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Hard Drive Repair

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Tinman57:
  I've been using Norton Disk Doctor to repair file/hard drive errors for years.  Since I've gone to XP and NTFS I see that Disk Doctor has lost a lot of functionality and has little "quirks".  I don't know if this is because of the way NTFS works or just because Norton started going down hill since Symantec got involved.
  Anyhow, I never hear any mention of disk repair utilities like Disk Doctor.  Are there better hard drive repair utilities out there, or is NTFS limited in some way?

Shades:
The NTFS file system has proven to be robust over the years. In capabilities it surpassed FAT32 file system since NT4.0 came out. With each new NT-based Windows version the NTFS file system got some improvements and extra functionality.

So no, NTFS is definitely not limited (when compared with FAT32) and because of its robustness tools like Disc Doctor have (almost) lost their purpose. Of course, the meddling hands of Symantec seem to be able to ruin even the best software.

MilesAhead:
NTFS is a journaling file system.  Esp. if you have battery backup on you system, when you have a lockup or power out, you tend to get some corrupted files, but not a corrupted file system.

As example on another OS.  I used to run Linux with ext2 file system.  If I had a lockup or power glitch, I had to run fsck on the next boot to fix the file system. ext3 is a journaling file system, so if the same thing happens, it checks the journal on the next boot and any operations that weren't successfully completed are rolled back.  So, like NTFS, you may have a few corrupted files, but the file system is ok.

I just periodically right click in Explorer and use the Disk Tools to check the disk with the "fix file system errors" unchecked.  If it's healthy it comes back and says there was not a problem.

If you check the option to check all the disk sectors, plan to let the machine churn by itself for hours and hours.  Unless you are getting corrupted data, or suspect the drive is on its way out, I wouldn't bother.

Tinman57:
  I've been depending on Norton for so long I had forgotten all about the Disk Tools hidden in the properties tab, along with a bunch of other stuff I hadn't relied on in years.   ;D  Somewhere, buried deep in my help files, I have the direct command to the Disk Tools from an icon, I should put it to use when I need to do a quick check of things.  I do have other file checking utilities that I rely on.......   :Thmbsup:

Innuendo:
Not sure if it's what you are looking for but some people swear by SpinRite.

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