Chkdsk Issue/questions

[GROND]

So I'm trying to run CHKDSK to fix some issues with my harddrive, but I'm not sure whether its working or not.
I didn't use the command-line method, but rather set it up through the gui.
I restarted, and a message came up that said something like "checking C:\ press any button to abort testing" and then a counter went down to 1 and stopped.
After this, the message stayed on the screen for 10-15 minutes, before the monitor shut off.
That is all that has happened. No other activity can be descried.

Is checkdisk running? Should I just wait it out, or should I try and run it elsewise?

Keep in mind that I'm not a techie, and don't plan on being one, so I don't really know what I'm doing.

Thanks

 

[karlsnooks]

Grond,
Welcome to Seven Forums.

Did your computer turn off?

Does your computer have a little led light that flashes whenever there is disk activity?

If yes, then is the light flashing?

 

[kucing13]

i believe if you have partition on your harddrive, you can repair other partition except windows c partition. This can be done without having to reboot using command line

chkdsk (drive letter) : /f

 

[karlsnooks]

So I'm trying to run CHKDSK to fix some issues with my harddrive, but I'm not sure whether its working or not.
I didn't use the command-line method, but rather set it up through the gui.
I restarted, and a message came up that said something like "checking C:\ press any button to abort testing" and then a counter went down to 1 and stopped.
After this, the message stayed on the screen for 10-15 minutes, before the monitor shut off.
That is all that has happened. No other activity can be descried.

Is checkdisk running? Should I just wait it out, or should I try and run it elsewise?

Keep in mind that I'm not a techie, and don't plan on being one, so I don't really know what I'm doing.

Thanks

Grond,
This doesn't directly answer your question, but here are a few links which may be of interest to you:

Hard drive diagnostics and utilities Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
latest diagnostic software and utilities from the manufacturer of your hard drive(s).



Conner
Fujitsu
Hitachi
IBM
Maxtor
Quantum
Samsung
Seagate
Toshiba
Western Digital


Hitachi Drive Fitness Testhttp://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/downloads/dft32_v416_b00.iso
tests SCSI, IDE and SATA drives without overwriting data

 

[Digerati]

You did not say how big your HD is but understand chkdsk can take MANY hours, even more than a full day to complete on large drives. You should start it, and walk away until done.

 

[kucing13]

yes. you should fill your system specs so it's easy for us to help you

 

[gregrocker]

If you cued up ChkDsk in the your system drive's Properties>Tools, it should restart to a black screen and show progress of the five stages of chkdsk. Not always exactly accurate in it's countdown, but it should show progress.

Anything less makes the HD suspect so use the link Karl provided above to download and burn to CD your HD maker's diag/repair utility to run full booted scan. This can salvage a failing HD, or let you know how serious the fail is.

 

[HMonk]

Are you launching chkdsk from an elevated (admin) cmd prompt?

Monk

 

[GROND]

My hard drive is a 1.5tb Seagate Barracuda, so I could see how chkdsk would take a while, although all of the discussion and direction I could find on chkdsk showed that there was a display of the process as it happened.

I was, due to whatever issue was occurring, unable to boot to windows but had, just before the issue arose, scheduled chkdsk to run on my next reboot so it automatically ran the (one miraculous) time it managed to make it that far along the boot process. I don't know how to use the command prompt and don't have too much interest in learning.

I did manage to solve the issue, however, by buying a cheaper second internal hard drive, installing windows on it, and performing a full reformat of the troublesome hard drive from there.

Thanks for the responses.
GROND

 

[karlsnooks]

Grond,
I'm glad to hear that you exercised a solution.

Performing a Check Disk or a Defragmentation on a disk of that size will take a very long time compared to many operations.

I recommend that you use the appropriate disk test program from the manufacturer of your 1.5 TB disk to make sure it is 100% in order.

Why? Because interrupting a Check Disk operation can cause problems.

Unless you need that 1.5 TB as one humongous partition, then I suggest you use Disk Management to create several partitions in that drive. A 500 GB partition will defrag and check disk in a tolerable amount of time although you can still be looking at 4 hours.

to run Disk Management:
WIN key | type DISKMGMT.MSC | Enter key

 

[GROND]

That sounds like a great idea karlsnooks.
I had to interrupt the chkdsk operation because it seemed to be going nowhere and I needed my comp to be up and running quickly for my job, but it seemed like a bad move when I did it.

I ran a hard reformat of the whole 1.5tb drive and I haven't experienced problems yet, although I should try your partition idea, as it sounds the safest.
When I partition a drive, I can reformat a troublesome partition without erasing my data on other partitions of the same disk, correct?

GROND

 

[karlsnooks]

Grond,

Using the Snipping Tool, take a snapshot of the output of DISKMGMT.MSC.

Attach the resulting png file to your next post.

Let us know which disks and/or partitions you want to change.

Basically, all should work fine but I just want to make sure that I understand precisely what you want to partition.

 

[kucing13]

That sounds like a great idea karlsnooks.
I had to interrupt the chkdsk operation because it seemed to be going nowhere and I needed my comp to be up and running quickly for my job, but it seemed like a bad move when I did it.

I ran a hard reformat of the whole 1.5tb drive and I haven't experienced problems yet, although I should try your partition idea, as it sounds the safest.
When I partition a drive, I can reformat a troublesome partition without erasing my data on other partitions of the same disk, correct?

GROND

correct. Doing partition is a good way for a large HDD. and you can format or repair any troublesome partition without affecting others

on my pc i divide my HDD into 5 partition

C(SYSTEM)-windows,program files
D(MEDIA)-for any movies,videos,music videos,song,mp3 etc
E(IMAGES)-pictures,photoshop work,wallpapers etc
F(STUFF)-works stuff,documents(as a replacement for my document)
G(GAMES)-for games installation and game installers

 

[HMonk]

@GROND

A suggestion: based on your travails over the last several days, create and religiously follow a backup plan. The following is a succinct outline; I urge you to research the what, where, when, why, and hows.

Create a small OS-only partition on one HDD. Place ONLY the OS and everyday apps (e.g. utilities) on that partition. How small? Depends on the number/size of the apps you intend to use. I have a 100GB OS partition (260+ apps). Why do this? It is primarily the OS partition that becomes corrupt: keep it small (it backs up quickly), back it up often (keeps the backup current).

Depending on the variety of the data, create a second/third partition and distribute your docs, MP3s, JPEGS, Games, etc., over them. Why? Keeps them small (avoids lengthy backups as you back up only partitions that change - if it's all on one partition, you back it up whether it's changed or not). For example, I have a partition for games that I rarely backup since it does not change except when I add a game. You can get proprietary apps that can backup individual files/directories but those mention herein do not do so. Regardless, I find it easier/quicker to back up an entire small partition rather than search through it and select individual files/directories that have changed.

Finally, distribute your backup files between the two HDDs. Why? You want to store the data on magnetic media (not optical which degrades or is subject to undisclosed read-write errors) So, whatever is on HDD 0 you back up and store on HDD 1; what is on HDD 1 you backup and store on HDD 0). By so doing you always have two copies of your data on separate HDDs and it is unlikely that both HDDs will brick at the same time. However, if you have extraordinarily important data, store that externally as well (now you have three copies) on a flash drive or external HDD.

Also, everyone has their opinion about image backup apps. Since you have a Seagate HDD, you can go to Seagate and DL the free Discwizard which is built on the Acrionis platform (it's Acronis with some features disabled) It creates reasonable sized (compressed) backups very quickly.

Monk