Oh, how to defragment, how?

[wontgetlost]

Hello there :wave:
I know this post is a lot to read, but a little background is needed to explain my particular problem.
I'm running Windows ME on a Sony VAIO PC.
My edition of ME works GREAT. I've heard that many don't.
Unfortunately, after a year, I had a hard disk crash. I managed to recover from a boot disk using System Restore. It asked if I wanted Windows to avoid the damaged sector. I clicked yes of course.
Since then, I have been unable to defragment Drive "C".. not that I've ever tried before, but in the last year, I've decided to because C got to be pretty full.
Sadly, the Windows defragmentation wizard will not work on my system. It gets to 1% and then goes back to 0%... over and over.
Since there is actual physical damage on one of the sectors, I installed and ran the "System Mechanic" and discovered that "C" is 38% full and 42% fragmented :dizzy:
After I got the report showing me all the files that were fragmented, I started moving them over to "D" which is 90% free and 0% fragmented.
I started with the largest files first. There were about 20 between 1Mb-6Mb that concerned me the most and I figured if I got them off the drive I would be able to lower my fragmented status.
I moved all but 4 of them. I rebooted and ran the report again. I was STILL 42% fragmented on drive "C".
WHY?
On a side note, the files I couldn't remove are these:
c:\_RESTORE\ARCHIVE\FS408.CAB
c:\_RESTORE\ARCHIVE\FS402.CAB
c:\_RESTORE\ARCHIVE\FS209.CAB
c:\_RESTORE\ARCHIVE\FS283.CAB
I looked for the "ARCHIVE" folder and it didn't exist. I looked for the CAB files (which were about 3.5Mb each) and they don't exist. How can that be?
If these cab files exist, how can I locate and move/delete them?
I desperately want to defragment my drive "C".
Thanks for taking the time to read this and thanks in advance for helping me out with this.

[renegade600]

try to defrag in safe mode. as far as the cab files, they are hidden files. You may not want to delete them since they may be needed in case of a major crash.

[wontgetlost]

Thanks for the very quick reply.
I did a minimal boot and ran scandisk from the A:>scandisk c:
After the scan which found no problems, it asked if I wanted to do a check for physical damage. This procedure lasted about 1 and a half hours. At the very begining I saw 4 or 5 "B"s for bad sectors. After the hour and a half, it found no no damage/errors.
I have yet to do the defrag from safe mode, but I read somewhere that if there's physical damage ( which I know I have on the disk ), I may lose files along the way.. something like that.
Is it safe to try?

[peachyglint1]

Now I have to begin by saying that I'm no computer whizz BUT......
I run ME as well and love it. However, I find....through trial and error over the years.....that if my computer won't defrag due to damaged sectors, run scandisk first with the automatic repair option checked......then defrag after that. Works for me :)
Good luck

Peachy