The advantage of SafeMode is speed and ease. What might, perchance, take six hours is easy done in one hour and seems to be done better.

Read the Leo Laport forum discussion ...noted above... it seems to discribe your problem.

http://forums.techguy.org/tech-tips-tricks/430713-hard-drive-life-os-speed.html

I have found that Outlook has a problem when it get overfilled with trash e-mails. The trash NEEDS to be emptied...at about 1,000 strange things happen....bizarre...lost files strange.

Also with the E-Mail InBox - the newer - MUCH LARGER photos and docs and videos that are sometimes included in E-Mails (much larger than ever anticipated) tend to "goop up" the loading of program and take a much longer time. Some folks seem to sometimes never give a second thought to sending 3meg of 5meg files from their digital cameras...in the "good ol days these size files would have filled four of the 3.5inch "floppies." Therefore, I will copy (export) over to another drive and remove large e-mails from the current InBox.

My current hunch is:
1. Dump Trash e-mails
2. Copy and remove from In-Box "giant" sized photo/vid/docs
3. Scan and defrag in safe mode

In retrospect - I beleive I suffered through your current situation until I did the above.

Good Luck.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle