Re: Need disk error checker for Windows XP

"Borgholio" <[email protected]> wrote in message 
news:[email protected]...
> POP wrote:
>> "Chris F. Willoughby" <[email protected]> wrote in message 
>> news:[email protected]...
>>
>>>No, you CAN scan the whole drive.. but it will most likely ask you to 
>>>schedule it to do it on boot.  Just check the option to scan all areas of 
>>>the disk or something like that.
>>>
>>>Chris
>>>
>>>"Borgholio" <[email protected]> wrote in message 
>>>news:[email protected]...
>>>
>>>>I know that XP comes with the Chkdsk program, but I find it lacking in 
>>>>one important area...locating bad clusters. Scandisk for Windows 9x was 
>>>>able to scan the entire hard drive for bad clusters (including the free 
>>>>space). XP's Chkdsk only scans the areas that actually have data in 
>>>>them.  I find this to be a bit stupid...to put it mildly.  I know that 
>>>>Norton Utilities includes a disc scanner, but I don't see any way of 
>>>>purchasing it without buying the entire Norton Systemworks 
>>>>package...which is a form of evil that rivals even Microsoft. Any other 
>>>>suggestions?
>>>
>>>
>> Correct, and it will also mark the bad sectors from use.
>>
>> Pop
>>
>>
>
> I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you both.  I have found from 
> personal experience that you can take a damaged drive, freshly re-format 
> it, run chkdsk, and not find anything.  Fill it with data, run chkdsk, and 
> it will locate bad sectors that never existed before.

**
Question - I thought that when the disk was formatted that 'something' was 
written to all the sectors during the formatting procedure - therefore there 
IS something to 'check'. Why would one have to write something now in order 
for chkdsk to 'find' the bad sectors?

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***