Is chkdsk /R the right command to use to fix any fixable problems that can be fixed?

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

hello people,

welcome to this thread.

i am having some kind of problems with my computer when i perform some operations, and i'm trying to figure out how to fix it.
i've encountered a disk is locked, do you wish to force a dismount? i cannot access the drive unless i force a dismount, and then it says that ALL HANDLES WILL BE LOST or something like that, which makes it sound importaint or something.
"the volume is in use by another process. chkdsk may run this volume if dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. would you like to force a dismount?"

and then a "WARNING! F parameter not specified." another time.

another time: i was also getting the error: delayed write error. failed to write files. then after the first attempt, where the drive showed up, now, even when the program was closed and then opened again, would not even show up on the list.

another time: "some files or folders can not be accessed when enumerating a directory. you could open the installation directory of the program, then open a "log" folder to find out which files can not be accessed, and then manually cut and paste to other partitions."

and "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

does anybody know if there is anyway to fix it or if i used the right command in the dos prompt, with chkdsk /R
[which is used to not only scan for, but to fix any read error problems (if they can be fixed, they will be fixed with this process)]

thank you,

sincerely,

STUCK

 

[hang-the-9]

Need some info about what disk you are talking about? External disk? Internal? Secondary or main drive?

First thing to do is to run a disk check for errors using a low level utility from the drive or PC vendor. Some computers have a hardware check in the BIOS.

Did you actually run the chkdsk command and continue to get the errors?

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

oh, wow, hang-the-9, yo what's up dude! long time no see! dang, its really good to see you again. WOW! how's everything?
your a moderator now... oh my gosh. that's cool. i could have sworn you had a different avatar last time -- i don't remember it being blank. hmmm...

both internal and external and main drive. problems on the external noted only, particularly with one drive in particular.
"low level utility from the drive or PC vendor"
WHAT?... never heard of that. does such a thing exist? doesn't dos have this same functionality in it???
this is all new to me, or your an expert expert because i've not even heard the slightest peep about THIS kind of thing...

"a hardware check in the BIOS."
WHAT??? i've not even heard of this.....wow.
WOW -- that is all i can say.
your are truly amazing, you know that?...

here are the results that i got:
i ran a chkdsk /r 1-2 times on all partitions, with the result of 0 bad sectors (except for 1 partition with 4 kb of bad sectors), so it seems like i'd be able to copy here. each of the disk images is from 2.5 - 3.9 gigs in size so i could fit it in the available space. however, the remaining good partitions are small, like 5.3 - 5.8 gigs in size (not counting the (??? 20 gig partition). and the rest of my 3 hds are full of data.

--all partitions images have been verified 1-2 times, so it doesn't look like the file itself has an error.
--all partitions in question (unreadable=1) have been quick formatted: failed to write data, fail write, unallocated space
--for the "unallocated space" partition of 19.28 Gigs, there are 4 kb of bad sectors
--(H the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable. it can't be merged nor a clone copied to, but i was able to change its "label" name. however, i was able to format the drive using the option of "compression", and was able to create a partition with it. then, after formating it (compression: what does that mean -- the drive name is now blue!!, i've never seen that before...?) i was able to successfully complete a chkdsk /r test, returning 0 bad sectors.
--i used format compression to partition (M unallocated space, but after a chkdsk /r, it still has bad sectors.

Active@ Disk Image Pro 5: when "creating a partition" or "merging" the disk (G saved movies drive for (to make XP be destination partition) partition, there was an operation code error of 213, which is a BadClus, please use chkdsk. also on this same hd, for the 5 Gigs of space reserved originally for clone partition location, is getting error messages in another clone program (R- Disk Image), and in this one: "sorry the current operation has been cancelled!"
"information code: 43. Description: some files or folders can not be accessed when enumerating a directory. you could open the installation directory of the program, then open a "log" folder to find out which files can not be accessed, and then manually cut and paste to other partitions."

{disk=movies save} when trying to restore to a different partition, one that had no bad sectors (E & (L in a check disk test and didn't give the "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" error, returned the error message of "failed to write 2097152 bytes to disk at 114296127648. error = 117" 1117; "image restore has failed";
"elapsed time 32 seconds"

there is a possibility that the disk image file itself is corrupted, as this file itself is saved on the movies save disk.

trying to "create" a disk image on a known good drive (Backup Saves (J), and returned the error of "invalid MFT record. MftNo = 0.";
"image creation failed. elapsed time 2:35"; i thought the reason for the error might have been because i had selected the maximum compression option; however, upon selecting the "normal" compression rate the next time around (AND a different partition was used (K), i the error message of "error during asynchronous operation. HRESULT = 0X80042306 (VSS_E_PROVIDER_VETO)" was returned; ""image creation failed. elapsed time 15:22"

Drive Image XML: "unpartitioned space" partition returned the error "notify exception. write error: the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. info: partition copy error. address: 004e153D. stack dump."

R- Disk Image: no problems at all with the same drives J: & K: from the known good drive (Backup Saves) when creating a disk image, where the Active Disk Image returned an error 3 different times.

i ran a chkdsk /r #3 times for the "unallocated space" partition of 19.28 Gigs, but there were 4 kb of bad sectors every time.

White Hat

 

[hang-the-9]

Compression is not good to use on drives, it was a big feature but turned out to be a bit unstable and led to data loss. Almost no-one compresses the drives anymore.

chkdsk does not test for drive errors. From the sound of things the drive is going bad. Run those low level scans with the utilities from the disk vendors. Download SeaTools from Seagate and run the Basic Tests on your drives. The Fix won't work unless you have their brand but it will scan any brand for errors.

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

hello hang-the-9, hi there,

"Compression is not good to use on drives"
i appreciate you telling me that. that's good to know: guess i won't do anymore drive compressing.

"chkdsk does not test for drive errors."
your kidding me...
it tells you how many bad sectors that you have.

so how do you get these -- go to the brand.com of the hd name? but what are they "called"?

i am running a western digital scorpio...

have you run these yourself before on hardware?

White Hat

 

[hang-the-9]

Seatools from Seagate should be able to scan the WD drive, but WD also has their own program.

This is what chkdsk does: "Chkdsk.exe is the command-line interface for a program that verifies the logical integrity of a file system on Windows. When CHKDSK encounters logical inconsistencies it takes actions to repair file system data, provided it is not in read-only mode."

It DOES NOT check the physical hard drive, only if the file system is OK. Many people that try to check their drive for errors stop at chkdsk then wonder why their hard drive still failed a week later when chkdsk said it fixed a bunch of issues. To actually test how healthy the hard drive is you need to use a different program.

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

hang-the-9 hi yo dude?

a different program, huh?
so check disk doesn't do squak, eh?

okay, so then, what about these programs:
have you ever heard about the UBCD?
or eurosoft pc utilites?

what do you know about the "burn in" test?
also the write test?

i don't see how the initialize test is going to do any good, as it only formats the drive.
woopty whoo, this will only wear down the drive, as with wear and tear -- i don't see how this test even helps.

the hd passed the check disk test.
it also passed the "other program" read test.
are you suggesting that i use the seagate tools?
[for the wd site, i found data life guard and acronis tools -- are these the tools that you are talking about?]
these are the only tools that i could find.
if they are NOT the tools, maybe i would be "able" to find them, if you told me what the name of these tools/programs are

however, the other tests that are available may cause data to become corrupted (the remaining still good data on the drive that is).

GOD IS MY SHEILD

 

[hang-the-9]

Any drive test has to read/write to the drive, so you'll get extra use out if it. Get whatever files you need from that drive and use the seatools program to do a test on the drive. If it's good, you can probably just delete the partitions off it and format it again to use.

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

hey hang-the-9, thanks for the reply,

okay, seagate tools, check.
will use them. if you say their good, then i'll get them [seagate.com].

" If it's good, you can probably just delete the partitions off it and format it again to use."
seriously?
you think that it could fix my hd and so my hd won't have any more problems/errors anymore?

if it does/if its true -- dang, what a pal. i can't wait to try it. fingers crossed.
i hope your right on this.

[uncertainty] i have never done this sort of thing before.

i appreciate your help hang-the-9!

White Hat

 

[hang-the-9]

You can't fix a bad hard drive with a format but if it's only an issue with the file system you can, but not anything else. If it comes out as all good, repartition the thing and format it.