How to fix Disk Defragmenter problems in Windows XP

Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan
Error messages

Symptoms

When you open the Properties dialog box for the local hard disk and then click the Tools tab, one of the following symptoms may occur:

The Defragment Now button is unavailable
When you click Defragment Now, you receive the following error message:

The Disk Defragmenter is not installed on your computer. To install it, double-click the Add or Remove Programs icon in Control Panel, click the Install/Uninstall tab, and then follow the instructions on your screen.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type %Windir%\Inf, and then click OK.
Right-click the dfrg.inf file, and then click Install.

Alternately, you can reinstall Disk Defragmenter using the following command:

Click Start, Run and type:

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %windir%\inf\dfrg.inf

Other Defrag issues

Analyze and Defragment buttons in Disk Defragmenter console do nothing, or the following error message appears when running the console Defrag tool (defrag.exe)

Windows cannot connect to the Disk Defragmenter engine

Read the blog post Analyze and Defragment buttons in Disk Defragmenter console do nothing? for the solution.

If the Defrag Snap-in fails to initialize, type these commands in Start, Run dialog one by one:

regsvr32 dfrgsnap.dll
regsvr32 dfrgui.dll

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13 Responses to "How to fix Disk Defragmenter problems in Windows XP"

Tim Boltin

said this on 15 Sep 2006 4:18:54 PM PDT

It Worked! Best yet! Tim

(Reply to this comment)

Bhadresh

said this on 01 Oct 2006 8:45:06 AM PDT

The article is excellent, the way you present the problem and explaination is very clear to understand, thank you.. bhadresh

(Reply to this comment)

RAF

said this on 05 Oct 2006 2:37:57 AM PDT

I tray this procedure, but on my machine no changes.I can open defragmenter, press analyze, i have message can`t run.

(Reply to this comment)

rneiner

said this on 06 Oct 2006 7:43:17 PM PDT

How do i install the dfrg module? Mine seemes to be missing

(Reply to this comment)

Tim Zipple

said this on 02 Dec 2006 10:25:51 AM PDT

I was having problems getting my defragmenter to defrag the main C drive. That tip about getting the dfrg.inf file from Windows\inf to reinstall disk defragmenter worked great. Thanks for the time-saving tip. Tim

(Reply to this comment)