How often should I Scandisk?

    "Scandisk" is a program that Microsoft  purchased from Norton and began to include with DOS version 6.0.  It checks your drive and offers it repair the drive, if it can.  You should run scandisk on a regular basis.  If you run your computer every day, then the standard scandisk should be run at least once a week and the thorough (surface) scandisk at least once a month.

    If you buy the Windows 95 Plus! Pak, there is a program in it called System Agent, which will offer to automatically schedule a standard scandisk every day and a thorough scandisk once a month.  

    Scandisking works the machine pretty hard and you should schedule these either after hours or during lunchtime, since you won't be able to use your machine while it is running.  Standard scandisking takes about two minutes to run.   Thorough scandisking can take between 30 minutes and 3 hours, depending on the size of your drive.

    If you have a floppy disk that is acting up, sometimes scandisk will repair that, too.  Scandisk the a: drive rather than the c: or d: drive.  If it does fix the floppy, copy the disk to a new one immediately and count your blessings.   Throw the old one away.  Usually, if you have to rely on scandisk to repair a floppy, the floppy is on its way to failure.

        How do I run Scandisk and what should I watch for?

Home    Tips to Keep Your Computer Running     Send me E-mail

Copyright Eric Vey, 1997 - 2002
All trademarked names used in this site are owned by their respective companies.
Windows, Windows 95, DOS, Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are trademarked names of Microsoft Corporation.