Hi,

I was running chkdsk from the recovery console. This appears to be
a much simpler version than when windows is fully booted:

c:\> chkdsk/?

CHKDSK [drive:[ [/P] [/R]

[drive:] Specifies the drive to check
/P Check eve if the drive is knot flagged dirty
/R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
(implies /P)

I got the following messages:

CHKDSK is checking the volume....
CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
CHKDSK has finished chekcing the volume.
29302528 kilobytes total disk space
25325116 kilobytes are available.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
7325632 total allocation units on disk.
6331279 allocation units available on disk.

Does this mean there were problems? I googled the web and
usenet, but problems seem to be associated with more explicitly
ominous messages than the above. This disk passsed hardware
diagnostics, both Dell's (it's a Dell Inspiron 8000) as well
as Fujitsu's (the HDD is a Fujitsu MHT2030AT). Dell's diagnostic
lasted hours, Fujitsu's lasted 20 minutes.

The reason why I still question the integrity despite the passing
of diagnostics is because my formerly spanking-new reinstallation
of Win2K got horribly corrupted. I was asked to reinstall (lost
data). The first reinstallation took alot of time, and I want to
be sure that it's even worth doing a 2nd time.

Thanks.

Fred
--
Fred Ma
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

It sounds like the HDD is going bad to me. The reason I say this is even
though the one diagnostic only took twenty minutes, the Dell one took an
exceptionally long time. I look into replacing the hard drive or if you have
another hard drive with an OS on it already then put that in the machine to
rule out any other hardware issues.

--
Bryan MCSE, A+

"Fred Ma" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I was running chkdsk from the recovery console. This appears to be
> a much simpler version than when windows is fully booted:
>
> c:\> chkdsk/?
>
> CHKDSK [drive:[ [/P] [/R]
>
> [drive:] Specifies the drive to check
> /P Check eve if the drive is knot flagged dirty
> /R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
> (implies /P)
>
> I got the following messages:
>
> CHKDSK is checking the volume....
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK has finished chekcing the volume.
> 29302528 kilobytes total disk space
> 25325116 kilobytes are available.
>
> 4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
> 7325632 total allocation units on disk.
> 6331279 allocation units available on disk.
>
> Does this mean there were problems? I googled the web and
> usenet, but problems seem to be associated with more explicitly
> ominous messages than the above. This disk passsed hardware
> diagnostics, both Dell's (it's a Dell Inspiron 8000) as well
> as Fujitsu's (the HDD is a Fujitsu MHT2030AT). Dell's diagnostic
> lasted hours, Fujitsu's lasted 20 minutes.
>
> The reason why I still question the integrity despite the passing
> of diagnostics is because my formerly spanking-new reinstallation
> of Win2K got horribly corrupted. I was asked to reinstall (lost
> data). The first reinstallation took alot of time, and I want to
> be sure that it's even worth doing a 2nd time.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Fred
> --
> Fred Ma
> Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
> Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

"Fred Ma" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> I got the following messages:
>
> CHKDSK is checking the volume....
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK has finished chekcing the volume.
> 29302528 kilobytes total disk space
> 25325116 kilobytes are available.
>
> 4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
> 7325632 total allocation units on disk.
> 6331279 allocation units available on disk.
>
> The reason why I still question the integrity despite the passing
> of diagnostics is because my formerly spanking-new reinstallation
> of Win2K got horribly corrupted. I was asked to reinstall (lost
> data). The first reinstallation took alot of time, and I want to
> be sure that it's even worth doing a 2nd time.

I would check other parts before replacing the drive or reinstalling
Windows. RAM is a likely culprit, as well as a flaky power supply or
marginal CPU. Even excessive heat can corrupt your Windows installation,
not to mention all the viruses and spyware that can take effect only seconds
after starting to browse the web. The hard drive has tested good 3 times,
try something else before you go to all that effort again.



--

Mike Brown
Process Manager

Asset Forwarding Corp.
EPA-compliant Recycling
DoD 5220.22-M Data Elimination
http://www.assetforwarding.com

Bryan wrote:
>
> It sounds like the HDD is going bad to me. The reason I say this is even
> though the one diagnostic only took twenty minutes, the Dell one took an
> exceptionally long time. I look into replacing the hard drive or if you have
> another hard drive with an OS on it already then put that in the machine to
> rule out any other hardware issues.

Hi, Bryan,

The HDD is a brand new Fujitsue product. The Dell diagnostic is likely
a different creater than the Fujitsu test. It typically takes hours.
I think it tries every possible location on the HDD. It also has a
quicker sibling that lasts about 20 minutes, which is probably more
like Fujitsu's test (at least the one that is run at the vendor site).

I've run full extended Dell diagnostics on the system a number of times
since the failure of the original HDD about 10 days ago, so I'm hopeful
that everything else is fine. I just worry about the HDD -- not
because of the diagnostics, but more because I don't know how to
interpret the messages from chkdsk. What exactly does it print under
different circumstances, and what are the implications?

Thanks for your opinion of the situation.

Fred
--
Fred Ma
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Mike Brown wrote:
>
> I would check other parts before replacing the drive or reinstalling
> Windows. RAM is a likely culprit, as well as a flaky power supply
> or marginal CPU. Even excessive heat can corrupt your Windows
> installation, not to mention all the viruses and spyware that can
> take effect only seconds after starting to browse the web. The hard
> drive has tested good 3 times, try something else before you go to
> all that effort again.

I'm pretty sure windows is corrupt. I installed some software that
was looking for a missing DLL, so I found the first copy I could find
on the web. I then followed unrelated instructions on how to register
a DLL on the registry. Since then I encountered the problems
described in the thread "Windows explorer won't start for
nonadministrator accounts" (this newsgroup, earlier in the night).
But prior to that, I was also encountering strange modem behaviour for
the administrator account, which wasn't there before.

The only thing I'm trying to be sure about is that the hardware itself
is OK, which I'm pretty sure about already as it passes Dell's
extended tests. I was just wondering how to interpret the chkdsk
messages. Under what circumstances does it say that....

Thanks for the opinion....

Fred
--
Fred Ma
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Fred Ma <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> Hi,
>
> I was running chkdsk from the recovery console. This appears to be
> a much simpler version than when windows is fully booted:
>
> c:\> chkdsk/?
>
> CHKDSK [drive:[ [/P] [/R]
>
> [drive:] Specifies the drive to check
> /P Check eve if the drive is knot flagged dirty
> /R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
> (implies /P)
>
> I got the following messages:
>
> CHKDSK is checking the volume....
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> CHKDSK has finished chekcing the volume.
> 29302528 kilobytes total disk space
> 25325116 kilobytes are available.
>
> 4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
> 7325632 total allocation units on disk.
> 6331279 allocation units available on disk.
>
> Does this mean there were problems? I googled the web and
> usenet, but problems seem to be associated with more explicitly
> ominous messages than the above. This disk passsed hardware
> diagnostics, both Dell's (it's a Dell Inspiron 8000) as well
> as Fujitsu's (the HDD is a Fujitsu MHT2030AT). Dell's diagnostic
> lasted hours, Fujitsu's lasted 20 minutes.
>
> The reason why I still question the integrity despite the passing
> of diagnostics is because my formerly spanking-new reinstallation
> of Win2K got horribly corrupted. I was asked to reinstall (lost
> data). The first reinstallation took alot of time, and I want to
> be sure that it's even worth doing a 2nd time.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Fred

No the messages do not indicate that there were problems. It will always
state if it finds a problem. This is just a message that can be
displayed in Recovery Console. The chkdsk that runs in Recovery Console
is the same Autocheck that runs at bootup. Run chkdsk /r in Recovery
Console for a surface test of the drive.

Leonard Severt
Microsoft Enterprise Support

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.

"Leonard Severt [MSFT]" wrote:
>
> Fred Ma <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
> >
> > I was running chkdsk from the recovery console. This appears to be
> > a much simpler version than when windows is fully booted:
> >
> > c:\> chkdsk/?
> >
> > CHKDSK [drive:[ [/P] [/R]
> >
> > [drive:] Specifies the drive to check
> > /P Check eve if the drive is knot flagged dirty
> > /R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
> > (implies /P)
> >
> > I got the following messages:
> >
> > CHKDSK is checking the volume....
> > CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> > CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> > CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> > CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...
> > CHKDSK has finished chekcing the volume.
> > 29302528 kilobytes total disk space
> > 25325116 kilobytes are available.
> >
> > 4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
> > 7325632 total allocation units on disk.
> > 6331279 allocation units available on disk.
> >
> > Does this mean there were problems? I googled the web and
> > usenet, but problems seem to be associated with more explicitly
> > ominous messages than the above. This disk passsed hardware
> > diagnostics, both Dell's (it's a Dell Inspiron 8000) as well
> > as Fujitsu's (the HDD is a Fujitsu MHT2030AT). Dell's diagnostic
> > lasted hours, Fujitsu's lasted 20 minutes.
> >
> > The reason why I still question the integrity despite the passing
> > of diagnostics is because my formerly spanking-new reinstallation
> > of Win2K got horribly corrupted. I was asked to reinstall (lost
> > data). The first reinstallation took alot of time, and I want to
> > be sure that it's even worth doing a 2nd time.
>
> No the messages do not indicate that there were problems. It will always
> state if it finds a problem. This is just a message that can be
> displayed in Recovery Console. The chkdsk that runs in Recovery Console
> is the same Autocheck that runs at bootup. Run chkdsk /r in Recovery
> Console for a surface test of the drive.

Thanks, Leonard. I neglected to mention that I did indeed using
"chkdsk /r", so that makes me confident that I'm not wasting my time
by reinstalling again.

Fred
--
Fred Ma
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada