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Old December 8th, 2012 #1
AJG
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Default Computer/Technology Questions and Answers

Hello and welcome to your 1-stop shop for information concerning all manner of electronic devices you encounter in your daily life!

I've been a computer hobbyist for quite a few years and sometimes neglect to remember that many, many people don't have much of an idea about how they work and can be intimidated by computers and technology in general. This thread aims to fix that. You can ask about a problem you have with your computer, ask a question about how an aspect of computers works, ask for advice on buying a new computer, etc. You can also come here for information on phones, tablets and to a smaller extent, televisions. I also want to make it clear this isn't "my thread" and anyone that is knowledgeable on the subject should feel free to help out.

I'll start with a fun fact: Macs are PCs that Apple makes exclusively so they can charge you 50% more than they're worth for proprietary reasons. There is no difference outside of Apple propaganda designed to make you associate the term PC with viruses. Stay far away from them and anything Apple.
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Old March 16th, 2013 #2
Fred
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I have a problem. My main workstation will not boot up unless it runs Chckdsk first. I am using XP. Should I let Chckdsk run or not? Should I take the drive out and put it another computer? Is my data lost? Is chckdsk safe?


Thanks.
 
Old March 16th, 2013 #3
varg
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Are you turning your computer off properly through the shut down button?

Yes running it is safe. It tries to repair any lost data when the computer is shut down improperly.

Also there are viruses for Macs, it's just a smaller market so there's less time put into developing them.

Last edited by varg; March 16th, 2013 at 12:39 PM. Reason: .
 
Old March 16th, 2013 #4
AJG
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chkdsk is a small program built in to Windows which verifies the integrity of your file system. In general, you should let it run if Windows decides to but if it's happening every time your computer boots, you may need to replace the hard drive. Your post seems to suggest that chkdsk runs and then the computer boots normally but your asking if your data is lost suggests otherwise, so you'll have to be more specific in that area. Do you just cancel chkdsk and go into Windows, do you let it run and then Windows boots or can you not get into Windows?

If you're able to get into Windows, the likelihood is the hard drive being checked has a fault that Windows can't fix, which would almost definitely be hardware-related. If that's the case, I would recommend you backup all important data to another hard drive immediately and replace the hard drive. It's probably the hard drive which has your operating system on it, which will suck as you will have to re-install everything, but it's luckily a cheap and pretty easy part to replace.

After backing up your data, you can run a deeper version of chkdsk to see what kind of problems Windows finds and is able to fix. Go to My Computer -> right-click the hard drive being checked -> click properties -> go to the Tools tab -> click Check Now -> check both boxes in the new window -> click start. If the drive being checked is the main one with the operating system, you'll have to restart your computer for it to run. You can probably expect it to report errors. The good news is chkdsk might just mark some parts of the drive as "bad" and let you continue using the rest of it. If this version doesn't report errors but chkdsk continues to run, you should replace the drive. If it does report bad sectors but is able to fix them, you can keep the drive but risk other sectors failing and they could have very important data on them.

If you're not able to get into Windows at all, but chkdsk still wants to run, that probably means there are hardware faults in the drive that are affecting Windows' ability to load system files. You should be able to take that hard drive out and put it into another computer, retrieve the data that isn't in the bad parts of the drive and put a new one in to replace it.

Hope this helped. Feel free to explain or ask more.
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Old March 16th, 2013 #5
Fred
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Yes, Varg you are right. The computer locked up when I was using it. So I did not shut it down correctly. I had to do a hard reset. Now it wants run chkdsk before booting.

Right now the computer goes right to chkdsk while it starts windows. I turned it off before Chckdsk started. It does give the option to press any key to abort but for some reason my keyboard is not working because chkdsk will continue no matter how many keys I press. So I can't boot to get my data unless I run chkdsk first.

You guys are telling me that I should go ahead and let the computer run chkdsk and unless the computer HD is damaged it should boot up. chkdsk is a safe program to run. Correct?

If it does boot I will immediately get the files off that I want. Most of the important stuff is redundantly backed up but I would sure hate to have to re-install everything. So I want to avoid wiping out the disk.

Last edited by Fred; March 16th, 2013 at 01:15 PM.
 
Old March 17th, 2013 #6
AJG
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Chkdsk is better than safe. It makes your computer safer to use. Without it or an equivalent, you would lose a lot of data and have no idea why.
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Old March 17th, 2013 #7
Fred
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OK Thanks


This is what I will do. I am going to get an IDE to USB converter. Take the drive out and see if I can get the data on another computer. If so, grab what I want. Then put the drive back and run chckdsk.
If the drive is still good it should re-boot the workstation.

This may sound strange but I am an old DOS guy. I used to run chckdsk and de-frag frequently. Then about 7 years ago while using XP, I used chckdsk and it ruined all my files. Maybe the drive was bad, I am not sure. chckdsk did rename all the files on the disk. It was a pain in the ass.

I should not worry and go ahead an use chckdsk.
 
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