XP and Error Checking

[Phrank]

I was told today that you do not need to ever do error
checking on a drive that is set up in the NTFS file system.

Is that true? Can anyone shed light on this for me? Not
sure of the technology behind that.

If so why does Microsoft have it on the tools tab of the
drives in XP? Is it just there in case you are running
Fat32?

 

[John Barnett MVP]

There should be no reason why you need to regularly check an ntfs drive
because the ntfs file system logs all of its activities. Should the system
crash the ntfs system just checks its log to repair any file damage.
However, chkdsk doesn't only check the file system it also scans the hard
drive for error and bad sectors. So although what you have been told is
technically true even I periodically use chkdsk to ensure my hard drive
doesn't have any bad sectors. Obviously, if you are running a fat file
system then you have to reply on chkdsk to check for errors.

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:49:41 -0700, "Phrank"

I was told today that you do not need to ever do error
checking on a drive that is set up in the NTFS file system.

Is that true?

No.

The party line is "NTFS is sooo reliable it never needs fixing".

The reality is that NTFS "fixes" itself in the background, without
telling you what it's doing:
- interrupted metadata changes are rolled back
- failing sectors are remapped on the fly (as HD firmware does)

The rest of file system inconsistencies are "fixed" automatically on
startup by AutoChk, just as Win9x would have done with auto-Scandisk.

The difference is that while Win9x allows you to set auto-Scandisk to
prompt you on errors (so you can back out if you don't trust
Scandisk's idea of a "fix"), AutoChk just barges on without any means
of user control other than Esc (if user is quick enough).

If so why does Microsoft have it on the tools tab of the
drives in XP? Is it just there in case you are running
Fat32?

Errors that are not merely a matter of interrupted transactions, or
arise without setting flags that trigger AutoChk, would have to be
looked for explicitly by ChkDsk. Hence the UI to do that.

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

Who is General Failure and
why is he reading my disk?