surface scan

[Anthony Ewell]

Hi All,

Is there an XP equivalent to Win 9x's scandisk
"Thorough" scan (surface scan)?

--Tony

 

[Vanguard]

Hi All,

Is there an XP equivalent to Win 9x's scandisk
"Thorough" scan (surface scan)?

--Tony

So, did you actually try using the included help (Start -> Help and
Support) and search on "scandisk". The search will work but that's not
what you use in NT-based Windows.

 

[General Mailbox]

Look under chkdsk in your help section. That's the replacement for
scandisk.
B.rgds,
Kevin

 

[Peter]

Depending on which one you are looking for:
There's chkdsk - Go to Start/Run and enter cmd then enter chkdsk /? then hit
Enter for all the options. Enter exit, then enter to leave the command
module.

Also there is the System File Checker sfc /scannow which is explained here:

http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html

 

[Richard Urban]

To check your C: Drive open a command prompt window. Then type in chkdsk c:
/r (including the spaces). You will get a message that the drive is in use
and can not be locked. Do you want to perform a check during the next boot
cycle. Say yes. Exit the window and reboot. The check will be performed.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Is there an XP equivalent to Win 9x's scandisk

Start > Run:
%systemroot%\hh.exe ms-its:%systemroot%\help\ntcmds.chm::/chkdsk.htm

 

[Kerry Brown]

Start > Run:
%systemroot%\hh.exe ms-its:%systemroot%\help\ntcmds.chm::/chkdsk.htm

Must be a Unix guy Wouldn't Start -> Run -> Help and Support -> chkdsk
be a little easier.

Kerry

 

[Kerry Brown]

Must be a Unix guy Wouldn't Start -> Run -> Help and Support -> chkdsk
be a little easier.

Whoops, even easier Start -> Help and Support -> chkdsk

Kerry

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Must be a Unix guy Wouldn't Start -> Run -> Help and Support ->
chkdsk be a little easier.

Not really. You don't know where the OP comes from and the Help and
Support Center differs depending on the language. In German for
instance, "chkdsk" winds up with 2 hits. The first one refers to
the recovery console parameters only and therefore, I was posting
*that* way to ensure that the OP opens the other (correct) one.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Not really. You don't know where the OP comes from and the Help and
Support Center differs depending on the language. In German for
instance, "chkdsk" winds up with 2 hits. The first one refers to
the recovery console parameters only and therefore, I was posting
*that* way to ensure that the OP opens the other (correct) one.

Just a bit of Saturday morning sarcasm.

Kerry

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Just a bit of Saturday morning sarcasm.

Never mind, that's fine with me.
In addition, I do not like any 'over-engineering' either,
unless there is a (good) reason.

 

[Anthony Ewell]

Hi All,

Is there an XP equivalent to Win 9x's scandisk
"Thorough" scan (surface scan)?

--Tony

Hi All,

I posted the above in a different posting. I got
a lot of hits but no one directly answered the
question. I was told to look up the options
on chkdsk and to use the /r option.

/R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable
information (implies /F).

Question: is "chkdsk /r" a surface scan? And, is
it equivalent to 9x's scandisk "Thorough" scan?

It really sounds to me like they are not the same
thing; sounds like it is looking for errors in
active data, not both data and empty space.
For one thing, scandisk's "Thorough"? takes
10 time as long.

Please enlighten me.

Many thanks,
--Tony

 

[NobodyMan]

Actually, scandisk was not "replaced" by chkdsk in WinXP. No NT
computer has ever used scandisk; they have ALWAYS used chkdsk. So,
truthfully, scandisk just went away and chkdsk still exisits.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Hi All,

I posted the above in a different posting. I got
a lot of hits but no one directly answered the
question. I was told to look up the options
on chkdsk and to use the /r option.

/R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable
information (implies /F).

Question: is "chkdsk /r" a surface scan? And, is
it equivalent to 9x's scandisk "Thorough" scan?

It really sounds to me like they are not the same
thing; sounds like it is looking for errors in
active data, not both data and empty space.
For one thing, scandisk's "Thorough"? takes
10 time as long.

Please enlighten me.

Many thanks,
--Tony

Chkdsk /r does the same thing as scandisk with the thorough option. With
modern drives if you are seeing bad sectors the drive is probably no good
and should be replaced. Modern drives have replacement sectors they use
automatically. Windows (and the user) don't see this until all the spares
are used. The price of drives has come down to where you have to make a
judgement call on what your data is worth to you. With large drives under
$150.00 how much time do you want to spend when the drive ultimately fails
and you have to rebuild your file system? If chkdsk /r finds bad sectors I
would recommend downloading the usually free diagnostic software from the
manufacturer of your hard drive and test the drive. Be sure to back up your
data first. The act of testing can sometimes cause a marginal drive to fail.

Kerry

 

[Richard Urban]

You asked a question about what was equivelent to scandisk surface scan. You
got your answer. Now you are fighting and questioning further.

Go find a better answer yourself!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Anthony Ewell]

Chkdsk /r does the same thing as scandisk with the thorough option. With
modern drives if you are seeing bad sectors the drive is probably no good
and should be replaced. Modern drives have replacement sectors they use
automatically. Windows (and the user) don't see this until all the spares
are used. The price of drives has come down to where you have to make a
judgement call on what your data is worth to you. With large drives under
$150.00 how much time do you want to spend when the drive ultimately fails
and you have to rebuild your file system? If chkdsk /r finds bad sectors I
would recommend downloading the usually free diagnostic software from the
manufacturer of your hard drive and test the drive. Be sure to back up your
data first. The act of testing can sometimes cause a marginal drive to fail.

Kerry

Hi Kerry,

Thank you for the excellent answer. I have used the "/r"
option frequently but have never seen any errors on the
last pass (open space). The drives worked a lot better
afterwards. This explains it.

It is also nice to know that (S)ATA's are automatically
swapping out bad sectors. (I knew this was the case with
SCSI drives) (Some SATA drives now support command queueing
too. Cool stuff!)

--Tony

 

[Anthony Ewell]

You asked a question about what was equivelent to scandisk surface scan. You
got your answer. Now you are fighting and questioning further.

Go find a better answer yourself!

Richard!

Your answer was "how" to run "chkdsk." Not
what it did.

To check your C: Drive open a command prompt window.
Then type in chkdsk c: /r (including the spaces). You
will get a message that the drive is in use and can not
be locked. Do you want to perform a check during the
next boot cycle. Say yes. Exit the window and reboot.
The check will be performed.

You need to read questions more closely
before you jump to a conclusion and answer the
a question that is not being asked. (It was an
excellent write up, by the way. I'd keep a copy
of it around, in case someone needs that question
answered in the future.)

--Tony

 

[Richard Urban]

I would NOT have told you to do it if it did NOT do what you wanted! Sorry I
didn't give a full explanation but you can always use the help section for
full write ups!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Thank you for the excellent answer. I have used the "/r"
option frequently but have never seen any errors on the
last pass (open space). The drives worked a lot better
afterwards. This explains it.

It is also nice to know that (S)ATA's are automatically
swapping out bad sectors.

Not really, no.

If your HD's dying, do you want to know that early, when the first bad
sector comes to light, or when it dies and eats your data?

The fact that the drive "worked a lot better afterwards" suggests that
the process did indeed "fix" bad sectors. That there were bad sectors
to be found, is reason to immediately evacuate your data and get off
that HD. If ChkDsk "fixed" (i.e. covered up) bad sectors and did not
tell you it did so, then that's reason enough to not trust ChkDsk.

Think about it - if you ever see a disk error, it means:
1) The HD's firmware defect management couldn't cover it up
2) The NTFS drivers couldn't cover it up

Both (1) and (2) work in the same way, but at different levels of
awareness. (1) works within the HD itself, and is invisible to the
OS; your only window into the process is S.M.A.R.T. records, that only
a detailled S.M.A.R.T. reporter will show you (many HD vendor's tools
will just show you a glib "S.M.A.R.T. says the HD's OK").

In contrast, (2) is - or should be - visible to the OS; you'd expect
bad clusters to be marked out of use within the file system, and you'd
hope that ChkDsk (or AutoChk) would log the details of this; not just
new ones, but count of existing ones. However, you may find there's
no way to get the OS to show you this info.

Now it may be impossible to switch off the HD's own firmware defect
management. If so, then whenever NTFS's driver code, or a surface
scan via ChkDsk /r, "sticks" on a failing sector, the firmware itself
is probably trying to hide it. Chances are these two competing
processes will tangle up, causing a long delay that looks like a hang.

Think about it; let's say NTFS tries to read the sector 100 times, and
the firmware tries 100 times, too. Each time NTFS tries, this causes
the firmware to try 100 times, making it 10 000 times in all, but
here's the thing; a successful read is 100 times more likely to happen
while the firmware's retrying, than when the NTFS is retrying, unless
the sector is so dead that all the retries in the world can't help.

Both processes try to do the same thing; read the data out of the
dying sector, verify the data's OK via an integrity check (CRC or
something), and if it's OK, write this data somewhere else that
doesn't suck. But a bit pun might pass CRC with bad data, and what
happens if the data can't be read at all? Just copy nothing to the
new place, swap the pointers, and hope no-one notices?

If the firmware does the remapping, the OS is unaware of it, unless it
gets suspicious about the number of retries or has some sort of
real-time awareness. If it does, it may remap the data itself anyway,
but when the OS does it, it has to amend the volume's file system
structure, and somehow mask the bad sector from re-use.

What this means is you could have a really sick HD that looks "OK" to
ChkDsk or Scandisk, because all defects are hidden by the firmware.
There may be a substantial number of bad sectors remapped at the HD's
firmware level, and not a single adverse finding by ChkDsk or
Scandisk, but because better sectors are used, the HD speeds up.

To me, that's a clear call to head for the lifeboats.

You may want to know what I say that, if these bad sectors are
"fixed". Well, that's because while every HD may have initial
manufacturing defects that are mapped out, *new* defects are
significant. Why would there be new defects? Surface wear? If so,
the internal airspace is probably polluted with abrasive debris; where
the heads go, further wear is likely to follow. Or is it something
awry with the head quality or positioning? Same mileage; if it's gone
from fine to bad, it will progress from bad to worse.

You need to know that, but everything conspires to hide that from you,
so you can stagger on until the HD goes out of warranty.

------------------------ ---- --- -- - - - -

Forget http://cquirke.blogspot.com and check out a
better one at http://topicdrift.blogspot.com instead!

 

[Kerry Brown]

Well said. The first sign of trouble is always the best time to replace a
hard drive. The price of new one is less than the price for the time and
aggravation of replacing it after it's failed.

Kerry