Security Descriptors

Apologies if this has been covered already.

When I run Norton Disk Doctor in XP Home it keeps reporting security descriptors have errors.So I then schedule Chkdsk /f to run next time windows starts.But when I check the disk with Disk Doctor again it still reports errors in Security Descriptors.Does anyone know how i get Windows XP Chkdsk to correct these problems?

Thanks.

 

Long answer to a short question.

Some general guidelines for running Norton on xp:

• Make sure you have all the security hotfix/patches applies. Most critical are: (and all XP/2K users need these regardless of Norton or not)
  
  Security Update for Microsoft Windows (MS04-011)
  Cumulative Update for Microsoft RPC/DCOM (MS04-012)
  Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express (MS04-013)
  Vulnerability in the Microsoft Jet Database Engine Could Allow Code Execution (MS04-014)
  
  Lack of MS04-011 could be contributing directly to the problem.
• Make sure you are running the latest update to Norton and a version that plays nice with XP (2003 at a minimum).
• Use the XP built-in defrag program rather than the Norton product.

Open a 'DOS' window and type in chkdsk /r and follow the prompts to run it at next boot then reboot. When you are up and running again, type in start~run~eventvwr.msc and check the application log for a winlogon entry and open it to see what the chkdsk found and fixed. There will very possibly be some security descriptor entries. Usually not a problem unless there are huge numbers. And note that in some cases a virus scan with NAV can cause some of them. For instance, here is what my last chkdsk /r scan on an NTFS drive looked like

Code:

Event Type:	Information
Event Source:	Winlogon
Event Category:	None
Event ID:	1001
Date:		6/28/2004
Time:		2:29:14 PM
User:		N/A
Computer:	NEWTVAIL
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 20 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 20 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 20 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

  15350075 KB total disk space.
   4192280 KB in 23836 files.
      6676 KB in 1468 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
     94147 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  11056972 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
   3837518 total allocation units on disk.
   2764243 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
c8 6b 00 00 e3 (and skipped the rest because it's boring - Newt)

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

Run the Norton check and see if it still finds the errors. If not, run a virus scan and then a Norton disk check and see if any were introduced.

 

Thanks for the reply.I'll have a go and let you know how it goes.

 

Well it's academic now.....I got a virus (w32 pinfi or something),anyway my windows explorer had been acting weird for a while so although norton AV repaired the infected files I restored my system from a Ghost backup and my drives are showing OK in Security Descriptors now.