# Solved: Lost Clusters, Lost Chains



## raybro (Apr 27, 2003)

I was recently running defrag using Norton Utilities Speed disk on my Win98SE system and after the initial scan popped up a flag that said there were lost clusters/chains in the C: drive and I should run Disc Doctor. OK, I did that and DD did find something like 205 lost chains. I clicked the "Fix" button and DD went through the repair process and started a new scan. The process then repeated. Did it again and it again repeated. I rebooted and ran DD again with same result.

So what I was dealing with was an endless loop which prevented me from doing defrag. There was no obvious effect on system operation. To shorten up this story, I used Acronis TI to restore my C: drive to a previous good configuration and all is well.

What I would like input on is just what are "Lost clusters" and "Lost chains" and what causes them. I was under the impression this occurred as a result of an improper shutdown, but that has not happened during the timeframe of this event. 

As always, any input on this question is much appreciated.  In the meantime, I'm going to Goolge lost clusters and lost chains and see what I can learn.

Raybro


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

A lost cluster is one that is taking up disk space (ie assigned) but not in the disk directory. These generally belong to files that were in the process of being created when either Windows crashed, was forced down, or the application crashed, hung.

When scandisk runs, it finds these clusters in use and not in the directory. For any individual file that was being created, all of it's clusters are linked to each other, and scandisk saves them as a Chain.

These are saved in the root of the boot partition as files of the format *FILEnnnn.CHK*, where nnnn is a number.

BUT, to have scandisk or DD continue to find lost clusters, would indicate a failing drive, and scandisk is finding *good* files and thinking they are lost clusters.

It's a good thing you had a backup, otherwise you entire disk could have been trashed.

If this had occured during a boot up, the scandisk running there could have actually deleted all those files.

This site explains the dangers of letting scandisk or DD or anyother disk utility, to automatically fix errors. Alwasys, always, always review what the utility "thinks" it is going to fix, before allowing it to do so.

I would also recommend running an indepth surface scan on your drive to ensure integrity.


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## raybro (Apr 27, 2003)

Thanks WhitPhil... As I indicated in my previous post, I did some research and pretty much found what you said. I have scandisk disabled because I use DD instead, but maybe I'll give scandisk a try if I get a repeat of this anomaly. Also, I'll run a surface scan as you suggested and I never, never, never allow any utility to run automatic fixes. If I don't understand it, I don't do it.

BTW... I don't believe DD was finding additional lost clusters or chains. The scan result was identical on each repeated scan. I assume that for some reason I have yet to understand, it was not actually fixing the condition.

Raybro


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

If DD was actually trying to "fix" something, the results should be in the root directory as *.DD files, I think.

As any after thought, the cause could also be failing ram. I may be worthwhile to also run a memory test. And start to watch for any "strange" things starting to occur in your environment.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

raybro ,

I have had the same thing happen. Even when I close the speed disk and run just the disk doctor it can start over and over. 
If I close down the norton by the clock and then just open the disk doctor it will then run ok.

I always like to look at the report after it does the repair with disk doctor too.
Note: I have seen it fix things some times when it goes in a loop and starts over and I hate it because you have no report to look at to know what it fixed.


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

The important thing is:
do not let it fix things by default.

Scandisk and DD can NOT fix all errors that they detect. And, some can result in the severely damaged file system.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Yep it sure can. Took my PC over to my sister's and she worked on it and hooked the drives back up wrong and I keep getting errors and was fixing them.
Well it screwed thing all up. After I looked and seen that she hooked up things wrong I fixed it but it screwed up the registry and bootup files. 
Can not use the drive like before at all.
After I unchecked everything in msconfig I was able to bootup and keep it running but only do so with the cable modem turned off.
Yea my sister is a PC tech too but hooking things up the wrong way can sure screw thing up.


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## raybro (Apr 27, 2003)

WhitPhil said:


> If DD was actually trying to "fix" something, the results should be in the root directory as *.DD files, I think.
> 
> As any after thought, the cause could also be failing ram. I may be worthwhile to also run a memory test. And start to watch for any "strange" things starting to occur in your environment.


Not able to search for any lost clusters/chains in the root directory because I've already restored the C: drive to a previous "good" OS configuration using Acronis. RAM checks out OK as well as HDD surface scan. This is all now after the fact, so I'll just wait and monitor the system for a recurrance. I know a little more now than I did before I started this thread and that was my goal, so I'll mark this as resolved.

Raybro


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

*Raybro*

Sounds good.

If you run scandisk regularly, you should find a few lost clusters every now and then. But, if they are being found on every run, there is something strange happening.
Or, you have applications that continually fall over when running, your regularly have to kill apps in order to terminate them or you do hard shutdowns of your box.


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