scan disk/defrag

[del_35]

Ok heres my system:
1000 Athlon (200fsb)
Asus A7V-E (onboard sound)
256mb ram
Mercury Geforce 2 mx200
Intel 100/10 network
300w case (task 3001)
Windows Me/Office 2000
I have a lot a games installed (10ish) and many aplications (30+). When i try to run scandisk (in thorough mode) it takes a very long time to complete, i.e. all night. Also when i run defrag it tells me that there are errors and run scandisk. Does anyone know anything about this? Is it a Windows bug? How do i fix it?
It is starting to become a re-ocurring problem.

</font color=purple> "Remember that after great thought, things are always bought from the lowest bider"

 

[btvillarin]

I noticed that you didn't include your hard drive in your specs....why?

Anyways, when you run defrag, did you run Scandisk right before? It's best to do that.

Scandisk in thorough mode will always take long, because it scans the physical surface of your disk. I suggest that you set the advanced options to "Never" in display summary, "Convert to files" in Lost file fragments, and make copies of cross-linked files.

For defragmenting, I suggest a quicker program: <A HREF="http://www.vopt.com" target="_new">VoptMe</A>. It only takes minutes to defragment, instead of hours. It's not free, but it is fast.

If not, then I think you should use Windows' Maintenence Wizard to setup up when your computer should run Scandisk and Defrag (in that order). I think they should be about 4 hours apart, just to be safe.

If your hard drive still has errors, you might need a new one. But, seek more professional help, because I don't want you to get a new one when you didn't even have to.

Good luck!

Kernel32.dll error...aw, son of a....

 

[NickM]

Re: <font color=blue>"I have a lot a games installed (10ish) and many aplications (30+). When i try to run scandisk (in thorough mode) it takes a very long time to complete, i.e. all night. Also when i run defrag it tells me that there are errors and run scandisk. "</font color=blue>

Firstly, and it's important, try disconnect physically from the network the machine you're implementing the Scandisk or Defrag on. Also, I hope there's no something like wake up on modem or ...similar, or a screensaver enabled.

[EDITED, sorry for the corrections]
Run Scandisk in safe Mode. Or be sure that there no other applications running on the background during Scandisk.
That's right, better to tell us about your HDD. The health of the harddrive is important.
In order to make it working smoothly there should't be bad sectors, you have to have at least 25% from the whole HDD capacity as free space (the more, the better). Delete periodically old temporary files.
Win98 Defrag is really slow, you also can download a Windows Me Defrag for free, it is faster.

Sometimes Internet broken sessions and IE openning related errors create long file and space errors on a HDD, don't worry about that, the Scandisk with the file/folders autofix option does the fix (you don't need to choose thorough surface scan every time, so make it faster as Standard for that purpose).<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by NickM on 10/05/01 08:07 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jasen]

My personal preferences are to free lost fragments and delete crosslinked files. Reason being, I have never seen one of either of these that was not corrupt when scandisk saved it, so it's rather pointless. That plus I hate seeing 1000 "file000x.chk"'s in the root folder, considering the average user has no idea what that is or how to restore it to a real file anyway.

 

[btvillarin]

My personal preferences are to free lost fragments and delete crosslinked files.

Better safe than sorry...

That plus I hate seeing 1000 "file000x.chk"'s in the root folder, considering the average user has no idea what that is or how to restore it to a real file anyway.

If these are showing up often, they might be real files. You can check by viewing them in Notepad. Add a shortcut to Notepad in your Windows\SendTo directory. Then, right-click the file, expand the SendTo submenu, and click on Notepad. There, you might be able to see if it was a real file.

Kernel32.dll error...aw, son of a....

 

[del_35]

I probably was a little vague but i got a brand new hdd Make??? but can fine out and 30gb (7200).

I know its not a hardware problem as it happened on all the other hdds i have owned and run Win-Me on.
I guess i was asking if anyone knows there to be a bug in win-me or scandisk?
It's not a major problem as when i run scandisk more than once it eventullly completes - same with defrag. (i always do it in that order)

Is has told me that an application is writting to the hdd at times when everything is closed. I was thinking that my network card would be responsible, it has caused probs in the past.


</font color=purple> "Remember that after great thought, things are always bought from the lowest bider"

 

[NickM]

[QUOTE <font color=green>"I probably was a little vague but i got a brand new hdd Make??? but can fine out and 30gb (7200).

I know its not a hardware problem as it happened on all the other hdds i have owned and run Win-Me on.
I guess i was asking if anyone knows there to be a bug in win-me or scandisk?
It's not a major problem as when i run scandisk more than once it eventullly completes - same with defrag. (i always do it in that order)

Is has told me that an application is writting to the hdd at times when everything is closed. I was thinking that my network card would be responsible, it has caused probs in the past."</font color=green> ]

1 - a brand new doesn't mean that it is 100% defect-free, there are still some kind of problems are foud periodically among new harrddrives. Poor bad sector mapping will show the same scenario you have, it's lake the beginning of developing of bad sectors stage. Everything looks fine and supposed to be fine, but it isn't. Manufacturers' recalls are also known.

2 - Even when you are sure the hardware doesn't have problem, but a bad CD-ROM on IDE may create all the problems for the harddrive. But I don't think that it is so serious in your case. Anyway, there are diagnostic software for troubleshooting all kins of hardware, including harddrives.

3 - if there were such critical bugs in basic tools such scandisk and defrag, computer depot technicians wouldn't be able to repare and install 10-25 and more systems per day. There's no bug-free OS though, but scandisk and gefrag problems are very common among home computer users and can be fixed easily even on a bugy OS.

4 - You failed to tell us what program starts in the background, but how do you know that everything is closed? Even if you run msconfig, and disable all unnecassery programs from Startup, there are some services (for example, a program that came with your CD-RW, a modem, or other device, a game, spy software downloaded from Internet, etc.) may remain. You can't recognize them by Ctrl-Alt-Del.
Anyway, that program on startup you mentioned, I think you pointed on your problem yourself.
If you're sure that your harddrive/cable/motherboard and other hardware are OK, double check what you're loading on Startup, use a monitoring software to check what you running in background, and then normaly Safe Mode will do the thing.

 

[Guest]

This is my first post on this site. I just read about the problem someone had with their ScanDisk and Defrag using Windows ME. Boy, can I identify!!! I have given up on getting Dell Tech to try to solve the problem. I have closed down as many background programs as I can, and Windows ME still won't run a "through" ScanDisk for me. Sometimes it won't even complete a standard test. The only thing I know what to do is run these programs in Safe Mode. Once, Windows ME wouldn't even run ScanDisk in Safe Mode!!! I give up. I plan to upgrade to XP- maybe that will help(????). Any suggestions? JIm

 

[Guest]

Have you tried disabling any prgrams running in the background (eg antivirus software etc.)