Scandisk gone mad??

Running Win 98 (first edition). Today when I ran scandisk, I got many (more than 3 dozen) alerts that some file or folder, or the information about it, is damaged etc. etc. For each one I clicked to repair the damage. But scandisk won't finish - I get the messge that something has written to the disk and scandisk needs to restart after it's about halfway through. On the restart, all the same errors show up and the process repeats. I ran through it about a dozen times before just giving up.

Any ideas what could be causing this or how to fix it? The pc and all my programs seem to be running OK.

 

Scandisk and defrag
Programs running in the Background stop them.
Turn off screen saver.
Do Ctrl-Alt-Del and close all but explorer and try again.
Upon completion, suggest run defragment.

It can run in Safe Mode also.
Reboot and on startup hold the Control key [F8 if control does not work]
This will bring up the Boot menu
Arrow down [mouse does not work here] to 3. Safe Mode, hit enter
and you will boot to Safe Mode. [Yes it will look funny, very basic here]
[Screen saver should already be turned off] and run scandisk.
Upon completion you can run defragment also. It would be a good Idea as
you are already there.

Upon completion reboot to start you av and other programs

IN DOS
Scandisk can be run in dos also.
Defrag can not
Do the same as safe mode until you get to the startup menu.
Select 5. Command and hit enter.
and you will boot to the C:\ prompt.
Type in scandisk ,
looks like this
C:\scandisk
hit enter
when finish at the C:\ type win hit enter
or for a faster reboot do a Ctrl-Alt-Delete

You can go Start, Run [type in]scandisk.ini and hit OK
Scroll down to this line;
NumPasses = 1 ; 1 through 65,535 (anything over 10 is slow)
and change it to this;

NumPasses = 5 ; 1 through 65,535 (anything over 10 is slow)
after the change Go to File and select SAVE. Not SaveAS that will not work.

Since you do not have Autofix selected {smart move on your part} take notes on the errors and if you do not know what to do, you can select IGNORE then research the errors to find out what to do.

Understanding ScanDisk should be of assistance.

 

EDIT
Opps started to type answer and went to get coffee and answer phone.

Execellent post by Train.

Both should work well. But do these cleanups 1st if posible.
END EDIT
=============================================
Do this 1st.

For after a successful scan, D/L the WinME defrager and replace the 98 drefrag with it.
Get it here: http://www.boogiejack.com/software/winmedefrag.zip

Cleanup (why scan junk, save the time and headache by deleting them first and if some actually have a problem why fix the junk)

These are for 95 98 only!

Boot to DOS (not shutdown to DOS). While booting hit F8 to startup menu. Chose "command prompt only ".

Type these commands exactly hit enter at the end (do not type the notes that are in parenthesis like this).

del c:\*.swp (may get file not found, is ok)

del c:\windows\*.swp

deltree /y c:\windows\shelli*.*

deltree /y c:\windows\temp\*.*

deltree /y c:\windows\tempor~1\*.*

deltree /y c:\windows\history\*.*

deltree /y c:\windows\spool\printers\*.*

deltree /y c:\windows\taskmon.exe

deltree /y c:\windows\applog
____________________________________________
Then boot to safe mode and do the following

Configure CleanMgr to max settings
Go to Start-Run and type

cleanmgr /sageset:1
The above need only be ran once (these settings will be remembered as the default until another sageset is ran).

It will present a menu select all except compress, then

Go to Start-Run and type

cleanmgr /sagerun:1
As long as /sageset above has been ran on this computer from now on the /sagerun is the only thing that needs to run.

NOW do the scan and defrag WHILE IN SAFE MODE!

mike

 

deltree /y c:\windows\tempor~1\*.*

that may just be

Deltree /y C:\windows\Locals~1\Tempor~1 to get it. Have to verify where your temp internet folder is first. I have had just one or the other and both with both working. 98SE is the OS here. But a watchout thing.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I may yet try them! I don't use IE at all, or Windows defrag, so some of the folders suggested to delete I don't have or they are empty.

What I have done is run scandisk.exe in DOS mode, and it found no errors at all. The errors only show up when I run scandskw.exe from Windows. They are the same error every time - here's an example:

"The 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\BKUPDLLS' folder is damaged.

The entries that identify this folder and the folder it is in are missing or damaged. This may prevent you from using the folder or its contents. ScanDisk repairs the error by correcting these entries. "

 

10-4 Tain

If using profiles on 9x, rare but it is possible.

Don't remember but I think all the items could be in local, do you know for sure?

If not I will setup one on a 98 and see, so that I can edit my boilerplate cut/paste for this cleanup to reflect both.

Thanks for reminding me of this.

Mike

 

quote
"I may yet try them! I don't use IE at all, or Windows defrag, "
unquote.

these are not all about IE

I suggest you do the proceedures we set forth

And do I understand you have 98 and have never defraged?

Well????????

Ok!

Mike

 

Forgot to say in my last post!

Since the dos scandisk suceeded this normally indicates but not always, a Long Filename problem.

It requires a windows scandisk to fix these. Another reason to scandisk in safe mode.

Mike

 

No profiles, just the crazy way it installs. I sure got a surprise when I found this out. Seems to be a 98SE item, but . . . I would admit to seeing that one time in 98. That Locals. . . . ?
It is complete. The Deltree /y C:\windows\Locals~1\Tempor~1 is a copy/paste from my autoexec.bat. Helps to keep things tidy

 

10-4 Tran

Now that you mention it.

I have never seen windows itself do this except in profiles.

But now I remember that I have seen some programs that do it when you install them.

Long ago and don't remember what programs but do remember being surprised as to why when it did it. Also rememer the program never seemed to use it in my case.

Mike

 

"The 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\BKUPDLLS' folder is damaged.

Try changing the Numberpasses in scandisk.ini from 1 to 5 and see if that helps.
Go start, run [type in]scandisk.ini, hit ok
scroll down to

NumPasses = 1 ; 1 through 65,535 (anything over 10 is slow)

to

NumPasses = 5 ; 1 through 65,535 (anything over 10 is slow)
After changing it go to File and select SAVE not SaveAS
I have had that work in the past. Fact is 5 is what I use all the time.

 

Mike
Could be M$ Words and works. I have them installed. But, something to look out for!

 

mflynn:

I didn't say I never defrag, only that I don't use Windows defrag. I use Diskeeper.

 

Well that is good, did you do the steps we reccomended or not?

Mike

 

WinMe drfrag is diskeeper 5.0 behind the Windows GUI. Believe me it is much faster than plain old Diskeeper.

How often do you defrag? Might want to shorten the intervals between defrag. But if you do it daily, forget the above.

 

Before discovering Diskeeper, I was using ME defrag. I defrag every 2 or 3 days, and Diskeeper is a LOT faster than ME ever was for me.

 

scandisk?

mike

 

Train:

A few months ago you posted this info about Diskeeper and WinMe defrag, and you received a response from a Diskeeper tech who essentially said, "no it isn't "

I haven't found any evidence that confirms that it is either. It is the WinXp defrag that was designed by MS and written by the Diskeeper people.

md2lgyk:

As for the Scandisk error.

Rename the folder to BKUPDLLSold
Create a new folder call BKUPDLLS
Copy all the files from BKUPDLLSold to BKUPDLLS
Delete the BKDLLSold folder
Run Scandisk again.

The error is a directory/structure type error. Changing the NumPasses only affects how many times a sector is checked during a Surface scan. (although, I guess if you let Scandisk "poke" a bit longer, it may find that BKUPDLLS is sitting across a bad sector!)

Also, Diskeeper is initially faster for a couple of basis reasons, other than any design differences.
1. It doesn't defrag free space
2. It doesn't use the Applog files to Optimize Program startups (if you are running Taskmon). So, if you are using Diskeeper, ensure that Taskmon is unselected and all files in \Applog deleted.

 

Well, all the reference to what I post are long gone. Both at VDR and at diskeeper.

 

Whitphil: Thanks for the suggestion. However, the error in BKUPDLLS that scandisk is reporting is just the first of 56 such errors it's finding. I can't see going through what you suggest for all of them. Nor can I believe that that much is truly wrong when the computers seems to run just fine.