On 17 Dec 99, at 21:43, Barbara wrote:
> When I run scandisk it makes several files and puts them on my
> hard disk. They usually look like this:
>
> File0000.chk
> File0001.chk
>
> The last time I ran it one of the files has 24 MB in it!!!!!!
> There were 8 more files made, but they had only 32-96 KB in them.
> I desperately need the space this file is taking up. Is it safe
> to delete it? I tried to open it and only got little boxes.
> Can't see how it could be doing me any good if I can't open it to
> tell what it is. It think it is supposed to be some kind of
> report of what it fixed????
A file on disk consists of two things:
(1) zero or more "clusters" ("allocation units") of data space,
marked as "in use" and linked together in order, and
(2) a directory entry assigning the file a name, creation date, and
so on.
When you run an application which is writing out data to a file, it
collects information in RAM and periodically adds new clusters to the
cahin (1) and writes out data to them. It is often only when the job
is finished or the program is ending that the new directory entry is
committed to disk.
If you shut off the machine before that point is reached, you wind
up with clusters marked "in use" but that don't belong to any
directory entry. One of the things ScanDisk does is locate any such
chains and -- if you tell it to -- construct directory entries with
names like FILE0001.CHK to refer to them. This then makes it
possible for you to delete the files (marking the clusters
"available") or rename/move the files to where they belong.
So, if you're not missing anything yoiu think you should have, you
can delete these files to free up space.
[However, if files like this are getting created routinely, it
sounds as if you may be switching off your machine before it is quite
ready for that. If you can correct your shutdoen procedure, scandisk
should no longer run automatically and create these files when you
restart the PC.]
David G
"Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
programs with his honest opinions in this weekly column.
http://nospin.com/rode
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