Scandisk problem

[ditmx6]

Help with Scandisk:
Every time I try to run the scandisk program to do a thorough surface scan I get a message that says something like "Windows has restarted 10 times and could not run scandisk because a program keeps writing to the hard drive". The scandisk I'm referring to is the graphical program in the start menu>accessories>system tools directory in windows 98. To give you some insight on my system I running an intel 400 MHz Celeron processor with a pc 100 motherboard. The hard drive is a maxtor 10 GB and I have two 64 and one 32 mb sdram cards in it. Anyways, to try to get around this problem I used task manager to kill all programs listed in it (except for Explorer) and tried to run scandisk again. However the same message appeared again. The reason that I wanted to run scandisk in the first place is because when I tried to use the defragment utility, I was prompted to first run scandisk because of errors detected on the drive. Any help would be appreciated,

ditmx6

[Sylvor]

Dit,

Press <Ctrl> & <Alt> & <Delete> and make sure you don't have "findfast" running. If you do, select it and click <End Task>

Infact, you may as well End everything except "Explorer" and "Systray"

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"?"

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Sly :)

Helping everyday people with everyday problems, everyday!

[ditmx6]

Thanks for your reply Sylvor but I actually did that already. But if you have any more advice it would be apprecitated. Thanks.

[Steve]

Hi ditmx6,

There probably IS something running in the background. That's what causes that error. You can run scandisk in safe mode and that should clear this up. Press F5 after the memory count during boot up and you can get into safe mode. You can also run defrag in safe mode, just to avoid further problems.

Hope it helps. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[sea69]

Steve is absolutely correct.

That is the best way to run scan disk and defragg, running it from safe mode will also defrag your swap file.

if (and I have seen this happen) however you try this and it never seems to complete, try shutting off your screen savers, anti-virus BS and everything else and get a succesful run from within windows- then do it from safe mode too! (for a more complete run)

also, if you're running win98 defragg - do yourself a favor and go get the winME defrag- it is 300% faster and runs when other things are still going on.


WinME defrag (http://members.cox.net/scotterpops/enhancements/enhancements9c.html)

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[This message has been edited by sea69 (edited 05-14-2002).]

[kayofcircles]

Sea : Questions, please. You said, "running it from safe mode will also defrag your swap file." Does that mean that I could have been defragging the swap file all along in 98 by just using Safe mode? Granted the ME defrag is WAY faster..so fast I wonder if it's doing its job..but I have been fending off my husband's desire to install Norton's defrag on my new puter by telling him that ME's defrag does do the swap file in Normal mode. Am I wrong about that?

[david eaton]

Sea
Thanks for the tip about winme defrag.just donloaded it and tried it. Less than 25% of the time that the old one takes http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif You might just have saved me hours!

David

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If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve the man, but disimprove the cat.

Mark Twain

[sea69]

I'm not sure if winME defrag does swap file unless in safe mode, I don't see how it could as the swapfile would be in use.

I'm willing to be corrected on the above^

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it will save you HOURS david

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[Mitch Hatfield]

It hardly adds to the solution of your problem, David, but I wish that I'd discovered this Forum a long time earlier than I did. Some of the brilliant tips and advice you got would have also saved me hours of heartbreak....oh, that "writing to the disk" message!!

Good luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Regards


Mitch Hatfield


Looking out for some signs of Evolution

[ditmx6]

Thanks to everyone who responded:
I just finished running defrag in Safe Mode and it worked great (thanks steve). I also just downloaded the WinMe version of Scandisk. Thanks for the advice sea69 I let you know how I make out with it,

ditmx6

[Matt D]

I don't know,,call me crazy,but the frist thing I would be looking for,is something running in the back ground.Boot up,close everything!! on your tool bar,hit Ctrl+Del 1 time,,,whats running????,close every thing you can.If you still can not run a scan/defrag,try (from the start button)RUN > msconfig look at what runs on start-up,close what you don't need or want.If it still will not run I would be looking for some kind of spyware on your computer.
B.T.W. inless your in safe mode NO WINDOWS O/S will scan/defrag the swap file,a swap file in safe-mode is alot smaller and yes it's faster,Hehe,OK that said even in safe mode,their is still going to be parts of the disk not scaned,OK so what,that part you know is fine,,,,,,or the O/S would not use it for the swap file http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

Matt D.

[pentachris]

Defrag won't move system files as a rule - being in safe mode won't change that. I don't see why you couldn't find the win386.swp file in explorer and remove the system attribute to defrag it in standard mode. System or not, if the swap file is in fact in use (actively used, not just available - adding ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 to the 386enh section of system.ini will cut down on that), defrag is going to start over because the hard drive was accessed.

The best way to defragment your swapfile though is to:

[list=1]
disable virtual memory
restart
defrag the rest of your drive (in safe mode if Windows is unstable without virtual memory)
enable virtual memory and either 1)set it to a fixed value large enough to always meet your needs or 2)just set a minimum value you might reach every once in a while but shouldn't exceed often.
restart
[/list=a]

This technique works very nicely on new installs. Copy the requisite installation files from the Windows cd to an empty hard drive, install, follow the above procedure but when you restart for the last step, restart to DOS and delete the installation files from the drive. The swapfile will be created at the front of the drive where access is the fastest.


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