ScanDisk for XP

[Justin]

I have used other windows OS' in the past and they all have a scan disk function. Where is it in XP? I have been using System Mechanic and when I do an optimized defrag, it tells me to use scan disk. HELP!!!:banghead:

[Hawk]

ourlove, It's called checkdisk in XP --Start--Run--type in-- chkdsk -- and it will run it. When I first got XP I lost it too. :)

[Justin]

Is there any value in hard disk compression? If so, what is it?

[Necropolis]

On modern hard drives (10GB+) hard disk compression is not really needed. It reduces speed and I have seen it screw data on drives so many time.

hard disk compression = Not worth the hassle.

[Geeky1]

No, hard drive compression isn't worth it.

By the way, did you (ourlove) see my post in your thread "I want to build a computer" like a week ago?

[Justin]

Yeah, I caught it. I am looking at a few things before I move forward with that, mostly monitor and wiring systems, the actual PC will come last. I am still unsure on a platform, value vs. quality and all...

[Straight_Man]

Ok, there is a scandisk kind of thing, windows STARTED and prescripted, in XP. Open my computer, RIGHT CLICK a drive. Open Tools tab by clicking on it. Tell it scandisk, by clicking on the Check my drive for errors option. It will tell you that it will scan the drive when you restart, and it will. Essentially, it runs something like CHKDSK for you, but you can tell it to from within windows and then Start|Shutdown Computer|Restart Computer and it will do a scripted (prefigured out) run of CHKDSK that will fix most things in an NT file system that are not caused by viruses or worms.

What happens??? Early in the XP boot\startup process, XP looks in certain places in its registry for task notes for things that need to be done before Windows shows obvious signs of being up and alive. By telling widnows to run scandisk (essentially) with 2000 and XP,you are telling it to check a file system that needs to be fixed before the GUI CAN come up (your graphical thing that looks nice and lets you click instead of type) and load right. You can tell the same place that you use to call scandisk, in the dialog that pops up, not to do a surface type deep scan of media, and let it do a normal scan and it will normally obey this.

Formally, it is a CHKDSK run controlled by widnows with prescripted actions and if you then need to run a more solid scan you can manually with a direct CHKDSK call. If you want some ideas about CHKDSK's options,you CAN start up and go into teh recovery console from a CD boot, and then do this when you get the prompt:

CHKDSK /H

(which can also be typed as chkdsk /h as chkdsk is not very case sensitive)

Basicly, CHKDSK knows pretty well now what NOT to change and how to recognize real problems versus things that are NOT problems, so running it whan you do not need to will result in no errors popping up and a faster run than if it were fixing lots of problems. So, running it, so LONG AS YOU LET IT RUN ALL THE WAY THROUGH,should not hurt things and is more likely to help than hurt, even if you do it in recovery console. All that is wasted, if no errors, is machine time. WHAT IS MOST LIKELY TO hurt your XP install is to TURN BOX OFF OR INTERRUPT CHKDSK in mid run-- as far as using CHKDSK goes, that is. CHKDSK HAS to check many files that XP has to lock to run the GUI right while protecting itself, so it cannot run while XP is up, and this was so for 98 even to a large degree so the run of only before the GUI was loaded was adopted, asfar back as NT 3.51. Something called file system journalling requires this,and I will not go deep into how File System journalling works here and now, unless asked, but know a bunch about it and can devote a whole thread to it if wanted. But one of NT's supposed strengths is journalling.

John.

[Straight_Man]

One more little thing, and this is history but relevant to CHKDSK:

The name of the command used in DOS before DOS got its baby SCANDISK, was CHKDSK. And, if the earlier DOS scandisks failed, they told you to run CHKDSK. What did the work underneath all along??? CHKDSK.

CHKDSK has just been programmed to work with FAT, FAT32, AND NTFS in XP. YOU can still try to fix floppies with CHKDSK, and those are not FAT32, they are FAT (they can be FAT12 or FAT16 or FAT8, normally these days they are FAT16).

John.

[godzilla525]

Ageek had this to say
The name of the command used in DOS before DOS got its baby SCANDISK, was CHKDSK. And, if the earlier DOS scandisks failed, they told you to run CHKDSK. What did the work underneath all along??? CHKDSK.

Cool... I remember running CHKDSK in DOS 6.22 only to have it tell me to run ScanDisk instead. :) Here we are years later running CHKDSK again. I had to disable the automatic ScanDisk runs on Win98 because it would discard lost clusters without asking..."If you're not going to fix the problem, at least tell me what files I need to fix..." As a result I'm 99% NTFS now.

[Riddick]

ahh.. on a side note, is there a program similiar to 'msconfig' in windows 2k?(i could do this in WinME, and XP.. not in 2k) or is there some other way to control the startup for the PC?

[Straight_Man]

Well, when MS pulled msconfig with Win2K's release, there was so much hubbub about it, and they found it was wanted so much, they put it back in XP. So, no, offically, there is no msconfig for Win2K. Look at some of the tweakers, like XTeq's tweaker set, some of them allow you to set some of the bootup behavior.

Also, look at, while logged in as admin in Win2K, the startup folders in All Users and in the Admin (or your name for your user if you did not set up an admin account, which is a no-no) programs folders and see if in some cases you can move the things you do not want to start into a folder you make yourself called Disabled Startup Items followed by a reboot helps those things not to load.

In computer management in Win2K, you also have some control over what autostarts, you can disable starting at boot for apps that way for SOME apps that were written for Win2K. The submodule is called, in computer Management Console, Services and Applications.

So, there are ways and ways, different for Win2K, but Win2K always was a work in progress and lots of the things that were demanded were stuck back into XP Pro, and in parts back into Home after folks found the Computer Management Console and moving things by hand somwhat difficult, though the Computer Management Console is still there as the Management Console in XP.....
There is also a Microsoft deved but unsupported TweakUI for Win2K, adn some of the things are in the Win2K resource kit which also docs the ways to control what apps run at boot, and for whom (as far as UID) they load and are accessible. Hint, use the properties tab for a program also (right click program icon, not a shortcut on desktop, but the icon in the program folder and\or the one in the Start Menu subtree,which is not a normal shortcut), and the properties choice in the context menu that pops up when you right-click an application in Services and Applications. Part of this, in Win2K, was left to software devs, sometimes the icons had limited context menus attached, and shortcuts get you the shortcut def context menu, as in Win2K not all icons are shortcuts.

This is the cliff's notes summary, BTW.
John.

[Enverex]

The best program for deleting and checking what is in your start-up - http://atomnet.co.uk/?p=programs&search=Startup

[Riddick]

Ok cool thanks :D