Chkdsk/Scandisk

[richard2]

I still use Windows98 most of the time. I'm not fond of XP, but I have
XP on my laptop computer, and must keep it to use the WIFI. One thing
that really irks me about XP is that it no longer has Scandisk. Chkdsk
is really a major pain to use, because it opens as a sort of "dos
prompt", and I cant see what it's doing. At least Scandisk showed what
was going on. If this is Microsoft's way of improving things, they sure
screwed up on this one. I should mention that I both use, and still
like MsDos. But I dont want chkdsk running underneath my desktop where
I cant see what it's doing. Why did MS abandon Scandisk? Chkdsk was an
archaic leftover from very early versions of MsDosm which was replaced
by Scandisk, then they dropped it in favor of this worthless and
annoying Chkdsk..... What is wrong with MS????

 

[Nil]

I still use Windows98 most of the time. I'm not fond of XP, but I
have XP on my laptop computer, and must keep it to use the WIFI.
One thing that really irks me about XP is that it no longer has
Scandisk. Chkdsk is really a major pain to use, because it opens
as a sort of "dos prompt", and I cant see what it's doing.

If you "can't see what it's doing" then you're either doing it wrong or
blind. It's completely visible to me.

- Open a CMD window (Start | Run | CMD)
- Type Chkdsk C: at the prompt.
- Observe.

 

[glee]

If you "can't see what it's doing" then you're either doing it wrong
or
blind. It's completely visible to me.

- Open a CMD window (Start | Run | CMD)
- Type Chkdsk C: at the prompt.
- Observe.

He must mean he can't see a little graphic of a hard drive spinning
while it's scanning. ;-)

 

[glee]

I still use Windows98 most of the time. I'm not fond of XP, but I have
XP on my laptop computer, and must keep it to use the WIFI. One thing
that really irks me about XP is that it no longer has Scandisk.
Chkdsk
is really a major pain to use, because it opens as a sort of "dos
prompt", and I cant see what it's doing. At least Scandisk showed
what
was going on. If this is Microsoft's way of improving things, they
sure
screwed up on this one. I should mention that I both use, and still
like MsDos. But I dont want chkdsk running underneath my desktop
where
I cant see what it's doing. Why did MS abandon Scandisk? Chkdsk was
an
archaic leftover from very early versions of MsDosm which was replaced
by Scandisk, then they dropped it in favor of this worthless and
annoying Chkdsk..... What is wrong with MS????

As Nil stated, you can see what's happening in Chkdsk at the command
prompt. It's just not as user-friendly because it is a command line
screen showing it.

Windows XP and later versions of Windows are based on the WinNT kernel
not the Win9x kernel, and come with Chkdsk only, always have. Scandisk
was created for the Windows 9x family of operating systems (95/98/ME)
and does not work in NT operating systems. Scandisk wasn't "dropped",
it never worked for, and wasn't made for, any WinNT-based operating
system. CHKDSK on NT systems is not the same as the old DOS versions,
but it looks similar because it is a command line tool and it's behavior
is modified by using command line switches, as in an old DOS program.
It's most certainly not worthless, it simply has an "unfriendly" user
interface.

Microsoft Windows XP - Chkdsk
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx?mfr=true

 

[BillW50]

In glee typed:

As Nil stated, you can see what's happening in Chkdsk at the command
prompt. It's just not as user-friendly because it is a command line
screen showing it.

Windows XP and later versions of Windows are based on the WinNT kernel
not the Win9x kernel, and come with Chkdsk only, always have.

Actually that is Windows 2000 and later versions.

Scandisk was created for the Windows 9x family of operating systems
(95/98/ME) and does not work in NT operating systems.

Actually scandisk was in both MSDOS v6.2x and Windows 9x.

CHKDSK on NT systems is not the same as the old DOS versions...

On a side note, don't use CHKDSK or Undelete with MS-DOS v5.0 if you are
using 256 byte sectors.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q80496/

 

[richard2]

As Nil stated, you can see what's happening in Chkdsk at the command
prompt. It's just not as user-friendly because it is a command line
screen showing it.

Windows XP and later versions of Windows are based on the WinNT kernel
not the Win9x kernel, and come with Chkdsk only, always have. Scandisk
was created for the Windows 9x family of operating systems (95/98/ME)
and does not work in NT operating systems. Scandisk wasn't "dropped",
it never worked for, and wasn't made for, any WinNT-based operating
system. CHKDSK on NT systems is not the same as the old DOS versions,
but it looks similar because it is a command line tool and it's behavior
is modified by using command line switches, as in an old DOS program.
It's most certainly not worthless, it simply has an "unfriendly" user
interface.

Microsoft Windows XP - Chkdsk
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx?mfr=true

I've never run it from the command line. I originally clicked on START,
then RUN, and typed in chkdsk.exe. After that I made a shortcut on the
desktop to that file.
Running it like that, only brought a very brief flash and it dropped off
into the background, or vanished, or something like that.

Just shows how screwed up MS is. They add tons of useless bloat to each
newer OS, but cant make a simple disk scanning file run as a GUI.
I thought that command line stuff went out with the end of the Dos era.
It's not that I find it hard to do, after all, I said I still use Dos,
but when I'm using windows, I want a click-it icon and get-er-done
approach.

I have never liked any NT Windows. I forced myself to use Win2000, and
after awhile I got halfway comfortable with it. (and still use it). XP
turned me off completely right from the start and still does. When I
use my laptop that REQUIRES XP to use WIFI, I *only* use that computer
for WIFI. Then I transfer anything I downloaded to my Win98/Win2000
(dual boot) desktop and do all my other computer stuff using Win98.

I'm not saying this to start a flame war on an XP newsgroup, but I still
think that Win98 was the best and last decent OS made by MS. The only
reason I have Win2000 installed is because it fills in the gap, for
Win98's top downfall, which is poor handling of USB ports. Many of my
USB devices just cant work in 98. (Of course if MS had stuck with 98,
they could have fixed that, or at least there would be drivers for all
these devices). Win2000 does allow me to use my USB devices. I boot to
2000, use the USB devices to copy the stuff to my computer, then boot
back to Win98 where I do all my computing. Win2000 is really just XP
without all the bloat.

I once copied Scandisk to my XP laptop, and when I clicked on it, I got
an error message.

At my elderly age, I'll likely use Win98 for the rest of my life. If
not, I'll probably buy a Mac computer. I tolerate XP when I must, there
is no way in hell that I'd use Vista or Win7. (Which from what I've seen
is just more useless bloat added to XP and each version before it.

I once read that the OS should remain invisible, and only provide a
means to run the visible software installed to it. I guess MS has
forgotten that, since these days the OSs are *in your face* annoying....

 

[BillW50]

In (e-mail address removed) typed:

Just shows how screwed up MS is. They add tons of useless bloat to
each newer OS, but cant make a simple disk scanning file run as a GUI.
I thought that command line stuff went out with the end of the Dos
era. It's not that I find it hard to do, after all, I said I still
use Dos, but when I'm using windows, I want a click-it icon and
get-er-done approach.

One of the nice things about Microsoft, is bunch of the built in stuff
is severely lacking. And this keeps the third party developers alive and
well. And I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that
there are Scandisk utilities for XP out there. I use one from Paragon,
but it does far more stuff than that.

I have never liked any NT Windows. I forced myself to use Win2000,
and after awhile I got halfway comfortable with it. (and still use
it). XP turned me off completely right from the start and still
does. When I use my laptop that REQUIRES XP to use WIFI, I *only*
use that computer for WIFI. Then I transfer anything I downloaded to
my Win98/Win2000 (dual boot) desktop and do all my other computer
stuff using Win98.

Well I like Windows 98 a lot (I like Windows 3.1 and 95 too), but that
dang System Resource thing is far too limiting for me. As I could only
have about three applications opened and then run out of resources. And
closing applications doesn't bring them all back. So you have to reboot
to get them all back. I hated that.

Btw, I am not a big dualboot fan. As someday it just bites you back.
Although I also have over 20 laptops, so dualbooting doesn't even make
much sense for me either.

I'm not saying this to start a flame war on an XP newsgroup, but I
still think that Win98 was the best and last decent OS made by MS.
The only reason I have Win2000 installed is because it fills in the
gap, for Win98's top downfall, which is poor handling of USB ports.
Many of my USB devices just cant work in 98. (Of course if MS had
stuck with 98, they could have fixed that, or at least there would be
drivers for all these devices).

Actually Microsoft did stick it out with Windows 98 and improved it
(their phrase) and called it Windows ME. And it should also work well
with USB devices. And I was a big time user of Windows 2000 from '99 to
2005. And I didn't care much for XP until 2005. That is about when they
got most of the bugs out of XP. I rarely use Windows 2000 much anymore.

Win2000 is really just XP without all the bloat.

Yup, and it boots faster than XP, Vista, or Windows 7 too. It even boots
faster than Ubuntu Linux too.

At my elderly age, I'll likely use Win98 for the rest of my life. If
not, I'll probably buy a Mac computer. I tolerate XP when I must,
there is no way in hell that I'd use Vista or Win7. (Which from what
I've seen is just more useless bloat added to XP and each version
before it.

I have one Windows 7 and one Windows 8 machine. I've used Windows 7
since June of 2009 and I am very comfortable with it. Although my first
impressions of it hasn't changed at all. It is indeed very bloated and I
don't care much for bloat at all.

 

[glee]

In glee typed:

Actually that is Windows 2000 and later versions.

Not sure what you're saying... Windows NT 4.0 came with Chkdsk, I can't
speak for NT 3.x but I believe it also did. No version of Windows NT
came with Scandisk. Those are all *earlier* than Win2K.

Actually scandisk was in both MSDOS v6.2x and Windows 9x.

I thought, based on the original post's comments, that we were
discussing the GUI version of Scandisk from Windows 9x. No mention was
made of the version from DOS 6.x, which is quite a different animal than
the Windows version.

On a side note, don't use CHKDSK or Undelete with MS-DOS v5.0 if you
are using 256 byte sectors.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q80496/

LOL... I don't think too many people will have to worry about that these
days.

 

[SC Tom]

I've never run it from the command line. I originally clicked on START,
then RUN, and typed in chkdsk.exe. After that I made a shortcut on the
desktop to that file.
Running it like that, only brought a very brief flash and it dropped off
into the background, or vanished, or something like that.

Just shows how screwed up MS is. They add tons of useless bloat to each
newer OS, but cant make a simple disk scanning file run as a GUI.
I thought that command line stuff went out with the end of the Dos era.
It's not that I find it hard to do, after all, I said I still use Dos,
but when I'm using windows, I want a click-it icon and get-er-done
approach.

I have never liked any NT Windows. I forced myself to use Win2000, and
after awhile I got halfway comfortable with it. (and still use it). XP
turned me off completely right from the start and still does. When I
use my laptop that REQUIRES XP to use WIFI, I *only* use that computer
for WIFI. Then I transfer anything I downloaded to my Win98/Win2000
(dual boot) desktop and do all my other computer stuff using Win98.

I'm not saying this to start a flame war on an XP newsgroup, but I still
think that Win98 was the best and last decent OS made by MS. The only
reason I have Win2000 installed is because it fills in the gap, for
Win98's top downfall, which is poor handling of USB ports. Many of my
USB devices just cant work in 98. (Of course if MS had stuck with 98,
they could have fixed that, or at least there would be drivers for all
these devices). Win2000 does allow me to use my USB devices. I boot to
2000, use the USB devices to copy the stuff to my computer, then boot
back to Win98 where I do all my computing. Win2000 is really just XP
without all the bloat.

I once copied Scandisk to my XP laptop, and when I clicked on it, I got
an error message.

At my elderly age, I'll likely use Win98 for the rest of my life. If
not, I'll probably buy a Mac computer. I tolerate XP when I must, there
is no way in hell that I'd use Vista or Win7. (Which from what I've seen
is just more useless bloat added to XP and each version before it.

I once read that the OS should remain invisible, and only provide a
means to run the visible software installed to it. I guess MS has
forgotten that, since these days the OSs are *in your face* annoying....

You could always go to WinME; you get the Win98 interface with a lot better hardware usage, and without that nasty
resource limitation that BillW50 mentioned. Much as I like WinXP now, I went back to ME at least three times before
figuring out the solution to the XP problem I was having.

 

[BillW50]

In glee typed:

Not sure what you're saying... Windows NT 4.0 came with Chkdsk, I
can't speak for NT 3.x but I believe it also did. No version of
Windows NT came with Scandisk. Those are all *earlier* than Win2K.

You're the one you stated XP and later, not me. And Windows NT should be
a given that they are NT OS.

I thought, based on the original post's comments, that we were
discussing the GUI version of Scandisk from Windows 9x. No mention
was made of the version from DOS 6.x, which is quite a different
animal than the Windows version.

If you ran scandisk from Windows, you got a GUI window which has a
totally different interface than the one ran from DOS alone. Although it
is the same program. And from what I remember, running scandisk from a
command prompt looked just like the one from MS-DOS.

LOL... I don't think too many people will have to worry about that
these days.

I suppose not. Although one of my favorite older DOS versions were 2.11
and 3.21. And if your machine only had 640kb of RAM anyway, I believe I
rather use 3.21 than any newer DOS version at any rate.

 

[Char Jackson]

I've never run it from the command line. I originally clicked on START,
then RUN, and typed in chkdsk.exe. After that I made a shortcut on the
desktop to that file.
Running it like that, only brought a very brief flash and it dropped off
into the background, or vanished, or something like that.

You're probably happy to learn that your mistake is somewhat common
and comes with a simple solution. You don't run such programs from
Start-Run, but rather from Start-Run-Cmd, which puts you at the
Command Prompt where you can see the program's output.

I'm not saying this to start a flame war on an XP newsgroup, but I still
think that Win98 was the best and last decent OS made by MS.

I totally agree. The only Windows versions that were better than 98
were ones that came after 98; specifically 2000, XP, and 7. Vista had
some growing pains, but is also probably better than 98.

At my elderly age, I'll likely use Win98 for the rest of my life.

That's one of the benefits of old age. You get to make statements like
that. Oh, and you get to be cranky.

I once read that the OS should remain invisible, and only provide a
means to run the visible software installed to it. I guess MS has
forgotten that, since these days the OSs are *in your face* annoying....

You wouldn't believe some of the things I once read.

 

[BillW50]

In SC Tom typed:

You could always go to WinME; you get the Win98 interface with a lot
better hardware usage, and without that nasty resource limitation
that BillW50 mentioned. Much as I like WinXP now, I went back to ME
at least three times before figuring out the solution to the XP
problem I was having.

Huh? ME don't have the System Resource problem? I ran ME for about a
year and I didn't remember that one. And the one very bad thing about ME
is that it is one of the buggiest Windows versions ever developed. And
it is one of the least supported Windows version ever. Even still, it is
possible to have ME running very stable. But I might be wrong, but I
believe your best chance is running it on a machine that is designed for
ME in the first place.

 

[BillW50]

In Char Jackson typed:

You wouldn't believe some of the things I once read.

No it is true. OS were once created to be invisible and not get in the
way of the user. This was great since the user had the freedom to do
whatever they wanted too. It isn't that way with newer OS. As newer OS
assumes the user is a total moron and slaps their hand if it thinks you
shouldn't be doing something you shouldn't. And all this does is to make
users dumber and dumber with each generation.

 

[BillW50]

I had a hard time migrating away from Windows 3.1. I switched back from
Windows 95 more than once. When I finally got Windows 98 SE working good I
hung on to it forever. As far as I'm concerned ME was the biggest abortion
M$ had ever come up with. Well, at least until ME2 (Vista) came along.

I never had a problem going from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 and up. ME
was very tricky though. As it had taken a lot of work to get that one
stable. And once you did, it was like a house of cards and don't upgrade
drivers, OS, or anything. Just don't touch.

Right now I'm running:
Motherboard - Intel DP55KG
CPU - Intel Core i7 K 875 @ 2.93Ghz
Memory - 8 Gb (3.49 Gb in XP)
Video - NVidia GeForce 210 (512)
Dual-boot Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, XP Pro SP3

I run Windows 7 about 2 hours each week to get the updates. It doesn't run
a damn bit better than XP and won't run a lot of my software and one of my
scanners. I record the 10 o'clock news in HD every night and watch it
later. In XP, of course. If I happen to boot into Windows 7 and try to
watch one of those recorded newscasts, it jumps, jerks, jitters, and
stutters.

Here I thought my Intel Core2 Duo T7400 just wasn't powerful enough for
Windows 7 and recording videos. While XP records just wonderful on
machines with far less power.

I do kind of like XP now. The only reason I upgrade when I do is because I
work on other people's computers (a retirement pastime) and have to keep up
with the Joneses. I'm an old fart myself. Hopefully I'll wake up dead
before XP is extinct!

That is partly way I run Windows 7/8 too. Another is too make sure I am
not messing out on anything. And I have been running Windows 7 since
June 2009 and I can honestly say today I am not missing anything if I
didn't run Windows 7/8 at all.

 

[glee]

In glee typed:

You're the one you stated XP and later, not me. And Windows NT should
be a given that they are NT OS.

OK... the original poster was talking about XP, and I replied in kind
about XP (and later) systems. So we are just having a semantics or
communication problem.... though if you want to pick nits, then the
"Win2K and earlier" statement excludes WinNT versions (whether it's a
"given" or not, to you). I don't see the point of picking nits, though.

If you ran scandisk from Windows, you got a GUI window which has a
totally different interface than the one ran from DOS alone. Although
it is the same program. And from what I remember, running scandisk
from a command prompt looked just like the one from MS-DOS.

No... actually, it is NOT the same program. When you ran Scandisk from
DOS, you ran scandisk.exe, a command line tool. When you ran Scandisk
from Windows, you ran scandskw.exe, the GUI program. They were two
distinct executables, with quite different parameters and command line
switches.

 

[glee]

Just a little further info re: my comment about Scandisk in Win9x being
two separate and distinct executables, one for DOS and one for
Windows...

Command-Line Parameters for the Scandisk Tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/199557

Description of ScanDisk for Windows (Scandskw.exe) in Windows 98/Me
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/186365

 

[BillW50]

That is partly way I run Windows 7/8 too. Another is too make sure I am
not messing out on anything. And I have been running Windows 7 since
June 2009 and I can honestly say today I am not missing anything if I
didn't run Windows 7/8 at all.

That is partly *why*... Another is to make sure I am not *missing* out...

I must be the world's worst proofreader. I got through half of this
paragraph below before I even knew anything was wrong. :-(

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace
the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I still use Windows98 most of the time. I'm not fond of XP, but I have
XP on my laptop computer, and must keep it to use the WIFI. One thing
that really irks me about XP is that it no longer has Scandisk. Chkdsk
is really a major pain to use, because it opens as a sort of "dos
prompt", and I cant see what it's doing. At least Scandisk showed what
was going on. If this is Microsoft's way of improving things, they sure
screwed up on this one. I should mention that I both use, and still
like MsDos. But I dont want chkdsk running underneath my desktop where
I cant see what it's doing. Why did MS abandon Scandisk? Chkdsk was an
archaic leftover from very early versions of MsDosm which was replaced
by Scandisk, then they dropped it in favor of this worthless and
annoying Chkdsk..... What is wrong with MS????

If you're looking for a graphical version of chkdsk, then it's still
available to you in XP and later. Just right-click on the disk to be
checked in My Computer, and click Properties->Tools->Error Checking.
It's quite a bit simpler than Scandisk ever was, and therefore in my
opinion it's superior. There isn't a lot of options to choose, just two
of them: (1) you can just choose to have it automatically fix your
errors, and/or (2) to do a surface scan of the disk. If the disk is your
boot drive, then it usually won't be able to do some more involved
activities while you're booted, and in that case, the graphical chkdsk
will then call the textual chkdsk and schedule it to run during your
next reboot. There is nothing simpler or more convenient than this for
error checking your disks.

Yousuf Khan

 

[BillW50]

Just a little further info re: my comment about Scandisk in Win9x being
two separate and distinct executables, one for DOS and one for Windows...

Command-Line Parameters for the Scandisk Tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/199557

Description of ScanDisk for Windows (Scandskw.exe) in Windows 98/Me
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/186365

Yes thanks, it is starting to come back.

 

[Ken Springer]

I must be the world's worst proofreader.

LOL! One thing I learned years and years ago, if you want it right,
never ever proofread your own stuff!

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2