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dskChk stalls on step 4 of 5


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Guest MikeR-Oz
Posted

XP Home

I have a 30 Gb drive with about 6 % free and NTSF file structure. Need to

run full disk scan. Have tried from My Computer / tools but always sais that

some files are i use and ned to do on restart.

 

Upon restart it gets to step 4 of 5 but then completes about 13% and goes no

further.

 

What to do??

 

Cheers

Mike

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Guest Pegasus \(MVP\)
Posted

Re: dskChk stalls on step 4 of 5

 

 

"MikeR-Oz" <MikeROz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:BCC955AA-44DC-495E-B4F2-15F556FE8B9D@microsoft.com...

> XP Home

> I have a 30 Gb drive with about 6 % free and NTSF file structure. Need to

> run full disk scan. Have tried from My Computer / tools but always sais

> that

> some files are i use and ned to do on restart.

>

> Upon restart it gets to step 4 of 5 but then completes about 13% and goes

> no

> further.

>

> What to do??

>

> Cheers

> Mike

 

A disk that is 94% full is an unuseable disk. If this was my machine

then I would chose either of this paths:

a) Clean up things in order to maintain 20% free disk space (6 GBytes), or

b) Clone the old disk to a larger disk, e.g. one of 120 GBytes.

 

Since disks are so cheap, Option b) would be my preferred path.

Guest cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)
Posted

Re: dskChk stalls on step 4 of 5

 

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:20:48 +0200, "Pegasus \(MVP\)" wrote:

>"MikeR-Oz" <MikeROz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

>> XP Home

>> I have a 30 Gb drive with about 6 % free and NTFS file structure. Need to

>> run full disk scan. Have tried from My Computer / tools but always sais

>> that some files are i use and ned to do on restart.

 

Yup - that's the trouble with living in one C:, as you'd be obliged to

do when your HD is too small for what you're trying to do.

 

What ChkDsk will do in these situations is to set AutoChk to do the

work at a point early in the next OS boot, before the OS starts using

more files and writing to the drive.

>> Upon restart it gets to step 4 of 5 but then completes about 13% and goes

>> no further.

 

How long have you waited?

>> What to do??

 

First, check your physical HD's condition, preferably without booting

an OS that will write to it. For that, I use a Bart PE boot CDR with

HD Tune from http://www.hdtune.com (which works from Windows too, it's just

I'd rather avoid that in this context). You can also check your HD

vendor's site for free diagnostics that may boot off their own disks,

though these may not give you the details you need (a glib "OK" may

mask a lot of "this is the 100th dead sector" SMART detail).

 

Personally, I'd avoid this sort of mess by:

- using a larger hard drive

- partitioning so that C: is small and data-free

- keeping C: and core data within the first 137G

- avoiding NTFS

 

Then I'd have recourse to better file system management tools, such as

DOS Mode's Scandisk (FATxx only, must be < 137G) and whatever the OS

does in its "engine room" C: doesn't stink up my data.

 

But as it is, the only things that can "fix" NTFS are the things that

are already falling on their ass. Plus, you have no control over what

they do. So you're next step is to evacuate your data, keep fiddling

with ChkDsk and AutoChk, and prepare for some sort of drastic

destructive "fix" like "just wipe and re-install Windows".

>A disk that is 94% full is an unuseable disk.

 

Arguable, in the case of "one doomed C:" that has Windows running on

it; with XP, you'd like a few hundred Meg free, at least.

 

Not true, if the HD in question is sim0ply used to hold static data.

Read-only CDRs have 0 bytes free, and work just fine :-)

>If this was my machine then I would chose either of this paths:

>a) Clean up things in order to maintain 20% free disk space (6 GBytes), or

>b) Clone the old disk to a larger disk, e.g. one of 120 GBytes.

>Since disks are so cheap, Option b) would be my preferred path.

 

Yep. But these new HDs are likely to be > 137G, so you need:

- a motherboard that "sees" > 137G

- XP SP2, either as the installed OS, or over XP SP1

 

XP "Gold" is deadly > 137G, and cannot even be safely installed.

 

XP SP1 is safe to instrall > 137G, but has some bugs that can trash

the HD's contents later. Specifically, certain contexts are not aware

of > 137G, e.g. the code that writes RAM dumps after a crash.

 

AFAIK, all of the unsafe contexts in SP1 apply to C:, or rather, where

the page file and hibernation stores are. That implies a C: that is

within the first 137G of a larger HD may be safe - even so, for this

and other reasons, I'd get SP2 on there asap.

 

>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

Never turn your back on an installer program

>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

Guest MikeR-Oz
Posted

Re: dskChk stalls on step 4 of 5

 

Good advise - will follow. Cheers

Mike

 

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:

>

> "MikeR-Oz" <MikeROz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

> news:BCC955AA-44DC-495E-B4F2-15F556FE8B9D@microsoft.com...

> > XP Home

> > I have a 30 Gb drive with about 6 % free and NTSF file structure. Need to

> > run full disk scan. Have tried from My Computer / tools but always sais

> > that

> > some files are i use and ned to do on restart.

> >

> > Upon restart it gets to step 4 of 5 but then completes about 13% and goes

> > no

> > further.

> >

> > What to do??

> >

> > Cheers

> > Mike

>

> A disk that is 94% full is an unuseable disk. If this was my machine

> then I would chose either of this paths:

> a) Clean up things in order to maintain 20% free disk space (6 GBytes), or

> b) Clone the old disk to a larger disk, e.g. one of 120 GBytes.

>

> Since disks are so cheap, Option b) would be my preferred path.

>

>

>

Guest Plato
Posted

Re: dskChk stalls on step 4 of 5

 

=?Utf-8?B?TWlrZVItT3o=?= wrote:

>

> I have a 30 Gb drive with about 6 % free and NTSF file structure. Need to

> run full disk scan. Have tried from My Computer / tools but always sais that

> some files are i use and ned to do on restart.

 

You really need a way larger HDD.

 

 

--

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Guest MikeR-Oz
Posted

Re: dskChk stalls on step 4 of 5

 

Thanks Plato- Not sure why the Bootdisk link as I can access windows just

that chkdsk not running- Yeah will dump the PC eventually but would like to

have improved performance and pass on to the kids. Very slow so figure HDD

issues amongst others.

Cheers

MIke

 

"Plato" wrote:

> =?Utf-8?B?TWlrZVItT3o=?= wrote:

> >

> > I have a 30 Gb drive with about 6 % free and NTSF file structure. Need to

> > run full disk scan. Have tried from My Computer / tools but always sais that

> > some files are i use and ned to do on restart.

>

> You really need a way larger HDD.

>

>

> --

> http://www.bootdisk.com/

>

>

>


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