Norton Utilities 2002 Disk Doctor won't work on Win2K

[Goi]

Hi guys...
I don't know if this is a specific problem with NU2002 and Win2K, but the included DiskDoctor application won't run if I check the "Fix Errors" box. Whenever I do, it gives the following error message:


<< The operating system, or another process, currently has exclusive access to the drive, or some of its files.
Norton Disk Doctor cannot continue with a repair under these conditions.
A repair can be scheduled to occur the next time you restart the system.
Norton Disk Doctor can still diagnose this drive if "Fix errors" is unchecked.

Would you like to schedule a repair? >>



What's the use of scanning if I can't fix the problems? This happens even after a fresh reboot or startup, and has happened in 3 different computers, all with NU2002 and Win2K SP2, and logged in as Administrator. It happens even after a clean Win2K and NU2002 installation, so I'm inclined to believe that its the OS doing something to the HDD...

This problem didn't occur when I used NU2001 and Win98SE...

 

[bsobel]

Goi, NU and 2k are acting exactly as designed. Under 2k, we don't do disk repair on live systems. If problems are found during the scan, you can schedule the drive to be rescanned/repaired during the boot process.

In order to perform repairs (under NT/2k/xp), we need to take the volume offline. Thats never going to happen if its your boot volume (so say you had a data drive d:, there is a better chance we could take it offline and do the repairs without rebooting)

I know this is different than the 9x/ME behaviour, but it all goes to the OS design. As I'm sure you've seen, 2k is MUCH more stable than the 9x versions, but this is one of those tradeoffs for stability.

Bill

 

[Bglad]

All true, but when NU runs at boot, all it does is run CHKDSK. We could have done that ourselves. NU 2002 is a very flawed product. In addition, speed disk uses the Windows defragmentor with their own interface and Ghost is not fully compatible with NTFS.

Looks to me like Symantec wasn't on the ball and needed to release a product for XP. The marketing department has done cover up job that borders on fraud if you ask me. Symantec used to make some good products. The 2002 suite is not one of them if you are using 2k/XP. Total waste of my money and I spent enough to make me swear off Symantec forevermore.

 

[bsobel]

Nice to see you again too

> All true, but when NU runs at boot, all it does is run CHKDSK. We could have done that ourselves.

Correct, our work (and our changes) are included in the OS for the boot time repairs. The surface scanning and other features aren't part of the OS and does require the NU product to do.

> speed disk uses the Windows defragmentor with their own interface and

This one is blatantly false. We have huge advantages over the native api's (such as moving the paging and mft). We are definately NOT using the windows native interfaces (unless you tell us to do so, bypassing our drivers)

> Ghost is not fully compatible with NTFS.

Known issue, you can not write a ghost image out to an NTFS volume in the current version. I beleive that is being addressed now. You can restore an image of an NTFS file system. The consumer version was designed as a Ghost lite (so to speak). Most users use it to image to a cd for backup. In the corporate version, most users are sending images to (or getting them from) a network server. So this limitation isn't as big as it might seem to some people.

> Looks to me like Symantec wasn't on the ball and needed to release a product for XP. The marketing department has done cover up job that borders on fraud if you ask me.

Gee, litte rough? The 2002 line is certified on XP, there where a number of changes/fixes/updates required for XP (fast user switching support is one, for example). All are included in the 2002 products, so I'm not sure why you think thats 'fraud'. Our opinions (obviously) differ on this, drop me a line if you have any specific issues you'd like me to follow up with.

Best,
Bill

 

[Bglad]

Sorry, this was not meant to be a personal attack and my understanding of how it works is surely less than yours. Truth be told I think I knew I was being a little harsh but I wanted to provoke an answer on these issues. I'm a little bitter that I upgraded the OS, bought the 2002 suite and Ghost 2002 and then had to go out and buy Drive Image. Probably not the right way to go about it.

The way I understand it, the only difference in CHKDSK is that surface scanning is enabled. I think I just feel a bit cheated based on the price of the product. This can be achieved in more economical ways. Under Win98, diskdoctor was a much more thorough utility than that offered in windows. Are there other differences that I'm not seeing?

I took my info on how speeddisk works from the Symantec website. It was buried in the help files somewhere. I will try to find it again.

As for Ghost, the website and the box clearly says fully compatable with XP. Since MS strongly suggests the use of NTFS, this will simply not be the case for many users. I use an extra drive in a removeable bay to pop in, backup and then remove for safekeeping. Some have suggested just copying drive to drive but by imaging, I can keep several images at once and roll back further than the last backup if necessary. I have the drive space, I'm not going to give up that option just because Ghost won't do it.

I just don't think Symantec is very clear about the limitations of the product under 2K/XPwithout doing some serious digging into the help files, digging much further than I ever would have done until I bought it and was trying to sort through issues. No, I am not a programmer, just a consumer and I admit, I haven't seen a deluge of opinions like mine around here so I don't know if my understanding is greater leading me to this opinion (not likely) or less leading me to incorrect conclusions.

 

[bsobel]

> Sorry, this was not meant to be a personal attack

No worries, didn't take it as one. We have alot of happy users, but as will all big companies, some unhappy ones too (we do try to swing them back into the happy camp tho). If I got personally offended everytime it wouldn't be pretty

> The way I understand it, the only difference in CHKDSK is that surface scanning is enabled. I think I just feel a bit cheated based on the price of the product. This can be achieved in more economical ways. Under Win98, diskdoctor was a much more thorough utility than that offered in windows. Are there other differences that I'm not seeing?

When MS started with NT, they included alot more of the repair functionality in the os itself. On top, the os and file system (even when running fat) are just much more stable than 9x. Therefore there wasn't much 'extra' for ndd to do. That said, the surface scanning was missing. So we decided to add support for that, but use the MS code (unless we found repairs we could make that it could not). This actually was my call a long time ago (back when it was NU for Windows NT), that decision just has continued to carry forward. If we do find a usefull repair (that MS isn't handling), we would add the specific support for it. It just didn't seem like we should recreate the wheel unless there was some real extra value in doing so.

> I took my info on how speeddisk works from the Symantec website. It was buried in the help files somewhere. I will try to find it again.

Let me know when you find it, I can't really add much until I see it.

> As for Ghost, the website and the box clearly says fully compatable with XP. Since MS strongly suggests the use of NTFS, this will simply not be the case for many users. I use an extra drive in a removeable bay to pop in, backup and then remove for safekeeping. Some have suggested just copying drive to drive but by imaging, I can keep several images at once and roll back further than the last backup if necessary. I have the drive space, I'm not going to give up that option just because Ghost won't do it.

I'm agreeing it's a limitation, and your not the first person here and Anandtech to complain that it's not well explained. I have passed that info onto the consumer group who will have a chance to fix that in the next go around (but, I think the version of Ghost they will be picking up for 2003 has the NTFS write support added, along with a bunch of other cool stuff). That group (Ghost) is in New Zealand, but I talk to them failry often. I'll double check the timeframe for that release.

Not a perfect solution, but if your removable is just for backup (and maybe swap file, I saw another post you made), that drive could format as FAT32. You definately want your main drives NTFS, but if it's just for those two items, FAT would mask the issue (for now).

Cheers,
Bill


I just don't think Symantec is very clear about the limitations of the product under 2K/XPwithout doing some serious digging into the help files, digging much further than I ever would have done until I bought it and was trying to sort through issues. No, I am not a programmer, just a consumer and I admit, I haven't seen a deluge of opinions like mine around here so I don't know if my understanding is greater leading me to this opinion (not likely) or less leading me to incorrect conclusions.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Why did NU 2002 remove the registry file cleaner along with all the other dll, etc cleaners that NU 2001 had?
And are we going to have to buy a new version of Ghost when you guys fix the no image to NTFS disks problem or are you going to let us liveupdate it?

 

[Bglad]

I will look for the speeddisk info when I get some time to just sit and surf.

Well my reason for switching from Ghost was twofold. I think we spoke when I was having difficulty with CRC errors in Ghost. At one point I had two Ghost images, had a problem, and almost couldn't get either of the images to restore. I always run the image check after creating an image, but it seems errors were showing up when i tried to restore that had not been caught in the check. There was no way to know this until it was too late. This was of course an unacceptable risk and one that I couldn't find a solution for. Driveimage seems to do a more thorough job of verifying the image. Although if you check all the verification options, it adds quite a bit of time to the copy process, my peace of mind makes it well worth the time. Part of my problem is I'm simply afraid to use Ghost now.

So tell me something else... what was the thought process behind making the user enter the serial # every time when the serial is right there in the splash screen. That won't stop any illegal use. Why did they do this?

 

[Goi]

Thanks for all the posts. Bill, do you work for MS or Symantec? From your posts you keep referring to them as "we" or "us", but its unclear to me which one you're referring to.

Anyway, I'm trying to do a disk repair for all my 4 partitions. The problem with bootup repairs is that I'm running my system 24/7 and don't usually bootup. Of course, I could always bootup again and let it do its job but that would be a slight hassle.

From what you say, it seems like NDD is pretty much redundant, since I don't do surface scanning anyway(I just do the repairs). Whenever I bootup and Windows detects something wrong it will do its own disk repair, which I assume is what NDD does now?

Also, what's the deal with Speeddisk and Defrag...? Is there any difference? Speeddisk used to be much faster than defrag but I've noticed that the one in NU2002 is quite a bit slower than before.

 

[bsobel]

Goi, sorry, I work for Symantec. While I do something else now, at one point at was the architect on the NU line I know why we made those decisions I mentioned.
You mention Speeddisk and Defrag, were you asking about the 9x versions vs the NT versions? What the conceptually are doing is similar, the work they do is much different do to the different architecture. Let me know if I understood your question and I'll elaborate more.

Bglad, as for the serial number, I don't know why it was done that way.

GrumpyMan, The registry cleaner question is something I'll ask. I recall there was some issues regarding what we supported on 9x vs the NT platform, but I don't recall the details. I'll follow up. As for Ghost/NTFS, I don't believe the NTFS write from dos mode is considered a bug, so it would likely be in the next full release of the product. You didn't mention if you had the entire product or had it from SystemWorks. Short answer tho, I don't believe you'll see an liveupdate to add that functionality. I'll double check and let you know if I'm wrong tho.

Bill

 

[Goi]

I'm asking about the Win2K version of Speeddisk and defrag in NU2002. Someone else mentioned that SD in NU2002 is now just a re-packaged Defrag, is that true? If not, what difference is there? There used to be a huge advantage in speed of defragmentation in favor of SD, but SD in NU2002 under Win2K is a lot slower now than SD in NU2002 under Win98SE. I imagine this could be an OS issue, but then again I'm still using FAT32 rather than NTFS.

 

[bsobel]

> SD in NU2002 is now just a re-packaged Defrag, is that true

No SD does signifigantly more than the built in defragger (such as moving the paging and mft files online without requiring a reboot (like the compeition does)). Defragging under the NT platform is a different beast than under 9x. Unlike 9x where you had to take exclusive drive locks and the system wasn't really usable while it ran, I recommend you set SD on 2k/XP to run in the background during idle time and let it do it's work whenever you aren't. It will take abit for the 'first' defrag to happen, the SD just keeps the drive in shape automatically from that point on. No real need to run it and 'watch it' after that.

Bill

 

[Goi]

Well, the problem with that is that I have rc5 running so the system is never idle

 

[randypj]

NO BILL......say it ain't so.....you weren't the lead architect on NU 3.*??????

Probably the only version of NU/NAV that I haven't bought....fortunately.

I've seen some of your other posts in the past, and always find them informative. Thanks for the posts. Very interesting.

Some thoughts/questions:

1. I've always gone the upgrade path with Symantec products in the past. It has been a relatively inexpensive way to keep up, going from DOS, W95a, W95b, W98SE, W2K all without a fresh install of the OS. I'm now on W2K/FAT32/FAT16, and SystemWorks 2002, w/o Ghost, cause I already have DI.

2. I also would've liked to have a RegCleaner for W2K.....but, others say M$ft's does just fine on W2K, inspite of what M$ft says.

3. It seems that with each version of SW/NAV/NU, the interface gets prettier, but less user friendly? 2002 is XP pretty, but sure isn't user friendly. I thought I'd never find how to setup sequential partition defrags. Maybe it was just too easy.

4. After it automatically runs it's preset weekly system scan, and finds errors in shortcuts, etc., can I not choose to fix item by item? It seems that it is all or nothing. Actually, I haven't spent alot of time with it, so I probably am just missing some settings.

5. Are there no longer any NU or NAV newsgroups? Maybe not after the NU 3.0 thrashing? I do miss wandering around trying to find answers and pointers.

6. I will gladly trade a few reboots for the stability of W2K over W9x. It is only when SW forces me to reboot, that I appreciate how stable W2K is. W9x, I would've rebooted maybe a couple times a day, cuz system resources were running low. And, didn't W9x require reboots on most every install/upgrade of anything? I'm still amazed at how seamless my W98SE to W2K upgrade was.

7. Besides......NU's SpeedDisk has always been much more entrancing than M$ft defrag.
--Randy