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Excruciating slow Scan Disk

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8 replies

by brifd1

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Windows 98 SE. 128mb RAM (not enough, but the company won't spring for more...I've thought about doing so on my own, except "someday" they'll replace it...but then, this PC is riddled with registry errors, too, so that gives you an idea of the disinterest here along with the OS I'm running...).
Running ScanDisk is excruciatingly slow. I probably should re-boot before I run it, as even when I have everything closed, I still get that message about ScanDisk having to restart 10 times and do you want to continue to receive this warning. How do I prevent this warning? I did find a batch file that will automatically run the program, so maybe I'll try that overnight, of course after I click "No" the above-mentioned warning.

8 replies

by p.j.hutchison

You need to shutdown background services before running scandisk such as Antivirus software and so on.

Ideally, boot into Safe Mode and run Scandisk and it shown run uninterupted.

by aquaris

Yep i agree.....

Run these Utilities... ( scandisk, defrag...)

In SAFE mode....for Best results...

PS at boot time press... F8 and then...

choose the SAFe Mode option...

hope it helps...

by blackcurrant

Anoth option is boot to Command Prompt Only. Then type:

scandisk

and it should run fine. Although booting into Safe Mode often allows scandisk to run, it does not always run smoothly.

Do you have IT support there? If so, ask them to perform some routine maintenance. If not, ask the company to at least fork out for some diagnostic/repair utilities such as Norton Utilities. A little money now may save them much more in the future.

by brifd1

How do you shut down background services--are you speaking about msconfig?

Anyway, I was able to run ScanDisk successfully, albeit it took over 1 hour(!) from choice #5, the DOS prompt (#6, DOS prompt in Safe mode wouldn't work due to there not being HIMEM.SYS obvious). Since the Disk Defrag needed Windows to run, I restarted using choice 3, Safe Mode. That process went relatively quickly, and it looked like the HD really needed it.
Tech "support" here really isn't, so you're basically flying solo. Thanks for your help, trio.

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