# Deleting index $O of file 25. Deleting what?



## Initech (Aug 13, 2007)

Hello,

Yesterday a storm was rolling by with high winds and heavy rain, and of course while my computer was on the power went out. Now when my computer got to a certain point during the start-up this appeared.

"Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended that you continue.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File record segment 25336 is unreadable.
File record segment 25337 is unreadable.
File record segment 25338 is unreadable.
File record segment 25339 is unreadable.
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Deleting an index entry from index $O of file 25.
Deleting an index entry from index $O of file 25."

Now I am not sure if the $ is followed by a "zero" or a "capitol O" If this matters please correct me.

My question is what was it deleting? Can I find out exactly what it deleted? Is there something in the Event Viewer that can show me what was deleted?
Another thing to add is that CHKDSK never completed checking and deleting, I keep skipping it during startup and the only reason I do this is because I don't know what is being deleted. The only side effect the computer is suffering from skipping CHKDSK is the desktop loading slowly.

Also after searching "File record segment xxxxx is unreadable." and "Deleting an index entry from index $O of file 25." on Tech Guy and else where a lot of the responses were that the hard drive might be failing and needs replacing. Does anybody have any recommendations for hard drives? I wanted to get a good reliable external hard drive around 320GB - 500GB but after reading reviews after reviews on various external hard drives they don't seem too stable, unless I was reading all the crappy ones.

I guess that is it for now, if there is any specifications that I should look for on hard drives to find the good ones please do tell.

Specs:
System
Windows XP
Home Edition
Service Pack 2
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.60GHz, 2.50GB of ram
Hard Drive: 120GB 7200RPM Ultra ATA/100

Thanks 
Bye


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## Mumbodog (Oct 3, 2007)

Know way to know for sure what file is being deleted, in a windows file system, the files all have numbers, that particular one is file number 25, trying to translate that back to the name of the file is very hard to do.

More than likely that file was open and being written to when the power failed, so it gets scrambled, if chkdsk cannot reassemble/recover the file, then it will delete it so the entire file system does not have issues, but some times chkdsk will delete a critical system file, but it has no choice but to correct the file system.

You should let chkdsk run to completion.

I doubt the hard drive is failing, unless you start seeing "Sectors" being recovered during chkdsk.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

It would be a good idea to run chkdks /r on the drive to be sure that no clusters are damaged. It can happen in a storm and chkdsk /r will mark them so that they will no longer be used. Generally, bad clusters mean the end of the drive, but an occasional bad cluster after a strom may be unimportant. I partitioned around such an area on a hard drive once and it is still in use, error-free, now some 2 years later. I would not even have bothered with that since the clusters were "out of use", but some imaging programs will refuse to run if there is even a single bad cluster.


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## Initech (Aug 13, 2007)

How old does a hard drive have to be to warrant a replacement? My hard drive has been operating for 6 years, I thought it was time to replace it. Now is CHKDSK deleting/correcting files from like system 32, files that are essential in making the computer operational or can CHKDSK also find problems with photos, music, game files and delete those too? That is what I am worried about, it has already deleted something that I have no clue to what it was(hopefully nothing important) and I don't have a back up to my entire hard drive. Hopefully someone can suggest a good external hard drive to use as back up. I hate the fact how it deletes files without telling you what it was deleting. All I want to know is the file name so I can see if the file is replaceable or not.

Thanks for replying!


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

No files were deleted.

It wouldn't delete them from system32 because those are protected. It made corrections to inconsistencies in the file system between files and their records. It found 4 files it could not read. Chkdsk /r will try to recover unreadable files, move them to a new location if a cluster is bad, and mark the old location so it will no longer be used. A 6-year-old drive is old enough to worry about.

You can clone the old drive to a new one and not lose a thing, that is, provided you do it before problems start with the old drive. If the old drive is still usable, you can use it to store data or images of your entire system. But the older it is, the less you should trust it for important data.

You should worry about drive failure the day you put the drive in. They fail in the first seconds, days, weeks, or years. You always need to back everything up. A disk image allows you to restore everything to a new drive if you need to.


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## Mumbodog (Oct 3, 2007)

Initech said:


> How old does a hard drive have to be to warrant a replacement? My hard drive has been operating for 6 years, I thought it was time to replace it. Now is CHKDSK deleting/correcting files from like system 32, files that are essential in making the computer operational or can CHKDSK also find problems with photos, music, game files and delete those too? That is what I am worried about, it has already deleted something that I have no clue to what it was(hopefully nothing important) and I don't have a back up to my entire hard drive. Hopefully someone can suggest a good external hard drive to use as back up. I hate the fact how it deletes files without telling you what it was deleting. All I want to know is the file name so I can see if the file is replaceable or not.
> 
> Thanks for replying!


You have a good point, maybe you should back up your important data before running chkdsk.

.


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## Initech (Aug 13, 2007)

Firstly thanks for replying I really appreciated.
What brands of external hard drives should I look for? Anything that I should avoid like the plague? I was looking for something around 320 - 500GB in size.


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## Mumbodog (Oct 3, 2007)

I prefer Seagate


.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

I prefer WD. I also like Hitachi. Stick with a name brand with a good warranty and you will be all right. You could also do a search to be sure there are not an unexpected number of problems with a particular model.


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## Initech (Aug 13, 2007)

Are hard drives powered by USB underpowered(Affecting USB 2.0 speeds) resulting in slow transfer rate? 
Hard drives powered via AC outlet have any cons?
Also how do external drives handle power outages? Because the power grid where I live is held up by homemade duct tape. Sometimes the power goes out without bad weather or drunks ramming into utility poles.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

USB drives are designed to run well at the USB 5v that they get. Sometimes, if the drive has problems, a special USB cable with 2 connectors (one only power, the other data+power) can be used to boost the power supply to the drive. I have been very happy with their performance even though I had the same concerns that you do. They don't "run slow" or anything like that, even with low power. They run correctly, or they don't run and they throw an error. There won't be any half-way performance issues.

They behave pretty much like internal drives in power failures. If there is data being written and still in the buffers, it is lost. Just like internal drives, there is always some minor file system damage due to abruptly halted writes. Newer technologies prevent grave errors, but chkdsk /f for all drives after a failure is still wise. Externals formatted NTFS have the same fault-tolerance as internals and data loss is thus avoided under almost all circumstances.

You can reduce some of those problems by turning off the disk cache in Device Manager. That way, there is far less data sitting around in buffers waiting to be lost if the power fails. But, you do lose some small amount of disk performance in the trade-off and transfers may be a bit slower.

Because drives don't do well with any drops or bangs, they need to be secured in a place where they won't fall off a table or wires won't be tripped over. One drop is usually the end for them. SSD drives, though smaller in capacity and with shorter lifespans, are more tolerant of rough treatment.


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