Windows XP's chkdsk vs Windows 98's scandisk

  • Thread starter Thread starter Borgholio
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Borgholio

When checking a hard disk for bad sectors, Chkdsk takes far less time than
Scandisk does. Why is this? Is Chkdsk less thorough than Scandisk?
 
i don't know but i hate XP, i would rather go back to 98. you had more
control over your computer back then, now everything is set up for automatic.
i drive a stick not an automatic and that is by choice, i like my pc the
same.

when i try to run my CHKDSK right now all i get is "The type of file system
is NTFS. WARNING F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only
mode."
 
mickiebon said:
i don't know but i hate XP, i would rather go back to 98. you had more
control over your computer back then, now everything is set up for automatic.
i drive a stick not an automatic and that is by choice, i like my pc the
same.

when i try to run my CHKDSK right now all i get is "The type of file system
is NTFS. WARNING F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only
mode."


:
Click to expand...

Well overall I like XP's stability, but I agree that it's a problem when
Microsoft thinks they know your computing habits better than you do. But
this wasn't a post comparing the two operating systems as a whole, just the
disk-scanning utilities. :)
 
Chkdsk appears to only check for sector errors and or crc errors.
if a more through scan is desired it appears a third party software package
is needed.
So it would appear I agree with you chkdsk is less thorough
 
mickiebon said:
i don't know but i hate XP, i would rather go back to 98. you had more
control over your computer back then, now everything is set up for
automatic.
Click to expand...

You aren't the only one who isn't happy with Microsoft's "Where do we want
you to go... Today?" attitude.
i drive a stick not an automatic and that is by choice, i like my pc the
same.

when i try to run my CHKDSK right now all i get is "The type of file
system
is NTFS. WARNING F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only
mode."
Click to expand...

That's because chkdsk itself is rather limited.

NTFS doesn't need to be checked the same way FAT32 does.

And finally the "F" parameter means "fix errors automatically".

If I remember, chkdsk actually calls another utility. Something like
autochk or some such. Can't remember.


Microsoft has got to make Windows more newbie friendly. And considering how
stupid many computer users are, I hate to say it, but they are right.
They've got to dumb things down enough for the AOL kind of crowd.
 
I haven't noticed any lack of control but why not just
install 98 instead of hating XP?
Click to expand...

Lack of support from Microsoft.

Lack of program support from most programs being sold today.


A lot of software places put in arbitrary checks to make sure it wouldn't
work under Win98 or WinME so they wouldn't have to support those platforms.
It was simply easier for their tech support people if they only dealt with
customers using the same OS.
 
Borgholio said:
When checking a hard disk for bad sectors, Chkdsk takes far less time than
Scandisk does. Why is this? Is Chkdsk less thorough than Scandisk?
Click to expand...

Briefly yes. But Scandisk only works on FAT 32, where it does more
thorough checking, including the count of free space (and it takes time
to assess what that should be) - one of the common faults to develop on
a FAT 32 partition if there is a bad shut down
 
Alex said:
Borgholio wrote:




Briefly yes. But Scandisk only works on FAT 32, where it does more
thorough checking, including the count of free space (and it takes time
to assess what that should be) - one of the common faults to develop on
a FAT 32 partition if there is a bad shut down
Click to expand...

I see, so an inaccurate report of free space is not an issue with NTFS? If
I wanted to do a thorough scan with Windows XP, what would be a good
third-party program that could do this?
 
It doesn't need it. It checks it's own consistancy as it works and maintains data to fix it's structures at the moment they become wonky. You never need to run chkdsk. If it needs or might need it it will run without your help.

This occurs if it detects a bad sector or if XP crashed (as it can't be sure what has happened).

Remember both scandisk and chkdsk will quite cheerfully throw away all your data to make sure the file system is correct. But scandisk will ask if it's ok, chkdsk won't. You should not run chkdsk without doing a backup of your data.
 
David said:
It doesn't need it. It checks it's own consistancy as it works and
maintains data to fix it's structures at the moment they become wonky.
You never need to run chkdsk. If it needs or might need it it will run
without your help.

This occurs if it detects a bad sector or if XP crashed (as it can't be
sure what has happened).

Remember both scandisk and chkdsk will quite cheerfully throw away all
your data to make sure the file system is correct. But scandisk will ask
if it's ok, chkdsk won't. You should not run chkdsk without doing a
backup of your data.
Click to expand...

Ok so in short, the very nature of NTFS means that developing a bad sector
no longer means losing the data on that sector?
 
No not at all. But both 9x and NT know if a sector is bad (they get an error message) so the schedule a scandisk/chkdsk. For Scandisk on Fat32 it's
(from my scandisk reference www.mvps.org/serenitymacros/winprogs.html)
When Windows detects that it hasn't shut down properly it sets the bit 4 of byte 8 of the FAT, if it detects a disk error it sets bit 3. Win.com will run Scandisk at the next boot.

NT does something similar for NTFS.

But your hard drive will tell windows if it's about to fail. Look in event viewer and it will say hard disk about to fail, that's the SMART thingo, the electronics in a drive, which always measures access times (and other things) on a disk. I'm not sure of NT but Scandisk will also measure access times and relocate data before the sector is bad.

For performance reasons FAT32 stored the free diskspace on the hard disk as it takes a few seconds to work out free disk space on the drives FAT32 was designed for and some programs keep asking for what is the free space (explorer for one) so it was calculated once then added to or subtracted from. If you crashed then the value on the disk may be wrong so scandisk recalculates the free diskspace..

Bad sectors are very RARE. A drive usually fails when new. Even Dos could check sectors as it wrote files to disk (though this is turned off by default as it's very slow).

The main danger to your data is a minor disk structure error that chkdsk decides it needs to delete most of your files to make the structure consistant.
 
Borgholio said:
I see, so an inaccurate report of free space is not an issue with NTFS? If
I wanted to do a thorough scan with Windows XP, what would be a good
third-party program that could do this?
Click to expand...

FAT32 has a value maintained in its initial extra data on how much free
space is available - that speeds up a lot of operations that need to
know. But it easily fails to get updated; a major reason for queries
about 'Explorer says I have only 100 MB free when adding up all files,
including hidden says I have 5 GB'. NTFS does not have this value; and
CHKDSK does not (subject to correction) check on it in FAT 32
 
Alex said:
Borgholio wrote:




FAT32 has a value maintained in its initial extra data on how much free
space is available - that speeds up a lot of operations that need to
know. But it easily fails to get updated; a major reason for queries
about 'Explorer says I have only 100 MB free when adding up all files,
including hidden says I have 5 GB'. NTFS does not have this value; and
CHKDSK does not (subject to correction) check on it in FAT 32
Click to expand...

Thanks! And about the disk scan? :)
 
chkdsk vs scandisk

Here I suggest this article comparing chkdsk vs scandisk. These 2 are both windows scanning tools that check and repair file system errors and bad clusters but you'll realize their differences too.
 
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