Scandisk Message

[Robert M]

What causes Scandisk to report the following message at startup time?
"The amount of free space on Drive C is being reported incorrectly" Choose Fix it to have Scandisk correct the problem."
Choices or buttons are for
"Fix It, Don't Fix It, More Info"

A friend has this problem, but even selecting Fix it, it seems to be only a temporary solution. Why doesn't Microsoft document this problem?

[lgbpop]

Sounds as if your friend's computer has been set to have Scandisk automatically fix too many problems too many times. It sweeps away larger and larger "loose ends" of files until they no longer work properly. The big problem is that Scandisk fixes things to Scandisk's liking, not yours. Looks like it's time for an over-the-top reinstall of the operating system.

Really should go to Windows 2000 or newer OS. The 9x OSs are increasingly prone to attack and are no longer supported by M$ as I'm sure you already know.

[A31Chris]

You really think so? The way I hear it its the other way around. Newer OS"s are more prone to attack as the older OS's get forgotten by the hackers.

[lgbpop]

Newer computers may be targeted by more attempted attacks, but older computers are more frequently victims of successful attacks. When one's defenses are no longer maintained, their weaknesses become common knowledge. I should have clarified this, I guess.

[Robert M]

But why does this message appear?

On my 95 system, I have run Scandisk many times and never once saw this message or problem. He's happy with 95 except for this and cannot afford to upgrade. Are you saying the problem is caused by Windows 95?

I just had an idea and theory for the cause but cannot try it on my system right now because i will be away from my computer for a week.

Since Scandisk stores files in the root directory and the root directory only can hold so many files, is it possible his root directory on Drive C is stuffed to the giills? Can someone with 95 try this experiment and report back? Thanks

[Robert M]

Lgbpop
Scandisk sweeps away larger and larger loose ends of files until they don't work? What do you mean by that?

Is that the cause of the message?

He cannot perform an over the top install.

[Broni]

Ask your friend to run Scandisk in Safe Mode.

[A31Chris]

Lgbpop
Scandisk sweeps away larger and larger loose ends of files until they don't work? What do you mean by that?

Is that the cause of the message?

He cannot perform an over the top install.

Anything that accesses the Hard Drive during scandisks operation, such as a screensaver, AV or whatnot will cause scandisk to start over. This is why its best to run Scandisk in Safe Mode to make sure nothing else is running.

As for Scandisk sweeping away more and more loose ends until the system doesn't work, I've never really run across that on my systems. And I've had the same install on my system for a few years without a reformat. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Just that I've never run across it.

[lgbpop]

I'm not sure how it starts, but my six-year old 98SE install went through the Scandisk mess in 2005. It may have been file fragments left over from Defrags or what, I'm not sure. All research I did at the time said that, once the file fragments started being cleaned automatically, more and more files would become corrupted as a result and thus more likely to be unrecognizable with each successive Scandisk run. That's exactly how mine went downhill - slowly at first, then faster and faster until system files were broken up. That's what I meant. Several people I know who ran 98 at the time also had the same thing happen to them.

I was also told that the limitations of the FAT32 file system had something to do with this, but I still don't understand how that would apply.