It’s been a long time since I ran ScanDisk and my computer (Win98) would be happy if I did.
The last several times I’ve tried to run ScanDisk, it keeps stopping itself before it gets anywhere . . . and it never gets anywhere. I started it up and went to bed. I got up in the morning and it hadn’t run. It says it stopped itself 10 times because other programs were running and tells me to turn off programs that running. I wasn’t running any other programs, of course. I had closed everything in the tray before starting it. What else do I have to do?!
Try this. Hit ctrl alt del and close everything except systray and explorer. Then try again. IIRC, something must be running in the background and accessing the swap files.
Morning, Jomo. Er, we’ve discussed this several times in the last few months here in GQ, but it makes my head hurt to even think about it any more. It’s over, it’s done, my computer is finally running right and I’m SOOOO glad.
When using Win98, there is also the cop-out approach to make scandisk run: Power down the computer without properly shutting down Windows, then it will run automatically when it starts back up.
Are you sure it’s stopping? I ran scandisk on my buddies pc(win 98) and it gave the same message, but the last sentence said, “Do you want to keep receiving this warning?”
I clicked “no” and it kept on scanning, so be sure it’s actyally stopping and not just a warning.
Run it from DOS only. Shut down to dos, run it. viola
“When using Win98, there is also the cop-out approach to make scandisk run: Power down the
computer without properly shutting down Windows, then it will run automatically when it starts
back up.”
Ah, no, I would not suggest that. Plus, nifty techs like me turn that feature off…
Both ScanDisk at Disk Defragmenter are affected by any the screensaver running, I believe. Make sure that it’s switched off and that any scheduled jobs (e.g. if you’ve scheduled a virus scan) are disabled.
I did search for it before posting. I searched “scandisk” and any date. Scandisk did not turn up in the thread titles and I didn’t have time to open up & go through all of them.
<mini-rant>If anybody starts another one of those threads with a title that doesn’t inform what it’s about – like “Help!” or “What do you think of this?” – fie on you! It becomes useless for the rest of us.</mini-rant>
Called my wife just now and she said ScanDisk had stopped while I was out. Even though I had turned off the virus software and everything but systray and explorer before starting it. She didn’t know what it was so she just closed it.
My computer crashes about once a day and automatically runs ScanDisk when restarting but that doesn’t do the full job. I want to check the disk and files, and fix errors, everything.
I’ll try turning off the screensaver next time. What’s the DOS command?
I don’t know how to disable the screensaver through DOS; I run ScanDisk through Windows with everything but the normal background processes running – that is, I switch off Virus Scan, the screensaver and Zone Alarm.
When scandisk is initiated on reboot because of a Windows crash, it is the DOS version that is running, not the Windows version. Remember that Windows 95/98 has a DOS legacy, which is reflected in the \WINDOWS\COMMAND folder: they are all DOS utility files.
Windows does not load until the Windows splash screen is displayed - until then the OS is still running in DOS mode.
I have said it before numerous times, buy a third party maintenance program. They don’t give a fig newton what is running when you run them & they do numerous other cleaning jobs that you’d never think of doing.