Why Can't I Scandisk my hard drive?

Just so you know I have checked your full data base and tried every solution i could find, and am still having the same problem. I can't scan disk in either safe or normal mode. I tried in dos mode and it ran the scan disk fine but said there wasn't enough memory to defrag. I have well over 1 gig of free memory on my c drive. i also tried reinstaling the scan disk program from the window disk. Every time i try to scan disk i eventually get a message saying

"the program has restarted 10 times because Windows or another program has been writing to this drive. Quiting running some programs may enable ScanDisk to finish sooner. Do you want to continue receiving this warning?"

i don't have any programs running when i do this in normal mode, and get the same message in safe mode. I think the computer is running much slower that it should be, and hasn't been defraged for a long time because of this problem.

can you help?

This question was answered on November 29, 2001. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Hello, you must be very frustrated by now Well, let's give this a try Have you tried to close out all TSRs (Terminate-and-Stay-Residents) before running Scandisk? This is caused when other applications are running in the background modifying data that is trying to be checked by Scandisk.

To resolve the issue, close out of all TSRs running on the computer

TSRs are programs or utilities that are currently running in the background of your computer performing such tasks as scanning your computer for viruses or loading additional support for hardware.

While these programs will generally always work by themselves when attempting to install or run programs you may encounter unexpected errors Once these programs are removed from memory they can be started again by opening the program such as the virus scanner or rebooting the computer

HOW TO REMOVE TSRs TEMPORARILY FROM YOUR COMPUTER MEMORY:

Terminate-and-Stay-Resident(TSR) is a program that remains in memory until it is needed then performs some function An example of a TSR would be a program such as a Virus Scanner.

Removing TSR in Windows 95 / 98 / ME:

Press and hold ALT CTRL DEL once these three keys have all been properly pressed together you should receive a Close Program Window

Highlight any of the listed items except Explorer / Systray and press the End Task Button Repeat this process until you only have Explorer and Systray.

Extra Information:

There is no way to highlight more than one of these icons.

Some of the listed programs may not be removed the first attempt, just continue to the next available if any.

When End Tasking some of these you may receive "This Program is Not responding" simply click End Task again.

Pressing ALT CTRL DEL twice in a row will reboot the computer.

Each of the items you are removing will come back the next time you reboot the computer unless they are removed from the startup group.

DISABLING TSRs FROM LOADING AUTOMATICALLY:

Because many TSR's load up automatically when your computer starts you may find it a burden to manually unload each of these programs each time you reboot the computer the following are instructions on how to remove these programs from starting up automatically.

Windows 98 / Windows ME:

Click Start / Programs / Startup

Right click and delete the file you wish to not start automatically.

If you were unable to locate the program automatically loading following the above instructions attempt to locate this program in the autoexec.bat, win.ini, system registry or Windows 98SE or Windows ME users can disable programs through the System Configuration.

Good luck, and really hope this can resolve your problem!

Please let us know if you need more help.

About the author

Posted by Phoenixaz of Chandler-Gilbert Community College on November 29, 2001

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