Running Chkdsk frequently

[RevolutionaryRob]

Hi there,

I have the need to run a chkdsk at least once a week, and I do not know how to automate this task. I don't routinely reboot my computer. I would also like a better utility to check the hard disk other than chkdsk. I downloaded norton systemworks but I'm afraid it will tax the system so much that I will regret it, and I'm not sure it even offers the option of running a disk check at startup. I don't need the other features that Norton offers as I already ahve them.

Does anyone know of any utilities for better disk checking, and scheduling the disk checking?

Thanks in advance.

Rob

[Quakindude]

Hello Rob,

First off, welcome to the forums. Secondly, please make a sig with your computer info in it. Your OS version should be included in it.

Why do you need to run Chkdsk so often? If it's finding errors, you should be looking for a new disk drive instead of continuously running chkdsk to ID bad sectors. Without knowing your OS version, it's hard to assist you.

Or are you talking about Defrag?

[MantaBase]

What do you need it to do the chkdsk doesn't?

If its just scheduling, you can schedule it yourself I believe - Although I haven't done that in XP, unless MS changed something, it's not terribly difficult.

Running that all the time may slightly shorten disk life (I doubt much since its not doing to much in the way of writing)

[RevolutionaryRob]

I have a Windows MCE computer that is just somewhat imperfect.

Previously, I had a heat problem, and a lot of freezes. The lost clusters that never got cleaned up caught up to me and I lost the entire drive.

Even without a heat problem, I have maybe 1 to 2 freezes per month, but these are usually MCE menu freezes and not the actual computer and not the actual OS, but when they happen I prefer to reboot... But MCE always has something running somewhere in a temp file and then some. So I am concerned that the drive gets checked when I reboot and I do that manually.

Maybe it's overkill, but I would also like to run the chkdsk weekly. When I had the recent data loss, I am fairly certain it had nothing to do with the reboot I had just executed, it had to be something from an earlier date, and considering the extensive amount of damage to the data, I believe it was cumulative.

I have no idea how long my disks will last, but that's not my main concern right now. I save a lot of recorded TV and I rip a bunch of DVD's to my drive, so I have a lot of data I want to be able to reliably get.

The drive in question is a Raid drive, but it's driverless and I am confident at this juncture that it has nothing to do with the raid or the drives, this happened shortly after I fixed the heating issue, and I was having multiple freezes every day.

I'll look around to make a signature.

Thanks again,
Rob

[Quakindude]

I have never used MCE before, so I'm not even going to hazard a guess at how to check your drives.

When you say you lost the entire drive, do you mean you had to replace it? Or did you just format it and reinstall MCE on it? Also, what type of RAID array are you running?

The thing is, if you are getting bad clusters, you have a drive going bad. Being a RAID array, if in RAID 0, means it's even more critical that you backup your data immediately and determine which drive is actually going bad. How are you determining that your drives are healthy in light of the need to run chkdsk from losing data?