Using scandisk on hard drive

I need an opinion from the experts on hard drives. My neighbor has a computer
with a windows 98 upgrade on it. When the machine is first started it will
not go directly into windows. What happens as the computer is trying to start
is this: A warning of "S.M.A.R.T. Capable & status bad" comes up and F1 has
to be hit before going into windows. It then takes several, maybe 5 to 10
minutes to get into windows and after this the machine is terribly
slooooooow, & I mean sloooooooow. BTW the S.M.A.R.T. mentioned above means
"Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology", which is a tool for
checking the status of the hard drive. On Sun, Jan. 2nd I started the
scandisk to check the integrity of the hard drive. I checked a few minutes
ago with my neighbor and the scandisk is still running and still gaining
ground. It has a total of approx. 984,760 clusters to check and it is now at
approx. 944,000 cluster and still slooooooing gaining head way. This computer
is approx. 8 to 9 years old and has never has the scandisk tool used on it. I
need opinions on why this hard drive is taking so long to scandisk. Is it
because the hard drive has never had the scandisk used on it in all this
time or is it because the hard drive is going south? The hard drive is made
by western digital. TIA
--
Wayne

The SMART message indicates that the drive is faulty or misconfigured, and
the scandisk performance seems to confirm this. Get some hard disk drive
diagnostics from the WD www site and use them to pinpoint the problem with
the drive. Whether or not Scandisk has been run before has no impact on the
present run, other than forcing it to find errors that might have been found
somewhat earlier.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"Wayne" wrote in message
...
I need an opinion from the experts on hard drives. My neighbor has a
computer
with a windows 98 upgrade on it. When the machine is first started it will
not go directly into windows. What happens as the computer is trying to
start
is this: A warning of "S.M.A.R.T. Capable & status bad" comes up and F1
has
to be hit before going into windows. It then takes several, maybe 5 to 10
minutes to get into windows and after this the machine is terribly
slooooooow, & I mean sloooooooow. BTW the S.M.A.R.T. mentioned above means
"Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology", which is a tool for
checking the status of the hard drive. On Sun, Jan. 2nd I started the
scandisk to check the integrity of the hard drive. I checked a few minutes
ago with my neighbor and the scandisk is still running and still gaining
ground. It has a total of approx. 984,760 clusters to check and it is now
at
approx. 944,000 cluster and still slooooooing gaining head way. This
computer
is approx. 8 to 9 years old and has never has the scandisk tool used on
it. I
need opinions on why this hard drive is taking so long to scandisk. Is it
because the hard drive has never had the scandisk used on it in all this
time or is it because the hard drive is going south? The hard drive is
made
by western digital. TIA
--
Wayne

Wayne
Download and run the diagnostic software from Western Digital for your
hard disk from the following site;.
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Dan

"Wayne" wrote in message
...
I need an opinion from the experts on hard drives. My neighbor has a
computer
with a windows 98 upgrade on it. When the machine is first started
it will
not go directly into windows. What happens as the computer is trying
to start
is this: A warning of "S.M.A.R.T. Capable & status bad" comes up and
F1 has
to be hit before going into windows. It then takes several, maybe 5
to 10
minutes to get into windows and after this the machine is terribly
slooooooow, & I mean sloooooooow. BTW the S.M.A.R.T. mentioned above
means
"Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology", which is a tool
for
checking the status of the hard drive. On Sun, Jan. 2nd I started
the
scandisk to check the integrity of the hard drive. I checked a few
minutes
ago with my neighbor and the scandisk is still running and still
gaining
ground. It has a total of approx. 984,760 clusters to check and it
is now at
approx. 944,000 cluster and still slooooooing gaining head way. This
computer
is approx. 8 to 9 years old and has never has the scandisk tool used
on it. I
need opinions on why this hard drive is taking so long to scandisk.
Is it
because the hard drive has never had the scandisk used on it in all
this
time or is it because the hard drive is going south? The hard drive
is made
by western digital. TIA
--
Wayne

Thank you both, Jeff and Dapper Dan, for your answers to my question. After
the disk finishes running it course I will download and run the diagnostics
software from Western Digital as suggested. I have already told my neighbor
that, in my opionion, his hard drive was failing. However, I will run the
software diagnostic tool just to be on the safe side. Have a good evening amd
thanks again.

"Dapper Dan" wrote:

Wayne
Download and run the diagnostic software from Western Digital for your
hard disk from the following site;.
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Dan

"Wayne" wrote in message
...
I need an opinion from the experts on hard drives. My neighbor has a
computer
with a windows 98 upgrade on it. When the machine is first started
it will
not go directly into windows. What happens as the computer is trying
to start
is this: A warning of "S.M.A.R.T. Capable & status bad" comes up and
F1 has
to be hit before going into windows. It then takes several, maybe 5
to 10
minutes to get into windows and after this the machine is terribly
slooooooow, & I mean sloooooooow. BTW the S.M.A.R.T. mentioned above
means
"Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology", which is a tool
for
checking the status of the hard drive. On Sun, Jan. 2nd I started
the
scandisk to check the integrity of the hard drive. I checked a few
minutes
ago with my neighbor and the scandisk is still running and still
gaining
ground. It has a total of approx. 984,760 clusters to check and it
is now at
approx. 944,000 cluster and still slooooooing gaining head way. This
computer
is approx. 8 to 9 years old and has never has the scandisk tool used
on it. I
need opinions on why this hard drive is taking so long to scandisk.
Is it
because the hard drive has never had the scandisk used on it in all
this
time or is it because the hard drive is going south? The hard drive
is made
by western digital. TIA
--
Wayne

"Wayne" wrote in message
...
I need an opinion from the experts on hard drives. My neighbor has a
computer
with a windows 98 upgrade on it. When the machine is first started it will
not go directly into windows. What happens as the computer is trying to
start
is this: A warning of "S.M.A.R.T. Capable & status bad" comes up and F1
has
to be hit before going into windows. It then takes several, maybe 5 to 10
minutes to get into windows and after this the machine is terribly
slooooooow, & I mean sloooooooow. BTW the S.M.A.R.T. mentioned above means
"Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology", which is a tool for
checking the status of the hard drive. On Sun, Jan. 2nd I started the
scandisk to check the integrity of the hard drive. I checked a few minutes
ago with my neighbor and the scandisk is still running and still gaining
ground. It has a total of approx. 984,760 clusters to check and it is now
at
approx. 944,000 cluster and still slooooooing gaining head way. This
computer
is approx. 8 to 9 years old and has never has the scandisk tool used on
it. I
need opinions on why this hard drive is taking so long to scandisk. Is it
because the hard drive has never had the scandisk used on it in all this
time or is it because the hard drive is going south? The hard drive is
made
by western digital. TIA
--
Wayne

First thing that comes it mind is that I don't recall S.M.A.R.T. being
available in 1996.

Second thing that I recall is that, initially, S.M.A.R.T. had problems the
first year or two after introduction to the general public in PCs.

8 or 9 years is a good service life for an IDE hard drive. And, yes, its
probably failing.

You should consider looking at the motherboard's ide port communication for
32 bit compatibility. It may be running in 16 bit mode. MS calls this the
ide controller, which is actually on the physical hard drive vice the
motherboard.

Lil' Dave, The age of the hard drive is just a guess according to the owner
of the computer who bought it when it was new. It originally had widnows 95
on it and I am thinking that windows 98 came out in mid year of 1998 so I
would put it before windows 98 went public. According to what the owner told
me was that the computer was running fine in Apr. 2004 when he left his
winter home in fl. After returning back to Fl. around the latter part of Dec.
he noticed the problem where the "S.M.A.R.T" name came up telling him to hit
F1 to continue. I am also thinking that after all the years that the hard
drive is just giving out. However, after the scandisk gets finished, if it
ever does, I will be checking out the hard drive with Western Digital's
online diagnostic tools to be on the safe side. Thank you so much for the
added information. It is appreciated.

"Lil' Dave" wrote:

"Wayne" wrote in message
...
I need an opinion from the experts on hard drives. My neighbor has a
computer
with a windows 98 upgrade on it. When the machine is first started it will
not go directly into windows. What happens as the computer is trying to
start
is this: A warning of "S.M.A.R.T. Capable & status bad" comes up and F1
has
to be hit before going into windows. It then takes several, maybe 5 to 10
minutes to get into windows and after this the machine is terribly
slooooooow, & I mean sloooooooow. BTW the S.M.A.R.T. mentioned above means
"Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology", which is a tool for
checking the status of the hard drive. On Sun, Jan. 2nd I started the
scandisk to check the integrity of the hard drive. I checked a few minutes
ago with my neighbor and the scandisk is still running and still gaining
ground. It has a total of approx. 984,760 clusters to check and it is now
at
approx. 944,000 cluster and still slooooooing gaining head way. This
computer
is approx. 8 to 9 years old and has never has the scandisk tool used on
it. I
need opinions on why this hard drive is taking so long to scandisk. Is it
because the hard drive has never had the scandisk used on it in all this
time or is it because the hard drive is going south? The hard drive is
made
by western digital. TIA
--
Wayne

First thing that comes it mind is that I don't recall S.M.A.R.T. being
available in 1996.

Second thing that I recall is that, initially, S.M.A.R.T. had problems the
first year or two after introduction to the general public in PCs.

8 or 9 years is a good service life for an IDE hard drive. And, yes, its
probably failing.

You should consider looking at the motherboard's ide port communication for
32 bit compatibility. It may be running in 16 bit mode. MS calls this the
ide controller, which is actually on the physical hard drive vice the
motherboard.