[Fredledingue]

After several crashes with Audacity which forced me to pull off the power plug off the computer because it became completely frozen (extremely rare but it happens) I started experiencing the "not properly shut down" warning at every reboot.

Not only it wants to scan disc C, D and E, but also starts with surface scan. 500 Gb of surface scan, he must be kidding. I don't want to wait 3 days before he's done.

The first time the problem appeared I had a problem with WININET.dll (stack error). Why would WININET.dll make an error, I have no idea.
The computer was near to unusable because this error kept on appearing every 5 seconds or so and the computer was extremely busy all the time.
Fortunately I succeeded in fixed that by restarting in DOS mode and using the command "SCANREG /RESTORE". (I wrote this command with a marker on my monitor frame because it's so useful, just next the alt+0128 for the euro symbol.)
That was fixed but the SCANDISK continue to start at every reboot eventhought the computer works normaly and is shut down in the proper way.

I don't know how to tell him to stop that. I ran the normal dos scandisk and the windows scandisk both once and the problem is still there.

[G8YMW]

The only thing that springs to mind is do a scandisk in DOS with a surface scan to eliminate the possibility of the disk in the throes of going "belly up"

Best of luck
Tony

[dencorso]

Try AutoScan=2, in MSDOS.SYS (more info at MDGx's).

[rloew]

If Windows thinks that a Read/Write Error occurred on a Partition, it will set a flag in the Partition to run SCANDISK with Surface Scan. The flag is not cleared if only the basic scan is done. You will need to complete a Surface Scan to clear the flag.

[jaclaz]

If you like to live dangerously you can manually hexedit the byte (which is in the FAT):
http://thestarman.na...utdownFlag.html

AFAIK, this is not related to actual read/write error, but rather to "not clean" shutdown (which matches the "crashes" you report).

jaclaz

[dencorso]

Depending on the POV, a "not clean" shutdown *MAY* be due to Read/Write Errors...

[jaclaz]

dencorso, on 22 April 2011 - 11:25 AM, said:

Depending on the POV, a "not clean" shutdown *MAY* be due to Read/Write Errors...

No difference in point of view:
read/write error -> (possibly) CRASH->(definitely) "not clean" shutdown->(definitely) Scandisk flag byte set
generally:
*whatever*-> "not clean" shutdown->(definitely) Scandisk flag byte set

jaclaz

[loblo]

jaclaz, on 22 April 2011 - 10:34 AM, said:

If you like to live dangerously you can manually hexedit the byte (which is in the FAT):
http://thestarman.na...utdownFlag.html

AFAIK, this is not related to actual read/write error, but rather to "not clean" shutdown (which matches the "crashes" you report).

jaclaz

Perhaps checking "Disable scandisk after bad shutdown" in the advanced options of msconfig will do as well and is certainly safer than hexing the FAT.

[jaclaz]

loblo, on 22 April 2011 - 12:29 PM, said:

Perhaps checking "Disable scandisk after bad shutdown" in the advanced options of msconfig will do as well and is certainly safer than hexing the FAT.

I may be wrong, of course, but I seem to remember that that prevents the byte to be changed on *next* crash (as opposed to reset the byte already set) or maybe it simply tells the system to ignore the byte, but the filesystem is not fully "sound" (i.e. when manually running scandisk or a similar utility the "wrongly set" byte may still create a problem/trigger a surface scan.
Anyway it is the same as the Edit in MSDOS.SYS:
http://support.micro...kb/152404/en-us

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 22 April 2011 - 12:40 PM

[rloew]

Disabling Autoscan will disable all future Scans, leaving you at risk for future corruption. The safest bet is to run the Surface Scan once. Start it and go to bed.
If you are sure there are no Read/Write errors, you can hexedit to reset the flags (both FATs).

[loblo]

There is an IFSMGR.VXD issue and hotfix as well in case it's relevant.

http://support.micro...kb/273017/EN-US

This post has been edited by loblo: 22 April 2011 - 01:51 PM

[Fredledingue]

HI, everybody.
So I ran the surface scan to the insistance of both the public audiance (here) and of my computer who would never let me in peace.
...And it happens that I had one bad sector on the C disk. Fortunately it didn't scan the entire physical drive of 500Gb, only the relatively small C partition.

On top of that the file affected was cookies.dat, something likely to be used often and generate errors.

Lesson learned: Believe what your computer is telling you.

It's the first time I'v got the case due to a not-clean shut down.
The not-clean shut down may have been caused by a read/write error that crashed the computer but that's impossible to know. I don't know what's the risk of damaging a HDD doing so. Perhaps it's not null.

In my case not-clean shut down doesn't cause definetly a scan disk. Sometimes it reboots in Safe Mode, sometimes it does the disc scan (which I abort almost everytime), sometimes it even reboots normaly.

There are various reasons why I must do a not-clean shut down. Most of the time it's because the computer fails to shut down at some point. It often (but not always) fails to shut down when it shows the shut-down logo with the sky (in normal shut down I don't even see this sky).

Sometimes the computer fails to start, showing a black screen with an unanimated cursor, some bits of white should I say on the top left. Then Ctrl+Alt+Del may or may not work, it's up to good luck.

The reasons for these annoyances are completely unkown. I have not the slightliest idea of what can cause them but random computer imprecision.
My mohterboard, which should be called grand-mother-board LOL, is quiet old. I had it cleaned completely already once after a total start failure of the machine.

Looks terrible when you read that but I'm still very satisfied of the machine... most of the time it works perfectly, making such hic-up even more surprising.

[submix8c]

Huh!
If it were me I'd run CCleaner and let it delete the standard things, reboot, then run a Full Scan on every partition just for insurance. Hope you have all the necessary patches (including the unofficial ones) installed.
(--of course you aren't me, but hey, opinions are like...)
FWIW, sometimes Surface Scan finds things but then when you use the manufacturer's utility to "fully destructive check the disk" (which resets to Factory, clearing to zeros the MBR and all) then install all over again then Surface scan finds... NADA! (wierd!) Done that before (BTW, usually the ManuScan if finding a bad sector just reassigns the track to "elsewhere", a set of sectors reserved for just that purpose IF any are available.... AFAIK.)

Glad your back up (was looking scary for a while, following the topic events...).

[herbalist]

Glad you got it fixed. Problems like that are one reason I started making system backups before installing new apps or making major changes beyond the registry. Fixing a problem like that can easily take longer than making and restoring many backups.

[dencorso]

herbalist, on 22 April 2011 - 05:22 PM, said:

Fixing a problem like that can easily take longer than making and restoring many backups.

I subscribe to this idea, too. A backup library is an invaluable asset.

[jaclaz]

Fredledingue, on 22 April 2011 - 02:20 PM, said:

Lesson learned: Believe what your computer is telling you.

Well, NO.
Corollary:
Unless it is a MS Operating System that has a long history of issuing in MOST occasions a meaningless error message comletely UNrelated to the actual issue at hand.
In other wordss ALWAYS DOUBT, and check twice (and thrice) before trusting an MS OS , or ANY other OS or ANY advice you get on a technical board .

Happy problem is (for the moment) solved .

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 23 April 2011 - 05:33 AM

[Prozactive]

dencorso, on 22 April 2011 - 06:13 PM, said:

herbalist, on 22 April 2011 - 05:22 PM, said:

Fixing a problem like that can easily take longer than making and restoring many backups.

I subscribe to this idea, too. A backup library is an invaluable asset.

I second (or third) this. That's why I make periodic Ghost backups of my OS partition especially before any major system change and/or app(s) installation. It's saved me numerous times. At the very least, you should make a full registry backup beforehand.

This post has been edited by Prozactive: 24 April 2011 - 09:57 AM

[Fredledingue]

Quote

Unless it is a MS Operating System that has a long history of issuing in MOST occasions a meaningless error message comletely UNrelated to the actual issue at hand.
In other wordss ALWAYS DOUBT, and check twice (and thrice) before trusting an MS OS , or ANY other OS or ANY advice you get on a technical board

You will want to note that I refered to messages and reaction by the computer before Windows (the MS OS in question) loaded its crap out.
FDISK was running under DOS, the last half-decent OS owned by M$ but not created by them.

[jaclaz]

Fredledingue, on 01 May 2011 - 05:15 PM, said:

You will want to note that I refered to messages and reaction by the computer before Windows (the MS OS in question) loaded its crap out.
FDISK was running under DOS, the last half-decent OS owned by M$ but not created by them.

jaclaz, on 23 April 2011 - 05:32 AM, said:

.... ALWAYS DOUBT, and check twice (and thrice) before trusting an MS OS , or ANY other OS or ANY advice you get on a technical board .

jaclaz

[Fredledingue]

Oooops! My computer had another freeze up the other day and the same problem came back... even worse!

First I wasn't able to turn on my computer again: no scandisk, nothing, just a bunch of errors, windows protection error and the likes. Press any key to continue had the power turned off. Yeah...

That's not all: It took me 3 boot floppy disks to have one working. One generated a string of errors, the other failed to see the drive C:. Finaly the ME boot disk was successful in launching scandisk.

The first time I had this problem, scandisk found one bad cluster. Now it found 6 additional bad clusters in random files.
It's wierd that files which were not written or read during the crash are suddenly corrupted.

Important: When the crash happened, in both case there was extensive work on the E: partition of the same physical drive. This drive has the partition E: and C: on it. D: being on a separate physical drive.
On both cases I was working with large files (more than 100Mb) but with other applications, not related to each others. The first time it was during a recording and editing session with Audacity, the second time it was after downloading movies with WinSCP (an HTP clients) and watching these movies with MP Classic + ffdshow.
Nothing extraordinary. I do these types of operation for years without problem. Yesterday I watched these movies without problem. Normaly these softwares don't cause me any worry.

I'm afraid my hard disk drive is about to die.
It's wierd to have bad cluster poping up on drive C: while working on drive E:...
Or can it be another problem?