"Shenan Stanley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
[snip]
>> I finally rebooted to C: again; CHKDSK is running again.
>> It started stage 1 by deleting what it called several corrupt
>> entries in file 9; it's now continuing stage 1 more normally,
>> over 4340000 more files with no errors shown.
>
> I'd still suspect the hardware. I recommend downloading and using the
> hard drive manufacturer's (the actual drive) diagnostics utility -
> available usually for download from their web page.
>
> As for backups - get an external (USB) hard drive - I recommend the
> Seagate Replica (500GB) - no muss/no fuss - it will backup *everything*.
>
> As for my question about backing up your stuff - it seems you
> misunderstood what *your stuff* is. Stuff you created/saved. Your
> pictures, your music, your documents, your Internet Favorites, your email,
> your contacts... Stuff you saved yourself, organized yourself, etc. The
> operating system and such should already be 'backed up' by the simple fact
> you have the installation media.
>
> I doubt you need to backup the NWS files.
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP
> --
> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
I downloaded and started running the manufacturer's
diagnostic software months ago, if it didn't come
already installed. Running it indicates that one part
of it is imcompatible with the antivirus software I'm
using - the diagnostic software assumes that nothing
is doing much on the hard drive, and sets timeouts
accordingly, but the antivirus software sees this as idle
time when it can start a full scan which keeps the hard
drive rather busy. Before I found this, the hard drive
had already been replaced - causing more problems
than before since the full backup did not contain
some of the files I still needed.
When I'm about 1.5 years behind in reading the
newsgroups files, I do need a record of which ones
I've read, and how I've organized the others, even
those I could download again with a suitable list
of which ones.
The machine finally finished the reboot, after I
let it doing nothing visible on the screen for around
6 hours, after the CHKDSK run which took about
4 hours. The updates record said that update was
successful - but I would have preferred a much
more appropriate estimate of how long it would take.
Robert Miles