Scan disk in NTFS

[Farhan]

I recently converted three out of four of my volumes to NTFS from FAT32.
Now when power failure (which if very common here) no scan disk runs at
startup.
Is it safe and not damaging my hard disk?

(Please dont suggest to buy UPS-it has been expensive and failed becuse of
long power failure)


Farahn

 

[Mark Adams]

I recently converted three out of four of my volumes to NTFS from FAT32.
Now when power failure (which if very common here) no scan disk runs at
startup.
Is it safe and not damaging my hard disk?

(Please dont suggest to buy UPS-it has been expensive and failed becuse of
long power failure)


Farahn

It's not damaging your hard disk, but it probably is damaging your Windows
installation. If you can't use a UPS, use a backup program like Acronis True
Image to save frequent backups to an external USB hard drive. In the event
that a power failure corrupts your system, simply restore from the most
recent image. If a power surge destroys the mainboard or other hardware, at
least you have an image to restore from once you repair your hardware.

 

[Anteaus]

I think you mean chkdsk, and it doesn't repair files properly anyway. What
it does is to take the broken ends of the file and stitch them together. In
fact this can make matters infinitely worse than if no 'automatic repair'
action was taken, as you then have a undisclosed number of files with
missing/incorrect data, and since they are no longer flagged as faulty, you
can't tell which ones they are.

Bottom line is that no filesystem tolerates improper shutdowns well. Thus, a
UPS with a USB control lead is strongly advised. This should make the UPS
appear much like a laptop battery in the Power control panel, where you can
set an automatic shutdown when the battery gets low.

 

[John John - MVP]

That is perfectly normal, NTFS is much more resilient than FAT32 and a
power failure does not automatically trigger a chkdsk when you restart
the system, most often the computer will restart without needing to run
a disk check.

John

 

[Twayne]

I recently converted three out of four of my volumes to NTFS from
FAT32. Now when power failure (which if very common here) no scan
disk runs at startup.

That's fine w/r to chkdsk (not scandisk; wrong name now).

Is it safe and not damaging my hard disk?

It's safe and it's not damaging your hard disk. It wouldn't hurt to run
chkdsk once just to be certain it works and that the switch to NTFS went
smoothly, but it's not necessary to run it unless problems begin to crop
up. Often it will help. Under very specific multi-fault conditions, it
can, once in a great while, render the disk unbootable; but those are
times when the machine is about to bork anyway in my experience.

(Please dont suggest to buy UPS-it has been expensive and failed
becuse of long power failure)

Why not? That's cutting off your nose to spite your face since it's the
first-line and most successful protection against power outages. A long
power failure alone will never damage a properly installed UPS. And
they aren't all that expensive if you consider your time worth anything.
When there is a power failure, you let the UPS shut down the computer on
its own if you're not there to do it. Simple GUI programming come with
nearly all of them. You're making an error in judgement.

HTH,

Twayne`

 

[HeyBub]

I recently converted three out of four of my volumes to NTFS from
FAT32. Now when power failure (which if very common here) no scan
disk runs at startup.
Is it safe and not damaging my hard disk?

(Please dont suggest to buy UPS-it has been expensive and failed
becuse of long power failure)


Farahn

I see you're posting from Marina del Ray. Your local (Los Angeles)
Craigslist has a number of UPSs for as little as $15.

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/search/?areaID=7&subAreaID=&query=ups+apc&catAbbreviation=sss

 

[Richard]

I recently converted three out of four of my volumes to NTFS from FAT32.
Now when power failure (which if very common here) no scan disk runs at
startup.
Is it safe and not damaging my hard disk?

(Please dont suggest to buy UPS-it has been expensive and failed becuse of
long power failure)

Farahn

Hi Farahn,

You don't need an expensive UPS that keeps your computer going a long time.
There are inexpensive UPS models that work with Windows XP power management
to keep it running long enough to gracefully shutdown the operating system
before the UPS battery fails. Read the several Windows XP help topics for
further information: Click Start, click Help and Support, in search box,
enter: Uninterruptible Power Supply

The NTFS (New Technology File System) has a recovery procedure that begins
the next time the computer starts after a power failure or other
interruption of disk operations, that rolls back incompleted operations, so
the file system does not become corrupt. Any partly written data gets
dumped. The fact that no "scan disk" (Autochk/Chkdsk) runs is a good sign,
since neither the drive or software indicated a problem requiring a scan.
Another feature of NTFS is that when it tries to write information and
encounters a bad sector, it will mark the cluster bad, and re-map the data
to another cluster. You can manually run CHKDSK after a power failure for
peace of mind if you like, but it is generally not necessary to run CHKDSK
more than once or twice a year.

To run Chkdsk: Hold Windows logo key and press E key for Explorer, right
click your drive icon, choose Properties, click Tools tab, under Error
Checking click Check Now, put a checkmark before "Automatically fix file
system errors", and click Start. Then agree to let it run at the next
startup, and restart your computer. After CHKDSK completes, it will restart
the computer again. It is hardly ever necessary to do the full scan that
checks for bad sectors, unless you bump the drive hard enough to cause a
head crash.

HTH. (Hope This Helps.
--Richard