SCANDISK problems  | | | 
March 12th, 2003, 06:08 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Belfast
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Hi there folks. Let me tell ya in my quest to learn more on hardware I recently volunteered to take a look at a friends hard disk. Basically he was having problems booting up so I thought here we go I'll have a look at it for him!!! 
I used a windows boot disk and managed to run the scan disk on the drive however the message SCANDISK encountered a data error while reading the FAT on drive C. This error prevents SCANDISK from fixing this drive.
Does this mean that the hard drive has packed in or would a format C/S do the trick do you think?!!!
I suppose I should mention that prior to this the computer had said it was missing a system.INI file and recommended that I run SCANREG/ RESTORE which I did and it started up ok for a second or two in safe mode then completely hung.....see second paragraph.....what have I done.......  | 
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March 12th, 2003, 07:23 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Central, Me.
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Do you know what Operating System is on that machine?
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March 13th, 2003, 03:09 AM
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#3 (permalink)
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Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Belfast
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Nihongo o benkyoshimasu
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March 13th, 2003, 04:28 AM
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#4 (permalink)
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Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: East Bay Area, California
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Scandisk is a lowerend tool, better than nothing, and better at fixing chunked drives than chkdsk was... 
A better solution would be Norton Utilities, which can fix deeper problems in ME than either of the above-mentioned MS-Native utilities. (BTW, chkdisk was from DOS days...)
There is a *chance* it can be rescued with Norton, though that depends on how corrupt the FAT is.
Best of luck! | |
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March 13th, 2003, 05:23 PM
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#5 (permalink)
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Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Belfast
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Hmm? I tried to format this drive tonight and got this message.
Invalid media or track 0 bad - disk unusable. Format terminated. ....I might be wrong but is this hard drive for want of a better word F%$Ked. 
Last edited by darkheart : March 13th, 2003 at 05:34 PM.
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March 13th, 2003, 05:42 PM
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#6 (permalink)
| | Ultimate Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 1,259
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Obviously you have opted to do a clean reinstall of the OS and programs.
Something I finally started doing (for several reasons) is first zero fill formating the drive to restore it to a "raw" condition then Fdisking and formating. It takes a little longer but it usually corrects the occasional problem like you are encountering.
PM me if you want more on zero fill formatting or some tips to a cleaner sweeter install. good luck | |
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March 13th, 2003, 07:48 PM
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#7 (permalink)
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Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Belfast
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How do you zero fill the drive. Also fdisk tells me the disk is already partitioned how do i use fdisk?? | |
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March 13th, 2003, 07:55 PM
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#8 (permalink)
| | Ultimate Member
Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Central, Me.
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Usually the drive manufacturers software utility will offer this.
What brand is the hard drive? | |
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March 13th, 2003, 08:16 PM
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#9 (permalink)
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Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Belfast
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ExcelStor. Could I get this info from there website | |
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March 13th, 2003, 09:13 PM
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#10 (permalink)
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 5,424
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Well, they don't have any utilities that I can find on their website but you can contact them at techsup@excelstor.com with a question on how to test the drive. How old is it?
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