SCANDISK : prompt at boot & surface scan

[Pyromidion]

im running 98se, and its found bad sectors on one of my drives. every time i boot up, i have to exit out of "you have bad sectors, lets run scandisk" and does a surface scan. i would have no problems letting it go, xcept the fact that its not 'autofix errors'. i vaugly remember (?) a way to have it leave me alone, like a file somewhere, cuz it must know somehow....

-john

 

[morkinva]

why can't you scandisk it from within windows -- START - run SCANDISK, checkoff the option 'automatically fix errors'

However, it you want to disable it, START - run MSCONFIG - GENERAL tab - ADVANCED - check DISABLE SCANDISK AFTER BAD SHUTDOWN

 

[redbeard1]

The only way I way I know to fix the problem of bad sector scandisk issue is to let it run the surface scan. I usually let in run over night so it doesn't prevent me from using the system.

I've run into this a few times before, and never found where windows is storing the info that it has to run the surface scan. I had even ghosted a drive and scandisk still had to run on the new drive, because where ever that info is located was tranferred over in the drive clone.

Is this file(?) the same one that knows if windows was shutdown properly and whether or not it wants to go into safe mode or run scandisk?

 

[Pyromidion]

morkinva - the windows version will lock up after about 10 minutes, and its not a bad shutdown really, its more of a 'all the time' even if shutdown properly
redbeard1- i wouldnt have a problem letting it go over night, but it wont auto fix errors, leaving a 'would you like to fix' msg box and still be at the VERY beginning of the SS. as for the file, how does the computer know to harrass me every time i boot?

-john

 

[redbeard1]

After the first couple of found errors, I thought it prompts you if you want to fix them automatically. It's been a while though, so I could be wrong.

If nothing else, use the F8 key on start up to get to the boot menu, and then choose command prompt and run scandisk with these switches:
/surface /autofix

This will run it without you having to be there.

A concern I have is that once a drive starts to make bad sectors, it usually makes more. Unless they are "software" bad spots from windows crashes, real physical bad spots on a drive is a bad thing. Some of the hard drive makers diagnostics can test for bad sectors and remove them so windows doesn't use them again. But you will still need to run scandisk to make windows happy. If they are soft errors, a full format usually will clean them up. I'd be considering a new drive if possible, and then after everything is copied over, running the drive diagnostics on the old drive, and then trying to rma the drive.