11 replies to this topic

[dangedcoyote]

I was cleaning my computer the other night. I used clean up and super cleaner. I got rid of a lot of .Bak files and .tmp files. I went to trend micro and did a virus scan. left it running and went to bed. sometime around 2 am my computer ran O&O defrag with TM window up. the next day I could not get a window to load at all. I have done a sysetem restore point for the day before and that did not seem to help. Ps I did also move files into file folders last night but that was no big thing I dont think mainly things in my documents. I have windows xp home sp2 on an hp pavilion a530n What have I done wrong? I had IE 7 with all updates. I removed it and got IE6 back. windows opened fine then. Reinstalled IE7 and things went back to normal. FOR A FEW DAYS. I had the same issues with IE 7 last night and now I am back on IE6. Point is on occasions windows will not load a window or some programs. what is the deal? I went to HJT and did a log there after close to 2 weeks I did not get any reply. then LDTate moved me here, thanks to him. I dont know what to do and Microsoft is of little help and also super slow. Anyone know anything?????

[Doug]

Correct any "Disk Structure" errors by running CHKDSK /f /r Note: you will be prompted to allow Reboot before CHKDSK is able to run. Start - Run - (type)chkdsk /f /r <---- "spaces" are important. If files are found in "bad-sectors' and moved/fixed, run CHKDSK additional times until NO errors are detected. _________ After completing the above CHKDSK procedure, run you System File Checker to repair/replace any missing or corrupted Windows OS system files... Start - Run - (type)sfc /scannow

[dangedcoyote]

[font=Times New Roman] Hey dough, glad you are helping me out here. Have some questions and info.
I freaked out a little and thought I wanted to know some of these things. I still have to do the rest. I ran the chkdsk and all of a sudden the computer started "replacing bad cluster files in 122505" that is one example it did more then one cluster and more then one file too. What does that mean exactly? what are these files relaced with anyway? Did it save a log file of this somewhere on my computer? It replaced file clustrs for Picasa, system 32, azurus, alcohol120 and system restore. Is this ok? will it interfere with these programs now? Things replaced were .DLL, .msi, .log, .key etc and I do not know what all these are can you fill me in? how are all these bad? what made them bad? is it O&O Defrag that has done this? I run my defrag every night am I doing something wrong?
and thanks. I know this is a lot but I would like to learn also as I go

[Doug]

Hard drives function in mysterious ways. There are clever explanations out there in the A+ certification training programs, if you want to browse a bit. I'll give you a version of my "clever" explanation in brief. Hard Drive Disks are about the same size as CD/DVD's, just a little thicker/sturdier. They are "organized" in concentric circles of electro-magnetic film. The concentric circles are then further organized in wedge shapes much like cutting a pie, except the slices had already been sliced with the concentric circle routine. Then the concentric, sliced wedge pieces are further organized through the process of Formatting, such that very small physical chunks of the hard drive are catagorized into Sectors and given address numbers, with a Table of Contents containing a listing of every last little sector on the disk. The Table of Contents (Master File Table) works just like a book's table of contents, or more specifically like the Index at the back of a reference book. The above segmenting, organizing, formatting, addressing, and indexing, makes it possible for your computer to "know where to look" for any bit, byte, of information it needs at any one time. One or more "wands" like a phonograph-needle-arm is/are capable of scanning from the larger outside circles, all the way down to the inner smaller circles as the disk itself spins. If you "visualize" that image, you will notice that the moving wand has access to the entire surface of the moving disk. The "wand" has a laser-light emitter, instead of a needle. The laser-light is capable of "noticing" only two conditions.... 1 or 0. Or put another way, something or nothing, or a reflection vs no reflection. The wand's laser-light emitter also has the ability to "polarize" the tiny bits contained in the sectors. The wand can only cause two conditions... polarized or not polarized. It does this by "distressing" the electromagnetcally sensitive film embedded deep inside of the plastic disk. Thus light on the wand both creates and reads the individual 1s and 0s that make up the wonderful Binary Number System with which computers store, read, write, and communicate. Now it would be absolutely "too much to expect" to have an absolutely "bleamish-free" surface on a shiny disk organized in tiny "micron" measurements. Hey, the Disk is just two round slabs of plastic with something looking like plastic-film-tinfoil sandwiched in the middle. Gotta make some allowances for error, don't you think. Now throw into the formula that these disks are spinning at the absolutely crazy rates of 4500rpm, 5400rpm, 7500rpm or 10,000rpm depending on what hard drive you own. Now throw into the formula that the "wand" has to track back and forth accross the spinning disk in incredibly precise motion and has to be "calibrated" to "look" at "pinpoint size" locations mapped all over that rapidly spinning reflective surface. Now throw into the formual that the laser-light emmitter/detector also has to know when to read and when to stop reading, when to write and when to stop writing, in order to get the precise information from the desired address and not be reading junk from some adjoining sector. Now throw into the formula that Hard Drives get hot spinning so fast, and centrifical forces on the spinning plastic are enormous at those speeds, and distressing to the plastic. Now throw into the formula that tiny electromagnetic charges representing the 1s and 0s are not terribly strong signals to detect. Think of trying to watch for a friend standing 200 yards away at night periodically turning on and off a flashlight, while you are sitting on a Merry-Go-Round horse as it spins at high speed. Do you think it would be easy to see and decode his message, if the message was being flashed to you in some version of Morse Code? So let's take a moment to salute the manufacturer's of Hard Drives. Well done, chaps!!!! It's an absolute wonder that Hard Drives work at all. Now Hard Drives are "mechanical". And anything mechanical begins to wear out. So the Hard Drive has to constantly be aware of it's sectors/clusters and organizational table, and speed and position, and physical wear on the disk, and electromagnetic "fatigue" of specific sectors of the electromagnetic film. CHECKDISK Error-Checking is assigned the task of keeping everything "lined up" and varifying that the electromagnetic 1s and 0s are actually alligned in a way that allows the laser-light tipped wand to detect them competently. CHECKDSK doesn't actually do any "aligning" just checks to see if things are already lined up correctly. CHECKDISK doesn't know what the patterns of 1s and 0s mean. It only knows that a specific sector has been addressed to display a pattern that can be only a specific size, in a specific "grove" in a specific segment of a wedge. If CHECKDISK doesn't find the correct "size" of pattern, it makes another pass, and another, and another, until it "finds" all of the expected information. Or until it declares that it "cannot find" all of the expected information. If CHECKDISK "has trouble" detecting the expected information, it "assigns" a New Sector/cluster to be addressed to "hold" the expected information. Then it consults Master File Table, to match the exact information that should appear in the New Sector, and then modifies Master File Table to inform the machine where to find the information in the future. Finally, CHKDSK "marks" the bad-sector/cluster as bad, and records that address information into the Master File Table, so that the "bad-spot" will nevermore be used by the operating system or application programs. CHECKDISK is a very "physical thing" in terms of location, (grove, wedge, sector, address, secotr/cluster), and in terms of spin and swing of the the wand. But CHECKDISK is "ignorant" of the meaning of what it is caring for. Kinda like a sheep-dog is probably not aware that any particular animal is destined to eventually arrive at a mid-west slaughterhouse and then have parts of itself travel to a New York Restaurant for some couples anniversary dinner. The sheep dog just does its job of keeping things organized and protected. Now as for MEANING, we move to System File Checker (SFC) SFC expects that CHECKDISK has done its job of keeping things calibrated and organized. SFC, then goes to each "file" that may be located in one or more Sectors. SFC "Reads" the file and compares it to what is expected, such that the Operating System, or Application Program is actually "saying" and "saving" and "reading" what its supposed to say, save, read. If SFC "reads" a file and it doesn't "say" exactly what is expected, SFC declares the "file" to be corrupt or missing. SFC then goes to a backup source (i386 or Installation CD or dllcache), to find a master-copy of the original file, and then Re-Writes the information (for meaning). into the location that it has been assigned. CHKDSK and SFC are two of the "Best Friends" that a computer owner/user has, when it comes to keeping things straight on the machine, and restoring things in proper order if something goes haywire. So to answer your question.......... Yes. It was a good thing, that CHKDSK identified information in various Bad-Sectors/clusters, and moved or replicated the information into a New Good Sector/cluster. When things start "wearing out" they are not found to be conforming to their exact "address" or "alignment parameter" Thus it becomes harder for the laser-light to distress or read the reflective surface. Every hard drive has its own criterion for "tolerance". If it doesn't get all the information on the first-pass, it may allow a second or third pass to complete the read. But at some point the Hard Drive says "enough", fix this or move it, so I can read it more easily without multiple passes. Defragmenting is "good", but doesn't have anything to do with groves, wedges, sectors, clusters and other physical stuff. Instead Defragmenting, just identifies items "that should go together". For instance, when you download and save a Song........ Your hard drive will "save" it to the "first available empty address" until that address and adjacent addresses are filled. Then it may have to "skip" to another empty address to continue saving the rest of the song. A song can be "spread" over many groves, wedges, sectors, clusters, but since the MFT has the Table of Contents, it knows all the places to go to find the whole Song and allow it to be played back to you on your MediaPlayer. Defragmenting identifies "files" that have been "spread" in this fashion, and then "finds" a better "single place" for the entire Song to be stored.... all in one piece so the Hard Drive doesn't have to work so hard reading and scanning and writing just to gather one file. But there is "no guarantee" that the application and CPU/RAM will be "polite" when it is done with the information. In fact, it is downright "rude" and demands that the Hard Drive "save" the file to the first available place again, whether or not the place/places are all located close together. So Files get Fragmented. It's just a fact of Hard Drive life. That's why the "powers-that-be" gave us owner/users the magical Disk Defragmenter tool. There certainly has been a tremendous amounts of brilliant thinking from thousands of individuals and hundreds of companies to make things work right on our machines. And of course, there are probably better ways to organize, preserve and work with data that will be discovered or created in the future. It's just amazing to me, that computers work so well so much of the time! Best Regards

Edited by dough, 16 March 2007 - 07:17 PM.

[dangedcoyote]

well, I must say that was a good story and I for one love it. A+ from me! Thank you for putting it in a way I could understand it better. Remember when a computer had like six disks and more wands? then had to be almost manually adjusted. Glad we have come a long way and will come farther and for people like you and LDTate that knows how to help me and others. Now not to cry but why is my wifes DELL (POS in my words only) not having the same issues at all? I did a chkdsk on hers and no problems at all seems to be running fine! AHHHG! Is hers really better or do I just use mine more etc.....

[Doug]

EDIT Post Script: None of the above post is intended to be "technically correct". I'd imagine that most experts would have a good chuckle at the "poetic license" that I've taken. I am just trying to relate the "concept" in somewhat "intuitive" form, such that an non-technical person might get an introductory idea of what the three functions CHKDSK, SFC, and Defragmenting, do. My apoloies to those computer literate persons who may read this and guffaw at my simplistic understanding. Best Regards

[Doug]

On and did I mention.......... Throw into the formual that most modern Hard Drives do have a stack of three or more disk, all working in a coordinated fashion. As to comparing your wife's machine to yours.......... Machines behave in mysterious ways. No really. It's a mystery. I have no clue, and never try to compare why one machine does something, while another one does the same thing differently. Just pause for a moment and imagine the total number of variables involved mechanically/electronically. Then add the real mystery of the "User behavior" of each separate machine. Mind boggling mystery is all I can say. Best Regards

[dangedcoyote]

well if you ask me, and you did not but I will say anyway if any "knowledgeable" person read that and laughed at the simplisity I would say to them "They are the shallow one" for it is good to be able to transfer the information to another on a level they can understand and to be able to put things in a way that one can see them logicly with everyday useage and luanguage that they might use. At my age not that old but getting there, I am back at the university for law and am appauled at the number of professors that teach as if they are teaching their peers and not a student that has never before seen or heard of the things they are teaching. They can not step out of their own box and teach in any other way then what they learnd or know. I am not for dumbing down information but get it across to the people in ways they can use it later. Sometimes that might take more then one try too.

[dangedcoyote]

as for my spelling I have always been poor and rely on spell check too hard and for those who find that a bad thing wel... welcome to my world ...AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[dangedcoyote]

ok.. off my stool. I hear there are problems with IE7...is there? can I reload it and my problems should be good or am I better off with IE6?

[Doug]

Regarding IE 7.0 Read other current Threads active today in this Forum (OCP) just above and below your own thread. Others Have raised issues with IE 7.0 vs 6.0 in ways that may be interesting/useful to you. If you were an "early adopter" of version 7.0 or if you installed the IE 7.0 "beta" even earlier, then you do probably have some "issues". If you've only recently (past month) allowed IE 7.0 to be downloaded via MS Updates for example, you probably will be happy with it. There are still "conflicts" but I would only be "playing a guessing game" if I were to try to anticipate what your concerns might be. If you wish additional information/feedback, specific to IE 7.0, then --- Please start a New Topic, so your questions and possible Member replies don't get lost at the tail end of this other Topic Thread. Best Regards

[tallin]

Well done Dough - I have been following this thread and I concur with Dangedcoyote, you have the secret of getting the information over to us who are not very learned nor can we understand it if it is too technical. Congratulations, you are an asset to any place you put a footprint.

Edited by tallin, 16 March 2007 - 09:47 PM.