WIN 98SE - Problem with SCANDISK

[colin4228]

I am running WIN98SE on two near identical machines, and have done so for years. Recently one machine declined to execute SCANDISK, giving the error message "unable to carry out scandisc because your computer has insufficient memory. Try shutting down other programs which may be running" (or words to that effect).

There is in fact plenty of memory and nothing in the system has changed since previous occasions when SCANDISC ran fine.

I tried making a clone of the hard drive onto a freshly partitioned and re-formatted drive, which worked OK. However upon trying SCANDISC on the clone, that too resulted in the same error message.

Norton disk doctor still works ok on both drives.

So I conclude that there is some file which would be transferred to a "virgin" disk by a clone routine which has become corrupted somehow.

Can anyone please give me some ideas where to look and for what? A view of the partition table (via MS-DOS Prompt FDisk)indicates no apparent problem. Yet if I boot from a 98 start-up disc and run FDisk, I get a message that the drive does not contain a valid partition.

Have considered looking at the MBR, but how can one safely access and view this.

Suggestions gratefully requested.

Colin 4228

 

[colin4228]

Thanks johnrfsr.

You will see that I was having two problems getting scandisk to run.

This thread refers to just one of them - a machine which was working fine and then "decided" to report that it had insufficient memory to carry out the routine. An identical machine (hardware and software) continued to work fine. The problem also arose when I tried to run scandisk from SAFE MODE, so it was not a background program running conflict issue. You will see that the pursuit of this gremlin took me, and those good enough to contribute, quite deep into the realms of the MBR - but I never could find the real source of the problem. It was interesting that Norton Clone worked OK, but that it also cloned the problem onto a clean hdd!

The solution, as reported in this thread above, was that suggested by Roger GOAZ. This was to clone the whole hdd onto a clean hdd, but by copying across the files rather than use Norton Clone. My post above dated 31/01/09 includes notes about doing this, and the avoidance of some glitches in the process.

The problem, subject of this thread, has not come back (touch wood).

You are absolutely right john in saying that background programs interfere with the running of scandisk (and also windows Defrag). I started another post - Thread 615-1527338 - about how best to inhibit what was running in the background, and johnrfsr has contributed to that also (thanks again john). Please see that thread for details. The bottom line was to start up in safe mode, but to use a neat little program called icon restore to restore the desktop layout afterwards. See Thread 615-1527338.

Norton Disc Doctor also gets messed up by background programs running, and so is best done from safe mode. Norton Speed Disc (their equivalent of Defrag.) works OK however from a normal start-up IF you select at its start the option to shut down background programs. Pity scandisk and Win Defrag and Norton Disc Doctor do not offer the same! (Comments refer to Norton System Works 2003 and Norton GoBack 4.02. I can not vouch for applicability to other Norton versions).

Thanks to all,


colin4228

ps. I note that in later versions of windows (2000 onwards) if you ask for scandisc it schedules it for execution at the next start-up, before background programs have begun to run.

 

[johnrfsr]

it has been some time since i ran norton however let me give this a stab
have you tried booting from a startup disk?
if the mbr is corrupt it will affect safe mode.
norton used to have a program that would compare the standard fat including the mbr with a hidden fat.
if it found an error it would rewrite the fat.
when you use a startup disk the mbr is bypassed on the hard disk
if you cloned the drive with the error it would appear in the new machine, unless the error was repaired

johnrfsr