# Avoid the scandisk wait after a crash.



## Ari (Aug 27, 1999)

Again, I take NO CREDIT for this. The credit goes to an Email from techrepublic.

Each week, I try to present a few good Windows tips for you and your users, and I ask you to submit your favorite tips. This week, Larry Murray of Horizon
Data Technologies and Sandstorm Consulting Services answered the call. If you'd like to submit your favorite tip, please send me a note.

Avoiding complete crashes
Here's the tip Larry sent: "I have often run into clients who tend to open many
windows and programs and end up running their system resources too low forthe machine to perform any functionincluding a reboot. This behavior is
especially problematic if a Windows Explorer error is the result.

"This error occurs mainly with Windows 95, which does not release memory
properly from programs you have ended. Often, the only recourse is to either attempt pressing [Ctrl][Alt][Delete] to reboot the machine (which often fails in this case also) or to power down the machine. Unfortunately, that course means waiting for Scandisk to run on all of the drives you have accessed during your session (in my case about nine drives).

"Most of the time there is something else you can try as an alternative to the
three-finger salute or shutting down. From the Start menu, select Shut Down, and select Restart in MS-DOS Mode. About 90% of the time this will exit to a DOS screen, loading your DOS Autoexec.bat on the way.

"From there, you can type exit and press [Enter], and Windows will reload. Then you can finish any rush jobs you have pending, but you will not fully recover all of your memory and resources. Since Windows has exited properly, however, you can now either power down the machine or use [Ctrl][Alt][Delete] to reboot and not have to wait for Scandisk to run."

Sounds like a winner to me, although, on the occasions this does happen to me, I just "exit/cancel" the scandisk and let it continue booting.

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To err is human, to really foul things up you need a computer.


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