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SCANDISK

 
Computer Desktop Encyclopedia: ScanDisk
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A DOS utility included only in Windows 95/98/ME that detected and repaired errors on disk. Similar to the Chkdsk utility, ScanDisk reclaimed lost clusters and turned them into .CHK files. It also performed a surface scan of the disk. ScanDisk (SCANDISK.EXE) was first shipped with DOS 6.2 and used a character-based menu interface. If Windows crashed or the computer lost power, the next time the computer was booted, ScanDisk ran automatically.

Chkdsk (CHKDSK.EXE) is a command line program that reclaims lost clusters and has shipped with every version of Windows thus far. See lost cluster and Chkdsk.

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Wikipedia: SCANDISK
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SCANDISK operating in text mode on a Windows 98 system.

SCANDISK or ScanDisk is a utility in MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows systems which checks and repairs file systems and bad clusters on the hard drive. It was introduced in MS-DOS version 6.2. Previous versions of MS-DOS supplied only the simpler, purely text-based program CHKDSK.

ScanDisk included a more user-friendly interface than MS-DOS CHKDSK, more command-line and other configuration options,[1][2] and the ability to detect and sometimes recover from physical errors on the disk.[3] Unlike CHKDSK, ScanDisk would also repair crosslinked files.[4]

In Windows 95 onwards, SCANDISK also had a graphical user interface, although the text interface continued to be available for use in single-tasking ("DOS") mode.[5][6]

SCANDISK can't check NTFS disk drives and therefore isn't available for computers running NT based (including Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc.) versions of Windows: a newer CHKDSK is provided instead (not to be confused with the older MS-DOS CHKDSK).

SCANDISK can still be run in Windows XP and can still be used to fix removable drives such as Floppy Disks.

On Unix-like systems there are tools like "fsck_msdosfs" to do the same task.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ ScanDisk command-line options
  2. ^ MS-DOS 6.2 SCANDISK.INI
  3. ^ This replaced and improved upon the limited ability offered by the MS-DOS Recover utility.
  4. ^ How to repair crosslinked files with CHKDSK notes that users with MS-DOS 6.2 or later should use Scandisk to repair the errors.
  5. ^ Windows 95 Documentation
  6. ^ Description of Scandisk for Windows from the Windows 98/Me documentation.
  7. ^ "fsck_msdosfs". http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=fsck_msdosfs&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.2-RELEASE&format=html.  091108 freebsd.org

External links

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