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Thread ID: 21260	2002-06-21 08:49:00	defragging/scandisk	Namchuck (519)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
55893	2002-06-21 08:49:00	Hi Folks, I was defragging today, got to about 89% complete when it stopped. A window appeared that informed me that there was an error on my hard-drive and to run a 'thorough scandisk'. My problem is, the last time I ran scandisk on 'thorough' (about a year ago), I lost everything. 'Standard' is no problem but, as you might imagine, I'm a little hesitant to tread the 'thorough' path again. The thought of going through another full restore procedure is quite an unattractive one. Can one do a thorough scandisk through DOS? Any ideas? Abundant Thanks, Steve P.S. I'm running Windows 98	Namchuck (519)
55894	2002-06-21 09:34:00	Hi Namchuck, I recently had problems like this with my brand new 40Gb drive . I believe it wasn't set up right and the BIOS wasn't accessing it correctly (I don't want to go into all the details of the way BIOS's access drives, it's pretty technical and I don't fully understand it myself :)) Anyway, the only solution for me was to start from scratch and partition and reformat the drive and reinstall Windows and all my apps (backing up my data before beginning of course!) One of the strange things I found was that the disk was running in "DOS compatibility mode" . Have a look if yours is the same: Right mouse click on My Computer and check the Performance tab . Does it say any drives are running in Dos Compatibility Mode? That could give you a clue that something's not quite right with the drive . Basically I think it means that Windows is not entirely happy with the drive when it puts it into that mode of operation . Something you could try before resorting to partitioning, etc, is to go into your BIOS settings from bootup and Auto Detect the drive . The BIOS should pick up the correct settings for your drive and that may fix the problem . But BACKUP first! I wonder though if your drive is maybe damaged in some way and the thorough Scandisk is finding bad sectors in critical areas of the drive and locking them out, subsequently causing you to lose everything as you described :( Hope this helps, Rod J .	Rod J (451)
55895	2002-06-21 21:24:00	I dont know what would of caused you to loose everything, the post above is most probably better at explaining than me, but yes, I run scan disk in dos. It does the standard one first, then asks you do you want to do a thorough scan which I then say yes. No problems for me this way, cos mine always used to come up with an error message saying something was writing to the hard drive, even when I thought I had turned everything off. Can't say if you will have to reformat or not, but I never have to. But you can't run defrag this way, it says you have to have Windows to do the defrag.	supergran (108)
55896	2002-06-21 23:21:00	Sounds like your hard drive needs replacing. At a guess, scandisk must have detected a bad block where one of your boot or registry files was located a year ago. Once the PC died, were you able to access it in DOS via your W98 startup disk? If so, did you run sys C: to try and restore command.com, io.sys, msdos.sys and drvspace.bin?	Marty2001 (421)
55897	2002-06-25 10:08:00	"drives are running in Dos Compatibility Mode?" Windows will usually say this when 16bit Dos drivers are loading in Config.sys. As to the original problem Steve Gibson has a program which is much better than scandisk. He reckons that scandisk is a dangerous program as far as destroying data. Steve Gibson (http://grc.com)	mikebartnz (21)
55898	2002-06-25 10:27:00	In my case there were no 16-bit drivers being loaded in config.sys and yet the drive for some reason was running in Dos compatilibity mode. It was acting very strangely. I remember running Scandisk and it totally stuffing up loads of my files. I was trying to partition the drive with Partition Magic 7 as well which wasn't helping. It was a very sick drive at that time. It had like 'phantom' partitions that I couldn't get rid of.	Rod J (451)
55899	2002-07-11 03:36:00	Thanks to everyone that responded to my posting. I've tried many of the suggestions, but without much luck. I ran 'scandisk' in DOS and never got any further than 2%. I downloaded a another defrag. program suggested in one of the postings, got to 89% and it, too, faltered. I wonder how much I should be worrying about my inability to run defrag and the 'thorough scandisk' facilities? I pretty much only use my computer for surfing the Web and emailing and generally find that my machine runs smoothly. There is just the annoying factor of not being able to run these particular maintenance programs. What do you think?	Namchuck (519)
55900	2002-07-11 04:49:00	If there is something wrong with the disk there "something wrong with the disk" . :-( The disk ought to be perfect . ;-) The dos scandisk probably failed because you ran it in a DOS window from Windows . You need to run it from a DOS boot (preferably with a floppy) . I don't mind a disk being fragmented; I would not be happy with one which can't pass scandisk . You could try the DOS chkdsk program . It is much simpler than scandisk, but is guaranteed non-destructive if you don't give it the /F option .	Graham L (2)
55901	2002-07-11 05:17:00	chkdsk? why use an outdated DOS external command that is now used in NT? www.computerhope.com support.microsoft.com	Merlin (503)
55902	2002-07-11 05:24:00	For the simple reason that it is a simple, non-destructive, programme.	Graham L (2)
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