Scan Disk Problems

[Mr. Jerry Ford]

A friend wrote:

" My Scandisc always says that a disc ulitity is blocking the Scandisc."

I told him to make sure his screen saver was off and even told him to scan & defrag in Safe Mode and how to get there. My concern now is the word "blocking", have I missed something?

Any help appriciated,
J.F.

[Leurgy]

Your friend could be using a disk utility such as Norton, System Suite or System Mechanic that wants to do the scandisk. He could turn off/uninstall that or use it instead.

[Mr. Jerry Ford]

Thanks for responding!

Wouldn't going into Safe Mode turn off the Virus Protection and other programs that might be running in the background?

Thanks again,
J.F.

[Leurgy]

" My Scandisc always says that a disc ulitity is blocking the Scandisc."

That error message leads me to believe he has another utility on there.

You can run scandisk in safe mode. Some of these utilities will continue to run even in safe mode. You can also run it in Normal mode if you turn off all running programs and disable the screen saver. To shut down the running processes press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and highlight a process and click end task. Repeat this until all you have left is Explorer and Systray. That will likely disable the utility.

[Ridgerunr]

You can also run it from dos using the menu after holding the Ctrl key down after the 'post' window at boot. Arrow down to 'command prompt only'(enter) and type: scandisk /all : at the C:\> and press 'Enter'...

[Train]

Just to add to what has been posted.

Scandisk and defrag
Programs running in the Background stop it.
Turn off screen saver.
Do Ctrl-Alt-Del and close all but explorer and try again.
Upon completion, suggest run defragment.

It can run in Safe Mode also.
Reboot and on startup hold the Control key [F8 if control does not work]
This will bring up the Boot menu
Arrow down [mouse does not work here] to 3. Safe Mode, hit enter
and you will boot to Safe Mode. [Yes it will look funny, very basic here]
[Screen saver should already be turned off] and run scandisk.
Upon completion you can run defragment also. It would be a good Idea as
you are already there.

Upon completion reboot to start you av and other programs

IN DOS
Scandisk can be run in dos also.
Defrag can not
Do the same as safe mode until you get to the startup menu.
Select 5. Command and hit enter.
and you will boot to the C:\ prompt.
Type in scandisk ,
looks like this
C:\scandisk
hit enter
when finish at the C:\ type win hit enter
or for a faster reboot do a Ctrl-Alt-Delete

[Mr. Jerry Ford]

Thanks for the responses!

My friend lives in Germany, I have passed on your advice and I will get back to you on the results!

Thanks again,
J.F.

[Mr. Jerry Ford]

Howdy!

Just to close the thread my friend decided to just reformat and reload a different operating system....... another approach. Anywho, anyhow, thanks for all the good information, I learned somethin'!

Thanks again!