[Joan A]

Hi

On my Win 98SE hard drive, I've done thorough scan disk in regular Windows and Safe Mode, and it takes 36+ hours; the contents keep changing, so it restarts. Per Metallica, I don't have any Malware (see http://www.geekstogo...showtopic=68475 )

The last time I did it in safe mode, it took 40 hours and found no errors. I started again last night at 11pm and it's still going (at 368,305 of 1,220,891). What's odd, I can do a standard scan disk in regular windows in less than an hour.

Any suggestions on what is making it restart? Is my hard drive going bad?

Joan A

[Advertisements]

Howdy:

When you scandisk in Safe Mode, you still have to disable any screensaver or power management options.. Have you??

Next, how large is your hard-drive as a "thorough scan" scans EVERY sector individually and can/will take forever !!

Murray

[Murray S.]

Howdy:

When you scandisk in Safe Mode, you still have to disable any screensaver or power management options.. Have you??

Next, how large is your hard-drive as a "thorough scan" scans EVERY sector individually and can/will take forever !!

Murray

[Tyger]

Also you can restart in ms-dos mode, command prompt only, then type in scandisk and hit Enter, it will run some quick tests and let you choose the thorough mode.

[Joan A]

Murray S

I have 37.2GB on the hard drive, and used is 3.1GB. Before I had the 'restart' problem, a thorough scan took about 30 minutes.

Screensaver is disabled and I don't have any power management options turned on. It's still going, now up to 410,687 out of 1,220,891, at this rate it will take another 24 hours.

Tyger

I know how to restart in DOS, and assume once I'm at the C prompt (not windows), then type 'scandisk"? What's the difference between doing it in DOS vs Windows?

Joan A

[Murray S.]

I know how to restart in DOS, and assume once I'm at the C prompt (not windows), then type 'scandisk"?  What's the difference between doing it in DOS vs Windows? 

Joan A

Scandisk is done before anything else loads on your system !!

Also, are you sure you were doing a "thorough" before?? I have a 30GB master and it tells me it will need over 5 hours to do a thorough scan and that's with XP and 512megs of ram!!

Murray

[Joan A]

Murray

DOS - well, duhhh , should have thought of that. I'm on wireless, and am fairly new to it; when I restart in DOS, is my firewall still on? Or do I not have to worry about that while in DOS?

Yes, I'm positive; I've always done a thorough scan. The problem is on my W98 system, not my XP one (they're separate hard drives). I'm pretty sure it only took 30 minutes, but definitely not more than an hour before the problem started. I've noticed recently that when I'm not on the W98 system, the light showing the hard drive is on, is constantly blinking. It's constant at the moment.

Joan A

[Murray S.]

You don't have to worry about the firewall.. Nothing is loaded so nothing can get in or out!!

Murray

[Joan A]

Murray

Thanks. I'll stop it in Windows and start it up in DOS. Will advise the results. Thanks for the info.

Joan A

[Joan A]

Murray & Tyger

You guys are great DOS scandisk only took 3:45 hours, much better than 40+ on the one in Windows.

Is there anyway to find out what is causing the 'restart' problem in Windows?

Joan A

[Murray S.]

No problem !!

Now, you never mentioned a "restart" problem!!! Could you clarify please??

Murray

[Joan A]

Murray

Sorry, I should have said "contents changed, scandisk restarting" problem. Something is obviously working all the time now, whether I'm active in W98 or not. Is there anyway to find out what it is? In safe mode, CTRL-ALT-DEL showed Explorer as the only active program, but something made scandisk keep restarting.

Joan

[Murray S.]

Does this system connect to the internet via broadband??

Do you also get this when running in Safe Mode (says Safe Mode in all 4 corners) ??

Murray

[Joan A]

I connect via wireless (is that broadband?) with a firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware programs.

The constant blinking light is/was also in Safe Mode. However, it's not doing it now in regular Windows, stopped doing it after the scan disk finished. So, perhaps it's fixed?

Joan

[Murray S.]

Very well could be and your problem may have been your wireless networking.. Next time, physically shut it down..

Murray

[Joan A]

Thanks for all your help. Since I was able to do a scan disk and my blinking light isn't anymore, I would say you can close this.

Appreciate all the input.

Joan