Foo - Computer help, I have no clue what happened!

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What does it mean that the volume is dirty? Is this just a basic maintenance that the computer does?

Its odd, the comp works fine now...

Thanks

Cool! Computer heal thyself. Never seen one run chkdsk by itself before!

Maybe you should stick to softcore porn for a while. Give your computer a little time to get used to the nastier stuff.

Maybe you should stick to softcore porn for a while. Give your computer a little time to get used to the nastier stuff.

ha...ha...ha...

What kind of computer you have? That might help the "computer smart" people in this forum ;)

I have gotten "The Blue Screen of Death" before, and I literally freaked out. :o

What that means is your index files are not pointing to valid files, so chkdisk is removing them.

To you it should mean "it's being fixed". To a dev it means that the pipeline Windows XP uses to quickly find a file is broken, and it's going to nuke that index entirely, so it can be reconstructed right the next time those files are accessed.

It's like if you had an out of date roadmap, you would throw it out and get a new one.

Nothing to worry about. Check disk is made exactly for that reason. I do suggest that you run check disk on a regular basis and defrag your hard drive every so often. These are basic maintence steps for windows that everyone should do. If you want to know more about basic computer maintainence feel free to PM me or check about.com or other help sites on the web.

This is just one more thing I don't miss about windows! If you really want to fix your computer get linux, debian style ;-)

Its a Dell dimension 4600.

I assumed that it was what catatonic said, but I just wanted t check.

Thanks

When ever my comp runs slow of something I use system recovery alot=D

What that means is your index files are not pointing to valid files, so chkdisk is removing them.

To you it should mean "it's being fixed". To a dev it means that the pipeline Windows XP uses to quickly find a file is broken, and it's going to nuke that index entirely, so it can be reconstructed right the next time those files are accessed.

It's like if you had an out of date roadmap, you would throw it out and get a new one.

This is more or less the answer, however, the question should be what caused it to happen in the first place? No it doesn't just do it as maintenance once in a while....that typically comes up because "soemthing" told Windows (or Windows caught something itself) that soemthing was out of synch between the files and the file allocation table (not necessarily a catastrophic problem or anything). When Windows got this messgae it "flagged" the hard drive as dirty, so it would run chkdsk on the next boot.

E.g. it "may" have happened because of a legit problem. Might try to figure out if anything weird happened in last few days...if not, back up your data to be on the safe side (if you don't already).

Yeah, sounds like something happened to your filesystem. Did you have a crash in the middle of a disk-operation like a file->save or download?

It usually happens if you shut off or lose power to your computer system without going through a full shutdown phase.

Did you have a blackout recently, or did somone unplug the comp, or hold the power button in for 10 seconds to force it to shut down?

The final thing Windows does before a shutdown is mark the drive 'clean' .... if that mark isn't set, the drive is considered 'dirty' and it will prompt you to check it. (Or run the check itself if you don't tell it not to)

It's not really something to be concerned about unless you get the screen a lot.

and for the geek in all of us: It's caused by using cache's to speed up disk access... data isn't written to the disk immediately, it's stored in memory until there's enough information to make it worthwhile to write. If the cache isn't 'flushed' (fully written to the disk and the memory cleared) during a shutdown, some information is lost. This info is usually not highly important, but it COULD be part of a file you're working with.... that's why you should never unplug a computer, or hold the power button down untill it shuts down... it's 'A Bad Thing' (tm)

This is more or less the answer, however, the question should be what caused it to happen in the first place? No it doesn't just do it as maintenance once in a while....that typically comes up because "soemthing" told Windows (or Windows caught something itself) that soemthing was out of synch between the files and the file allocation table (not necessarily a catastrophic problem or anything). When Windows got this messgae it "flagged" the hard drive as dirty, so it would run chkdsk on the next boot.

E.g. it "may" have happened because of a legit problem. Might try to figure out if anything weird happened in last few days...if not, back up your data to be on the safe side (if you don't already).


Pretty much the majority of the time it's related to not powering down properly, blue screen for some other reason, etc.

On the really rare instance, it could be a hard drive getting ready to push up daisies, but I doubt it.

Pretty much the majority of the time it's related to not powering down properly, blue screen for some other reason, etc.

On the really rare instance, it could be a hard drive getting ready to push up daisies, but I doubt it.

Yeah...you are right, but I've had a FEW hard drive problems in recent months, so I guess I'm playing the pessemist. :D

so have I, but it was more related to the conditions I was using them in more than anyhting else...running at 45-55c 24-7-365....that will kill a drive pretty fast.

so have I, but it was more related to the conditions I was using them in more than anyhting else...running at 45-55c 24-7-365....that will kill a drive pretty fast.

Same here actually...running them as externals that never get shut off.

The partial chkdsk has 3 stages. The full chkdsk has 5 stages.

I wonder what it is implying when it says the volume is "dirty." ;)

I wonder what it is implying when it says the volume is "dirty." ;)
Read bmclaughlin807's post a few above this one.....it's spot on. I didn't go into that detail thinking most people didn't want that level of tech talk here. ;)

Same here actually...running them as externals that never get shut off.

Yep, that's exactly how i killed mine off.

7200prm drives and external enclosures do not seem to mix very well. I am working on building my own low-power consumption NASbox that will use Samba, so it will integrate seamlessly with windows. Only hard part is finding a single-board PC with low enough power consumption to satisfy me....the EPIA boards are so far the best candidate for this.

Yep, that's exactly how i killed mine off.

7200prm drives and external enclosures do not seem to mix very well. I am working on building my own low-power consumption NASbox that will use Samba, so it will integrate seamlessly with windows. Only hard part is finding a single-board PC with low enough power consumption to satisfy me....the EPIA boards are so far the best candidate for this.
I'm not sure what I plan to do next. I've killed a few drives this way, but I can't think of another good solution. It's data (music) that I keep at work (won't put it on my work computer).

It's essentially my backup of stuff at home.

I heard a buddy of mine on a computer forum suggesting getting something like a DVD case (much bigger and better power supply) so there is more airflow and putting in a bigger fan, etc.... I'm not sure if its worth all that....

Yeah get a DVD case, dremel some vent slots in the back, and put in a 5-1/4" drive cooler in it. Hopefully the power supply for the enclosure can handle it.