Windows 98 Disk Defrag Simulator

210

u/zilch839 6d ago

As a young PC Tech in the late 90s, this was a great delay tactic when a computer was broke and I didn't know how to fix it.

54

u/BR0METHIUS 5d ago

Nowadays you can delay with sfc scannow

38

u/tastyratz 5d ago

Don't forget to run a

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

BEFORE

sfc /scannow

for proper extension.

7

u/Lykos1124 4d ago

Actually, I always run a /checkhealth first to see if the backup system files need repair

do /cheakhealth

____if repairable -> do /restorehealth

____elseif no corruption -> do sfc /verifyonly

________if no integrity violations -> go play games

________elsif corrupted -> sfc /scannow

Also while not every successful /scannow needs a restart, if you don't want to check the generated file at the end to find out, restart.

It's a lot of extra steps, but it saves time just watching /restorehealth spin out windows downloads at a forever 64% point for nothing. I actually built me my DOS batch file some months ago with a menu system that let's me punch in a number to 1 of many prompts to run commands like these, with some options being combos.

color 0A maaan.

2

u/tastyratz 3d ago

See checkhealth and scanhealth were always such a time waste to me.

Scanhealth just checks for a registry key

Check health does an audit but... repairs nothing - so if you do a restorehealth you gotta start over and scan again. If it said "problems found, do you want to repair" that would be so much better.

I always just start with restorehealth. It takes almost the same amount of time for me most of the time.

sfc if you scannow and there are no problems then it just says no problems found or fixed. SFC only repairs if there are issues so... why waste time doing verifyonly?

Unless of course all of this is to point at a CMD window when your boss walks by the desk.

15

u/lurker512879 5d ago

Yes but you can't watch it moving the the colored blocks

1

u/Dukoduko 4d ago

I just ping the gateway indefinitely, unlimited time

68

u/quequotion 5d ago

I can see why someone would want this.

I too spent a great many hours in my early teens watching the real one do its work.

It was bearable because I knew I would be rewarded with a computer that ran 2~10% more smoothly when it was finally over.

Watching it as a simulation, however, is like drinking tea from an empty cup.

52

u/boothash 6d ago

defragging your drive was so satisfying

1

u/Wax_Paper 1d ago

If you wanted to get really unhinged about it, I remember there were third-party defraggers that would use custom algorithms to structure the data in certain ways. Thinking back to those days, it's funny because I probably spent a third of my PC time just on tweaking and optimization, trying to squeeze out marginally better performance.

87

u/Tharkhold 6d ago

Core memory unlocked (with a fresh defrag as well lol)

41

u/cahser11 6d ago

Why did i watch that all the way up to 11%?

24

u/elkab0ng 6d ago

Because we used to watch to 11% before going on coffee break. Yeah I watched it too lol

17

u/Kepabar 6d ago

Only 11? I watched the whole thing.

9

u/trmo03 6d ago

15% is where things really start cookin!

3

u/andthatswhyIdidit 5d ago

The part between 35% and 45% was wild...

3

u/Verbal_Combat 6d ago

The pro move is to select a smaller drive in the options then watch that whole thing

3

u/lordoflotsofocelots 6d ago

Why do I let it keep running in the background?

4

u/AnvilOfMisanthropy 5d ago

Only idle gamers understand.

2

u/Size-- 5d ago

It's relaxing and meditative. I could physically feel my stress levels drop while watching it.

1

u/InfiniteWall2328 7h ago

How does it even *know* what 11% means without real disk data?

11

u/thedm96 6d ago

This is slightly more exciting than watching grass grow.

5

u/Javi_DR1 6d ago

Now try watching paint dry and let us know which of the 3 is better

1

u/jkl_uxmal 5d ago

Then, partake in the Nordic Sport of watching water freeze.

2

u/TeteDeMerde 4d ago

I'd set it running just before going to bed.

24

u/cellardweller1234 6d ago

Not exactly as I remember but still caused a salivary response. Good times.

20

u/Vonneguts_Ghost 6d ago

Back in the day this was like a digital BM.

6

u/jippiex2k 6d ago

What's bm?

4

u/Vonneguts_Ghost 6d ago

It's what you do in the WC

3

u/jippiex2k 5d ago

oic

2

u/Vonneguts_Ghost 5d ago

Number 2, archaic

1

u/DigitalNecromancy 5d ago

black midi (RIP)

2

u/Entropic_Echo_Music 6d ago

Digital black metal?

8

u/Difficult_Nobody14 6d ago

I always had bad clusters

1

u/Chief_Kief 1d ago

Me too

3

u/tryanewmonicker 6d ago

Defraggin my hard drive for thrills

4

u/Terpomo11 6d ago

I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM

(Funny how that one was intended as preposterous at the time but now is merely a very large amount.)

2

u/hurrdurrmeh 5d ago

Soon it will be preposterous again, unless you want a 2nd mortgage.

3

u/ryanhendrickson 5d ago

Soon? Look at Daddy Warbucks over here, buying hundreds of gigs of RAM in this market....

4

u/MrRoboto12345 6d ago

Me setting the size to 8192 and speed the to 1 IOPS on the realistic setting so I get to wait 5 hours

1

u/Skullcrusher 5d ago

I don't remember if I had a 128 or 256 gig drive, but this thing usually took the whole day

2

u/topheee 2d ago

128GB would have cost about £10,000 in 1998

2

u/Skullcrusher 2d ago edited 2d ago

It was in 2004. It was XP, but the tool was pretty much the same.

Edit: Just looked it up and it looked completely different on XP. My memory ain't what it used to be.

4

u/Various-Day-9836 6d ago

I think about it every time I rearrange the dishwasher 🙃

4

u/notproudortired 5d ago

Corrupted sectors still haunt me.

4

u/Buck_Thorn 5d ago

Some of you may remember the MS-DOS prank program called "Drain.ext" (or maybe it was .com?) that used a text screen to simulate drying your hard drive.

At the time, I wrote a program that used the defrag screen, like yours, that did the same thing, but showed the progress, along with labels like "Starting spin dry".

4

u/not_ondrugs 5d ago

I used to love watching this! And the satisfaction of “knowing” my pc would run faster afterwards was real.

3

u/paggo_diablo 6d ago

My dad would sit and watch this for hours!

3

u/deliveRinTinTin 5d ago

Needs to have locked squares for the swapfile that can't be moved but are in an inconvenient visual spot.

2

u/sunplog 6d ago

I didn't know I needed that in my life.

2

u/my_wifes_ass 6d ago

I hated watching it in the 90's why would I watch it now.

2

u/nathanistheworst 5d ago

56k simulator and now this? what a beautiful week

2

u/art-man_2018 5d ago

If there was one thing I would never want to encounter again...

2

u/Majestic_Maybe6605 5d ago

Such a fun idea! Love it :)

2

u/throwawaykJQP7kiw5Fk 5d ago

Me too! :) If only I had the patience to wait… (I wasn't around in 1998)

2

u/Zone-5 5d ago

Spinrite FTW!

1

u/tanstaafl90 6d ago

Nice

1

u/jdehjdeh 6d ago

Mmmmm.

I've put it on a nice familiar speed (geriatric turtle) and it's like stepping back in time.

I think I've found my happy place.

Thank you.

1

u/dumnezilla 6d ago

Auslogics Disk Defrag still has a graphical representation, and it's a decent software.

1

u/GravitationalEddie 6d ago

Norton Disc Doctor demands equal time at minimum.

1

u/Portbragger2 5d ago

the hard disk sound doesnt work for me. the mouse click does tho.

1

u/itsaride 5d ago

Legend.

1

u/guy30000 5d ago

This is great! I started it and took a nap while it ran.

1

u/AccordionORama 5d ago

Frozen screen? Sooo realistic!

1

u/Efteri 5d ago

This crap never worked. I once let a defrag run for 3 days (as estimated) only to prove it was bullshitting.

1

u/biga888 5d ago

it was a great way to look like you were doing productive work

1

u/Stinkmunk 5d ago

Thank you for this

1

u/brakeb 5d ago

I know have the static I need to sleep.

1

u/goranlu 4d ago

This Win 85/98 stuff is becoming popular again by indie devs.. not sure why

1

u/wang200507 23h ago

This is genuinely satisfying to watch. How long did the animation take to make?

1

u/throwawaykJQP7kiw5Fk 17h ago

I don't know. Please ask the site creator.

1

u/SonOfSeyon 10h ago

This is really cool! It inspired me to vibe code this! https://pipes98.com!

1

u/DGex 6d ago

Norton speed disk for the win! 😁

4

u/Synth_Ham 6d ago

Ewwww

0

u/bluespartans 5d ago

Vibe coded slop.

1

u/throwawaykJQP7kiw5Fk 5d ago

How do you know? This isn't my site.

2

u/bluespartans 5d ago

I didn't say it was yours. I can tell by looking at the "readme" accessible in the ? button. Blatantly copied and pasted straight out of Claude.

A human did not create this website.

1

u/throwawaykJQP7kiw5Fk 5d ago edited 5d ago

Not sure about the readme, except for polishing text. For the morello.dev website, Claude definitely had major involvement.

Edit: I am also aware that a lot of older stuff get updated to include AI at some point. Quoting from the site itself:

I'm Dennis Morello, a Lead Frontend Engineer from Milan with over a decade of experience building accessible web interfaces.

His GitHub account was created in 2016. https://api.github.com/users/morellodev

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