problems running ScanDisk

[Bullfrog]

I wanted to compress Drive C but have errors...so I tried to run ScanDisk and message "ScanDisk cannot check this drive now because the disk is not properly formatted, or a program such as a disk utility has locked it." any suggestions? I've been told already that maybe I'll need to use another scan program.

[MickMitani]

with 13gig drives down to $135 why would you want to compress a drive?

But, if you must, remember that WIN9x FAT32 formatted drives cannot be compressed. Drives with custom boot loaders like EZ-Drive or Disk Manager don't like compression either. If your drive is already showing bad spots, it makes even less sense to compress it. Murphy's law of HDs say that once a HD starts to go bad, the process only accelerates. If you lose a sector on a compressed drive, you could even lose every file on the drive at once, compared to one or two files on a uncompressed drive.

[Nathan]

Well... I would like to suggest to everyone NEVER compress your hard drive. There can be just too many problems to handle after it's done.

Try rebooting the machine and turn off any utility or anti-virus programs you have running. Then run scandisk.

[Vampiel]

When you compress a HD that is exacly what it does it "compresses the WHOLE thing" so every time you run any file off of that HD it has to either uncompress it or read it compressed depending on what you compress it with, either way it slows down the HD and causes greater chance of your HD going bad. I agree with the others, you really shouldnt compress it no matter how much you want to put more stuff on it, esp. if it allready has bad sectors on it, that would really be testing fate, you would prob end up losing the HD just trying to sqeeze in a couple hundred more megs (or however big the HD is, I assume its small cause you want to compress it)

[Bullfrog]

Thanks...that was pretty much what I was going to do..just one of those things that bug you... Thanks again!