Scandisk - Slllloooooowwwww?

Here's one for you Good people, can you help pull Cochise out of the mire again.

When I run Scandisk, which I normally do quite often, it generally takes about an hour and fifty minutes or thereabouts.

But now all of a sudden it takes 6 Hours? I've tried it in Safe Mode and it gets to around 7.000 clusters and then starts over again!! my disk has 1,833,552 clusters to go at.

Any ideas please.

TIA, Cochise.

 

ah and you are running win98?

I think when I ran that stuff on Win98 if I left it alone and the screen saver was trying to kick in (or any other automatic process) it would cause it to restart over and over for hours on end... If ya don't have anything like that going on then you'll hafta wait till someone who knows more shows up in your thread

 

Yup, I think it is what Detox mentioned. You should try to disable the screensaver and also use Ctrl+Alt+Del to stop all processes except Explorer and Systray.

Alternatively, you can boot into Safe Mode and run scandisk from there.

HTH,

Dan

 

Hi Detox,

Thanks for the input mate, No, I don't use Wallpapers or Savers, never seen the point, all that sort of stuff I have set to Never.

Although you might not be far wrong with the "something running" bit but If that's the case were do I look to find the offender.

I know that when I had Diskeeper Lite for Defragging my Scandisk wouldn't run atall, but I discarded that a while ago and as far as I know I don't have it in my System? but could the little devil still be hiding from me somewhere.?

Have you had any success with your hiccup??.

Regards Cochise.

 

Thanks Dan,

If you read my original message in this thread you will find I've done the Safe bit and I don't run screensavers etc., also, as far as I can see, I have no running processes, so I'm at a bit of a loss now as to what to try next but many thanks for your interest in my little query.

Best regards, Cochise.

 

Hi Cochise,

Lol, I did indeed "read" the your initial post but with only one eye open

The only thing I can think of is to boot up into DOS mode (not the command prompt window in Windows) and attempt a full scandisk using the DOS mode of the program. I am unsure of the command-line options that this may require (if any) so you may need to experiment with it a bit.

Sorry I have nothing else to offer you

 

Yeah that's some strange stuff there... I suppose the DOS thing oughta work and if you've been lax with security in the past maybe download a trial version of TDS or something and check for trojans or some other garbage using up processor/memory? Of course; you prolly would have noticed that the computer just seemed "busy" all the time before this.

 

You could try running a 30 day download such as http://www.powerdefrag.com/ (and run a scan and full defrag . This stops all running processes and completes each stage step by step automatically . It stops screen saver starting etc .) Im not suggesting you buy it as Its $40 but see how it flows . You can download the defrag( only) from that site, later after the month, and thats free .
http://www.powerdefrag.com/download/pdc210B2.exe

 

Hello Solar,
Nice to hear from you. I already have Powerdefrag freebie but not the trial version, so I D/Ld it and ran the whole thing, Defrag ran AOK but Scan still just as slow, it used to run at about 4 seconds to the thousand clusters but now it runs at 9 to 10 seconds per thou clusters and when you have 1,833,552 to get through!!! I won't live that long LOL.
My security is right upto date and I run them all everyday, AVG. Spybot S&D, Blaster, Adaware etc., and everything comes up smelling of the proverbial Roses!!
I haven't tried TDS whatever that is, I take it is some kind of Trojan Snuffer eh?

Regards, Cochise.

 

Yup TDS is the local trojan killer - I'd like to get it (along with better AV) but I've got no $$ these days except for my graduate classes...

You're prolly clean.. so my only guess is that maybe the scan is slower because of less virtual memory on the hard drive? Totally uneducated guess and even then that's a LOT slower for something like that...

 

HI all, me again,

D/Ld TDS-3 Professional and ran the whole thing, it went thro' my OS like a dose of salts. No Trojies!! But it come up with this:-
All with the C:\windows\system prefix.
cmd.exe
netstat.exe
drwatson.exe
drwtsn.exe
rundll32.exe
taskman.exe
taskmgr.exe
winlogon.exe
regedt32
netmsg.dll
winsock.dll

TDS says that none of these files exist!?? Is that good or bad Pals.

Best Regards, Cochise.

 

It does that for mine too Cochise. ( TDS3 ), I dont worry about it .
I was looking at a few sites referring to scanning and they were saying that its only necesary to run the scan disk once on thorough (with automatic fix errors) and there after, set it to standard (with automatic fix errors)
This should be real fast there after . Albeit you may need to leave it all nite to run thru a full scandisk on thorough .
You never know it may come right once you have done a thorough scandisk and defrag. You could always do the "thorough scandisk" once a month and the "standard once a week or so . ( and keep searching for a solution lol )
,

 

Hi Cochise,

Here's a thought.
Use StartupSelector to make a backup of all the programs that run during startup, StartupCPL to disable all of them and StartupMotitor to monitor any program registering itself to autorun.
All tools of Mike Lin:
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml
http://www.mlin.net/files/StartupSelector.zip
NOTE:You must allow startupmonitor to autorun at startup!
Then you will have a clean start (less programs running) and monitor if a program registers itself without your knowledge to autorun at startup.
If this does not work then I think that you can set as your shell scandiskw.exe replacing explorer.exe at your system.ini (I know you can do this for defrag) to make things go a little faster (even if the problem persists)

 

TDS will indicate autostart changes too, fortunately, and there is a free tool on their site RegProtection to block the registry for unauthorized changes, there is the AutostartViewer to see all that is actually started or has ability to do so if you didn't set programs not to do so, etc.


I think more of some setting somewhere......
Did you install recently some new software, security patches?
I always do the scandisk/defrag in the safemode as there are elements always on the watch even though the program itself is closed, like the firewall (ZA/ZAPro is famous for that).
So in SafeMode have another look with the taskmanager, close everything unnecessary and look at the scandisk settings: you don't need to have all kinds of files check for timestamps for instance and there are a few more very time consuming settings which are really not needed, all in that column to the right

Degragging in safe mode is much nicer too. Close all the screensavers and temporary the standby mode and energy saving (temporary on never, so when you're done you can put it back)

Your question on Karen's window watcher in the other thread: at least it shows too all that is running including hidden things so you might discover something. It's free anyway.

Let us know how it goes after you looked another time into your scandisk settings!

 

Thanks Jooske and all the good people out there who've been batting their brains out on my account.

Job sorted!!!!" I thought I had fully unistalled Diskeeper Lite......NOT.....it was still waltzing about in my cyberspace.....now gone to that big Rec. Bin in the sky.

Scandisk was trying to compete, no competition against DKL LOL.

Everything back to normal now Thank you, after using Karenware

Many Thanks for all the Help, don't relax tho', I'll probably be back with another disaster LOL.

Regards to All, Cochise.

 

The winme defrag file might help you speed things a bit
http://f3.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/8MNXP7FpzT-Gf7mAsKgZPZQgQBd-wehYH5GhhByhu31-qa0tSfv_sYHFQ28-B5UU6-9nPQB5x6QLCP0T/winme_defrag.zip
You can run it from where you save it.
Made for winme but runs perfectly good on 98

 

>don't relax tho', I'll probably be back with another disaster LOL.

Great! don't hesitate to post them by no means! As we all learn from it, it builds our reference help arsenal and experience. And it's always good feeling when someone is saved from disasters.
BTW: that karenware has some very fine items you'll find usefull; you might like to subscribe on her monthly newsletter in which she gives very handy explanation about her tools helping for which windows things, updates etc. And she writes understandable!

 

Thanks there Mickey the Man,

Would like to have a look at that defrag but your link doesn't work mate, that is unless some other disaster has overtaken me!!

Regards Cochise

 

Cochise,

The Fast defrag application is available here at Wilders, on the downloads page. I use it myself on Win989se, and have found that it speeds up the defrag process by 4 or 5 times, especially once you use it regularly. Well worth a look, though it apparently doesn't work this well for everybody.

dqa

 

Was trying to give you a direct link. But only works for fe hours
File is in this directory http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MickeyTheMan/files/
(you might need to sign in to yahoo to get to it)

 

Thanks for the info men but I give in......Come on, where do you hide the Download page please

TIA, Cochise.

PS. I can't believe my problem was read 190 odd times, I'm honoured and impressed.

 

Have a look here ;

http://www.wilders.org/free_tools.htm

 

Just ran a small experiment with this defrag lark folks.
I D/Ld Fast defrag - Power Defrag and Diskeeper lite again. I first ran my standard Win one and then New and then Power, then I popped up Diskeeper to Analyze and it said "This volume is heavily defragmented (1.16) and should be run as soon as poss.)? Mmmmm! methinks this defrag thing is rather iffy in some respects.

Regards, Cochise.