q229154
Notice
If this article does not describe your hardware-related issue, visit the following Microsoft Web site to view more articles about hardware:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/w98?sid=460 (http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=http%3a%2f%2fsupport.microsoft.com%2fdefault.aspx%2fw98%3fsid%3d460)

SYMPTOMS

When you try to run Disk Defragmenter (Defrag.exe) or ScanDisk (Scandskw.exe), you may receive one of the following error messages:
Your computer does not have enough free memory to defrag the drive. Quit one or more programs.
ID# Defrag009
-or-
ScanDisk could not continue because your computer does not have enough available memory.

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CAUSE

This problem may occur if either of the following conditions is true:
•You are running Windows on a hard disk that is larger than 8 gigabytes (GB) and that has a cluster size that is smaller than 8 kilobytes (KB).

This configuration may occur if you use a third-party disk tool to create a partition on a hard disk that is larger than 8 GB and that has a cluster size that is smaller than 8 KB.

-or-
•You are running Windows on a very large hard disk that has a default Windows cluster size of 32 KB.

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RESOLUTION

To resolve these problems, upgrade your Windows operating system to Microsoft Windows XP or later.

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WORKAROUND

To work around these problems, do one of the following, as appropriate to your situation:
•Contact the manufacturer of the third-party hard disk tool for information about an update to the software that resolves this problem.

For information about how to contact the manufacturer of your third-party hard disk tool, click the appropriate article number in the following list to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
65416 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/65416/) Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, A-K

60781 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/60781/) Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, L-P

60782 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/60782/) Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, Q-Z
•Repartition your large hard disk into smaller partitions.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
255867 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867/) How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk

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MORE INFORMATION

The standard FAT32 cluster size of 4,096 bytes applies only to hard disks that are smaller than 8 GB. The third-party hard disk tool may change the cluster size to 4,096 bytes per allocation unit.

The default cluster sizes are listed in the following table:
Hard disk size Cluster size
512 MB to 8 GB4 KB
8 GB to 16 GB8 KB
16 GB to 32 GB16 KB
32 GB and larger32 KB

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APPLIES TO
•Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition
•Microsoft Windows 95
•Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
•Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition

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Keywords: 
kberrmsg kbenv kbprb kb3rdparty KB229154

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