chkdsk log
RR
Shenan Stanley
> If I ran chkdsk /r on a harddrive and it fixed some things, what
> did it fix?
I am guessing you are asking, "Where is the log for CHKDSK?"
Now is a great time to point you to one of the easiest ways to find
information on problems you may be having and solutions others have found:
Search using Google!
http://www.google.com/
(How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )
Using your query as an example:
http://www.google.com/search?q=where+is+the+log+for+CHKDSK+in+Windows+XP
http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-chkdsk-where-are-the-results/132863.html
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t172863-where-is-log-file-for-chkdsk-for-windows-xp.html
http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/42429.htm
Simplistic direct answer:
Start Button --> Run --> type in:
eventvwr.msc /s
--> Click OK.
When Event Viewer opens, click on "Application", then scroll
down to "Winlogon" and double-click on it. This should be the
log created after running CHKDSK.
--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
John Doue
Shenan Stanley wrote:
> RR wrote:
>> If I ran chkdsk /r on a harddrive and it fixed some things, what
>> did it fix?
>
> I am guessing you are asking, "Where is the log for CHKDSK?"
>
> Now is a great time to point you to one of the easiest ways to find
> information on problems you may be having and solutions others have found:
>
> Search using Google!
> http://www.google.com/
> (How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )
>
> Using your query as an example:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=where+is+the+log+for+CHKDSK+in+Windows+XP
>
> http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-chkdsk-where-are-the-results/132863.html
> http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t172863-where-is-log-file-for-chkdsk-for-windows-xp.html
> http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/42429.htm
>
> Simplistic direct answer:
> Start Button --> Run --> type in:
> eventvwr.msc /s
> --> Click OK.
>
> When Event Viewer opens, click on "Application", then scroll
> down to "Winlogon" and double-click on it. This should be the
> log created after running CHKDSK.
>
log is located might have been what the OP asked for.
Of course, still, it is nice to know how to access it the way you describe.
--
John Doue
RR
things to resolve including a harddrive that now wont boot.
I have read the chdkdsk results but only understand about half. Atleast
there were no bad sectors found.
Not sure why Microsoft makes me walk the coals to get this info. chkdsk used
to give you the info before when it was done. Scandisk did not find any
errors but chkdsk did? I will have to search the scandisk and chkdsk
differences out later unless you would happen to know.
Anyway thank you very much for the info.
Shenan Stanley
> If I ran chkdsk /r on a harddrive and it fixed some things, what
> did it fix?
Shenan Stanley wrote:
> I am guessing you are asking, "Where is the log for CHKDSK?"
>
> Now is a great time to point you to one of the easiest ways to find
> information on problems you may be having and solutions others have
> found:
> Search using Google!
> http://www.google.com/
> (How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )
>
> Using your query as an example:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=where+is+the+log+for+CHKDSK+in+Windows+XP
>
> http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-chkdsk-where-are-the-results/132863.html
> http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t172863-where-is-log-file-for-chkdsk-for-windows-xp.html
> http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/42429.htm
>
> Simplistic direct answer:
> Start Button --> Run --> type in:
> eventvwr.msc /s
> --> Click OK.
>
> When Event Viewer opens, click on "Application", then scroll
> down to "Winlogon" and double-click on it. This should be the
> log created after running CHKDSK.
John Doue wrote:
> Was it necessary to advertize the use of Google? Telling us *where*
> this log is located might have been what the OP asked for.
>
> Of course, still, it is nice to know how to access it the way you
> describe.
I was not advertising Google - I was pointing out that helping yourself is
possible - for most.
And the links I gave were found using the Google search I described which
gave the exact answer I gave. So you got the answer, where I got it from
and how I got it.
Was it necessary for you to respond in the manner you did and add nothing to
the conversation? ;-)
Shenan Stanley
> If I ran chkdsk /r on a harddrive and it fixed some things, what
> did it fix?
Shenan Stanley wrote:
> I am guessing you are asking, "Where is the log for CHKDSK?"
>
> Now is a great time to point you to one of the easiest ways to find
> information on problems you may be having and solutions others have
> found:
> Search using Google!
> http://www.google.com/
> (How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )
>
> Using your query as an example:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=where+is+the+log+for+CHKDSK+in+Windows+XP
>
> http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-chkdsk-where-are-the-results/132863.html
> http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t172863-where-is-log-file-for-chkdsk-for-windows-xp.html
> http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/42429.htm
>
> Simplistic direct answer:
> Start Button --> Run --> type in:
> eventvwr.msc /s
> --> Click OK.
>
> When Event Viewer opens, click on "Application", then scroll
> down to "Winlogon" and double-click on it. This should be the
> log created after running CHKDSK.
Guess you didn't follow the advice from before. Trying again. ;-)
Now is a great time to point you to one of the easiest ways to find
information on problems you may be having and solutions others have found:
Search using Google!
http://www.google.com/
(How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )
Using your query as an example:
http://www.google.com/search?q=difference+between+scandisk+and+chkdsk
Essentially - CHKDSK is the version that comes/came with the NT-series
(Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista and 7) and SCANDISK is the one that came with
the Windows 9x/ME series. CHKDSK is what you would use given the choice you
made of newsgroups.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/kbtip.mspx
More information:
How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265
You might look into this:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/system_maintenance_for_windows
And if you know the name brand of the hard disk drive - you could visit the
manufacturer's web page, download and utilize their diagnostics utility for
more information.
Pegasus [MVP]
"RR" <R...@discussions.microsoft.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:794D35D9-E45B-4466...@microsoft.com...
> If I ran chkdsk /r on a harddrive and it fixed some things, what did it
> fix?
When you run it while logged on then you can see the report on the screen.
When you run it while booting up then you can see it in the Event Logger
(eventvwr.exe).
Pegasus [MVP]
"RR" <R...@discussions.microsoft.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:A91EE486-6018-4A5D...@microsoft.com...
Scandisk is a Windows 98 tool. I do not know if it will run at all under
WinXP but if it does then it won't be able to deal with NTFS volumes.
John Doue
Necessary, no. But I feel the best way to keep a thread interesting and
positive is to give the straight answer a user is looking for, when you
have it.
Telling someone he might as well not have posted his question and done a
search himself, while not giving him directly the answer he seems to
expect, well I feel this is somewhat patronizing.
But you might argue that I am doing some patronizing here too, and you
might have a point :-).
--
John Doue
Jose
If you run it from a command prompt using Recovery Console (or
something like that) you have to redirect the output/results to a
file:
chkdsk c: /r > chkdsk.txt
If it runs automatically when Windows boots (because you told it to),
the result is in the Event Viewer Application Log with a Source column
of Winlogon. Double click the Event to open it for viewing.
%SystemRoot%\system32\eventvwr.msc /s
What's so hard about that!
Pegasus [MVP]
"Jose" <jose...@yahoo.com> screv in
news:2a4616af-3a9b-48b4...@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 13, 5:44 am, RR <R...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>> after a bad crash and having to replace the motherboard and cpu I have 5
>> things to resolve including a harddrive that now wont boot.
>>
>> I have read the chdkdsk results but only understand about half. Atleast
>> there were no bad sectors found.
>>
>> Not sure why Microsoft makes me walk the coals to get this info. chkdsk
>> used
>> to give you the info before when it was done. Scandisk did not find any
>> errors but chkdsk did? I will have to search the scandisk and chkdsk
>> differences out later unless you would happen to know.
>>
>> Anyway thank you very much for the info.
>
> If you run it from a command prompt using Recovery Console (or
> something like that) you have to redirect the output/results to a
> file:
>
> chkdsk c: /r > chkdsk.txt
>
Hhm, this is a fairly useless way of running chkdsk. In the vast majority of
cases, drive C: is the System drive. Windows will therefore respond with
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
Because of the redirection you propose, the OP will never see this message
and the process appears to hang. And even if it did complete, the chkdsk log
would not appear in chkdsk.txt since chkdsk will not run until much later.
In other words, redirecting the output from chkdsk is rarely useful. Best to
look at the output directly, without redirection.
Jose
> "Jose" <jose_e...@yahoo.com> screv innews:2a4616af-3a9b-48b4...@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
Correct you are - redirect will not work with the /f option in a
normal boot. Didn't I mention Recovery Console?
You can still run chkdsk c: in a normal boot and redirect it and get
much information that will suggest if you need to use /f or not.
I should have remembered that Google is my friend.
Daave
Although a straight and complete answer would have been helpful,
providing the means to independently discover the answer not only this
for problem but future problems is arguably more helpful (even if it
might seem patronizing). Like the old saying goes:
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats
for a lifetime.
John Doue
But now, could we all here have a straight answer: in which file is this
information the OP was after stored on? I am not asking how to access
this info, I know. The name of the file, please?
I checked your links and lots of others, and it looks like the answer is
not as straightforward as I expected ...
--
John Doue
Shenan Stanley
John Doue wrote:
> Necessary, no. But I feel the best way to keep a thread interesting
> and positive is to give the straight answer a user is looking for,
> when you have it.
>
> Telling someone he might as well not have posted his question and
> done a search himself, while not giving him directly the answer he
> seems to expect, well I feel this is somewhat patronizing.
>
> But you might argue that I am doing some patronizing here too, and
> you might have a point :-).
Daave wrote:
> Although a straight and complete answer would have been helpful,
> providing the means to independently discover the answer not only
> this for problem but future problems is arguably more helpful (even
> if it might seem patronizing). Like the old saying goes:
>
> Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he
> eats for a lifetime.
John Doue wrote:
> I know this saying ... Quite adequate in a class room.
>
> But now, could we all here have a straight answer: in which file is
> this information the OP was after stored on? I am not asking how to
> access this info, I know. The name of the file, please?
>
> I checked your links and lots of others, and it looks like the
> answer is not as straightforward as I expected ...
The OP did not ask what file anything was stored in - they asked what CHKDSK
fixed when it fixed something - or with a little deductive reasoning - where
they could go to view what the CHKDSK function did when they used it. That
would be the Event Log - Application event log to be precise.
The point was that it is not stored in a log file - but in the event log.
Yes - the event logs *are* files, in some ways 'log' files - but one that
has a special application to read it. That special application is the event
viewer.
The location of these files:
%SystemRoot%\System32\Config
Go ahead - open the "AppEvent.Evt" file with notepad, wordpad, word,
wordperfect, etc. It will be pretty much worthless. ;-) You really need
something that can parse it correctly - and while I am sure you can write
something - you could just use the application made to do it already. ;-)
EVENTVWR
I gave a straight and very complete answer to the OP's query. I think you
may have read more into it than was there (it's quoted above in all its
one-sentence glory) and maybe *you* expected more of an answer than what I
have given (the answer, how to get the answer yourself and references to
backup the answer given...) - but unless and until the OP comes back - we'll
just be guessing what they actually wanted and whether or not anything said
here helped:
<entire conversation, archived indefinitely>
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/browse_frm/thread/e0f2fe7edd5df162/
</entire conversation, archived indefinitely>
VanguardLH
> The point was that it is not stored in a log file - but in the event log.
> Yes - the event logs *are* files, in some ways 'log' files - but one that
> has a special application to read it. That special application is the event
> viewer.
>
> The location of these files:
> %SystemRoot%\System32\Config
Programs can even add their own "event handler" that reports entries to the
event logs by adding a category for themself (which shows up as another node
in the Event Viewer's tree list).
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog
This lists what handler is used for each category. Some info found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785425(WS.10).aspx
Although not for Windows XP, many if not most of the concepts still apply.
You could start at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc498727.aspx
and then drill down to find the equivalent node for Event Viewer under
Windows XP.
At Technet, you could click on the "Windows XP" tab and do a search on
chkdsk under that group. Oops, looks like I'm being "patronizing".
However, for someone asking "what does it mean" for chkdsk's output, that
usually means the poster doesn't have the expertise to understand the output
so trying to tell them means you have to write a book on the file system and
hard disk hardware. I understand only a smidgen of chkdsk's output.
Knowing what it all means, especially for errors or warnings, isn't where I
want to spend my time. Doling out a book to someone that has to ask rather
than do their own research means you're giving info that is over their head,
anyway. I'll give them a head start by showing them where to find some info
but then they are their own as to how much of it they want to learn. Just
how far do you drill down into the output, especially when there is an error
or warning, discussing possibilities for those errors or warnings before you
stop? You can end up digging into the fundamentals of various file systems
(since the OP didn't mention what they use) or even down to the physics of
magnetic dipoles on the platters of the disc media, how retentitivty wanes
over time due to magnetic stress (the dipoles want to align with each
other), and why something like SpinRite is handy for refreshing rarely used
magnetic storage media (that rewrites the data to strengthen dipole
differentiation), like for floppies left in storage for years.
The easiest answer would be to tell the OP that if chkdsk /r keeps reporting
errors that they need a more robust program to attempt to recover from bad
sectors on the drive's media. He could try the disk manufacturer's own
diagnostic utility (usually free), or getting SpinRite (not free and costs
about the same as getting a replacement drive). If SpinRite can't repair
the drive (and sometimes even if it does depending on what problem that it
managed to fix), start shopping for a replacement drive.
Haven't a clue why the OP wants to know where are the .evt files for the
event logs (but he's been told by Shenan). The OP claims to know about
using Event Viewer which knows how to read the database construct used to
build those event logs. I suspect any program that wants to add a record to
a event log does so through a system API. I suppose somewhere Microsoft
might document the binary construction of their event logfiles but the OP
hasn't explained why he wants the *files* (but wasn't what the OP originally
asked). Does the OP perhaps want to copy those .evt files to another host
and use Action -> Open Log File in Event Viewer so he can review the logs
for host A on host B?
RR
> manufacturer's web page, download and utilize their diagnostics utility for
> more information.
I did use Western Digital's DataLifeGuard Tools software but nothing was
found.
CHKDSK did find errors but as for now my computer still wont boot using the
Western Digital 120 Gig Drive. I had to buy a new drive to get back on the
internet to get help.
The question is can i use a program like Windows' SFC to repair the boot
files or will reinstalling windows get my harddrive back to the way it was
before thursdays crash. Take note that the harddrive will NOT boot into safe
mode or anything else. During boot the system will display about 10 lines if
files being loaded then stop at "Press any key to cancel loading SPTD.SYS"
then reboot over and over.
Shenan Stanley
> I did use Western Digital's DataLifeGuard Tools software but
> nothing was found.
>
> CHKDSK did find errors but as for now my computer still wont boot
> using the Western Digital 120 Gig Drive. I had to buy a new drive
> to get back on the internet to get help.
>
> The question is can i use a program like Windows' SFC to repair the
> boot files or will reinstalling windows get my harddrive back to
> the way it was before thursdays crash. Take note that the harddrive
> will NOT boot into safe mode or anything else. During boot the
> system will display about 10 lines if files being loaded then stop
> at "Press any key to cancel loading SPTD.SYS" then reboot over and
> over.
How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341
Anna
"RR" <R...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:794D35D9-E45B-4466...@microsoft.com...
> If I ran chkdsk /r on a harddrive and it fixed some things, what did it
> fix?
RR later adds...
> after a bad crash and having to replace the motherboard and cpu I have 5
> things to resolve including a harddrive that now wont boot.
>
> I have read the chdkdsk results but only understand about half. Atleast
> there were no bad sectors found.
>
> Not sure why Microsoft makes me walk the coals to get this info. chkdsk
> used
> to give you the info before when it was done. Scandisk did not find any
> errors but chkdsk did? I will have to search the scandisk and chkdsk
> differences out later unless you would happen to know.
>
> Anyway thank you very much for the info.
and still later...
> I did use Western Digital's DataLifeGuard Tools software but nothing was
> found.
>
> CHKDSK did find errors but as for now my computer still wont boot using
> the
> Western Digital 120 Gig Drive. I had to buy a new drive to get back on the
> internet to get help.
>
> The question is can i use a program like Windows' SFC to repair the boot
> files or will reinstalling windows get my harddrive back to the way it was
> before thursdays crash. Take note that the harddrive will NOT boot into
> safe
> mode or anything else. During boot the system will display about 10 lines
> if
> files being loaded then stop at "Press any key to cancel loading SPTD.SYS"
> then reboot over and over.
RR...
While I'm not sure about those "5 things (you have) to resolve including a
harddrive that now wont (sic) boot", the fact that you had "to replace the
motherboard and cpu" tends to indicate that all things being equal, you
probably would have had to run a Repair install of the XP OS to return your
system to a bootable/functional state. And, of course, install whatever
necessary drivers from the motherboard's installation CD following the new
installation of the motherboard & processor.
The "all things being equal" reference above presupposes that your installed
HDD at the time was non-defective and there were no hardware problems with
the other components in your system. Of course you do mention you made this
change "after a bad crash". So there might be other complications involved
here other than a corrupted OS or some other software-type problem.
I assume that you fresh-installed the XP OS onto your "new drive" and so at
the moment you have a bootable/functional system, albeit not containing the
programs and all the other data from your WD 120 GB HDD (apparently your
original HDD), which appears to be non-defective, at least according to the
WD HDD diagnostic utility.
So did you run a Repair install of the XP OS following your
motherboard/processor change? If so, did it fail to return the system to
bootable/functional one?
If you didn't run such a Repair install following that change, do you think
it might be a good idea to do so now using your "old" WD HDD?
Anna