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You
can save yourself time and effort by automating your
ScanDisk usage, by adding a few command-line switches to the
appropriate Shortcut.
After this, you can simply click the
button and watch ScanDisk do its thing. To do so,
right-click the Start button and choose Open or Explore.
Locate the ScanDisk Shortcut, which lives in your
Windows/Start Menu/Programs/Accessories/System Tools folder.
(To make a shortcut for your desktop, right-click the
ScanDisk icon, drag it to the desktop, and choose either
Copy Here or Create Shortcut(s) Here.) Press Alt+Enter to
open the Properties screen, click the Shortcut tab, then
click at the end of the command line in the Target box. Then
add the appropriate command switches (separated by spaces)
to make ScanDisk perform as you like. Switches are as
follows: For scanning a particular drive, type its letter
followed by a colon (A:, C:,. etc.). For scanning all
(non-networked) drives, don't type any drive letters, just
type /a. For ScanDisk to start and stop without your input,
type /n. Using this switch will not stop ScanDisk from
stopping to report errors; if you don't want the error
information, start ScanDisk and check Automatically Fix
Errors. Let ScanDisk run to get this choice set. To make
ScanDisk run in Preview mode - find the errors but not
fixing them - use /p. Warning: Preview can mislead you into
thinking that the errors have been fixed when in fact they
have not. Your command line might look something like this:
C:\WINDOWS\SCANDSKW.EXE C: D: /N , to make ScanDisk scan
drives C: and D: and automatically exit when finished.
ScanDisk
is a slow and not-so-thorough 16-bit program. Many experts
recommend letting ScanDisk alone and instead purchasing
Norton Utilities or McAfee's (formerly Helix's) Nuts&Bolts
and using their more sophisticated scanning/repairing
utility. However, ScanDisk won't create problems for you,
while these programs sometimes will. My suggestion: try them
out after performing a complete backup, be ready to
uninstall them, and save your receipts.
Win95
OSR2, along with Win 98/ME, has the annoying feature of
automatically running Scandisk after every "nonstandard"
shutdown (i.e. when a program crashes or you "warm-boot" the
system). You may not want this to happen. If not, you'll
have to edit MSDOS.SYS to stop it from "autoscanning." Go
through Windows Explorer and turn off MSDOS.SYS's hidden,
read-only, and system attributes (explained elsewhere on
this page). Open Notepad or another text editor and open
MSDOS.SYS. Search for the [OPTIONS] section and add the line
AUTOSCAN=0. Save the file, reset the attributes, and reboot
your computer. Your Autoscan default setting is 1, which
checks for a bit in the boot drive's Master Boot Record,
which is reset every time Windows shuts down normally. A
"nonstandard" shutdown does not reset the bit, which causes
Scandisk to trigger upon the next bootup of the system. If
you want Scandisk to run every time you boot up,
change the line to read AUTOSCAN=2. Or, do it the easy way:
download TweakUI from Microsoft's PowerToys site at
www.microsoft.com/Windows95/downloads/contents/
WUToys/W95PwrToysSet and let it do the dirty work
(access it through Control Panel and use the Boot tab). This
is useful for the truly paranoid among us, or if your hard
drive is showing signs of going belly-up. Remember, an
unusual shutdown often means trouble, which means that
running Scandisk is a good idea. Win 98 users, you should
have a version of TweakUI on your Windows CD -- look for the
TWEAKUI.INF file. It probably isn't the most recent version,
though.
Infrequently,
ScanDisk refuses to shut down, denying access to the
computer. This is even more annoying when ScanDisk
automatically fires up after an unusual shutdown and denies
you access altogether, even to Safe Mode, without shutting
down ScanDisk before it completes its duties. Again, TweakUI
is the answer. Crank up TweakUI, go through the Boot tab,
check the box that says "Function keys available," and
restart your computer. Press F8 when you get the "Windows is
starting" message and choose Safe Mode. If this still
doesn't work, you'll need to go back into TweakUI and check
the "Always show boot menu" box. You can uncheck this later.
Now restart your computer; you can run both ScanDisk and
Defrag in Safe Mode.
Want
to make a Desktop shortcut to ScanDisk? Just drag&drop the
Start Menu shortcut to the Desktop and select the "Copy
Here" option.
Win
XP users, Microsoft jettisoned the venerable ScanDisk for
you guys. You can either use CHKDSK, which is even older, or
use Microsoft's Error Checking feature. Access this feature
by doing the following: In Windows Explorer, right-click the
drive you want to check, and select Properties from the
context menu. Now select the Tools tab. Under Error
Checking, click "Check Now." If you want the scan to check
the disk sectors or attempt to make repairs, select those
options and click Start. Close Windows Explorer when you're
done.
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