Freeze up during defragmentation of C:\ drive and at odd times. First system froze when defrag. tried to move a file called filesystem_blobs.MYD that I think was a large cache file built by Photoshop CS3 Bridge. Then a tech. from Windows Live OneCare told me to rename that file to
filesystem_blobs.old and retry to defrag. The defrag then hung and froze on the .old file. Then they said delete both files so I did so. After that when I tried to defragment the C:\ hard drive it froze when it was trying to move a file A121606.old So I searched for file named A121606.old with a plan to delete it also but search said no such file found. I then tried a search for *.old and search said no files were found with the ending .old What now? I think the file may be too large and over the 4Gb limit for the defragmentation to handle. I don't know why the search can't FIND it, could it be that if it is over 4Gb in size Windows XP won't recognize it and so the search function can't find it? I hope there is an expert out there who has an answer. I can't get help from anyone so far. Thanks.The 4 gigabyte problem refers only to many operating systems before Windows XP. The newer operating systems use a filestsysyem called NTFS, with a maximum file size of 16 Terabytes. This is about 8 times the size of the largest consumer hard drives available on the market, so I don't believe that is a problem!

The randomly named files with "A" in front of them and the extension "*.old" are usually backed up files from System Restore. You cannot find them, because they are in the directory "C:\System Volume Information." Attempting to open this folder will give you "Access Denied," you can try it. It does this for a good reason, some critical files are in there that you don't want to be messing with.

First, you will want to try disk cleanup. Click START>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup
Then click on the tab "More Options." Next, click the "Clean Up..." BUTTON next to "System Restore."
This should delete all of the older restore points, excluding the most recent one. At this point, you can also run the other cleanup functions in the "Disk Cleanup" Tab as well, if you want to.

However, if the giant file is in FACT in the newest restore point as well, you can always just shut off system restore and turn it back on which will remove all restore points. To do that, you go into Start>Control Panel>System and click on the tab "System Restore." Check the box "Turn off System Restore on all drives" and click "Apply." It will do some work, so wait a few seconds, then uncheck it and click "Apply."

If that does not fix your problem, you should go into Start>Run and type "chkdsk /r" (without the quotation marks) then press "OK" and reboot your system.

A two-toned blue screen with white text will come up asking if you want to skip the check. Don't skip the check. If all goes well, it will fix the errors and then load windows. If your problem is STILL not fixed, then you may have a virus. However, this is unlikely as the "large file in system restore causes lockups" is not an uncommon problem. You would think Microsoft would limit the file size.