Two questions ...

Hi there everyone.

Running XP2:

First Q: Once you are in command prompt, start; run; cmd > you choose you color.

Color E = The color will be yellow. Just want to know how to save it to that color so I dont have to put that command in everytime I run command prompt.

Second Q: I want to scan my drives with scandisk. It is possible to do with without restarting. Windows always tells me it has to restart and then it will scan.

Also are there any other good scan and defrag programs I can use to optimise my system abit.

Thanks all.

Open Command prompt right click on the top of the window go to properties go to the colors tab and set it from there :)

If you right click the tool bar at the top where it says C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe ...you should get the properties of the command prompt window and in there you can set your preferences...window or full screen, font and colours etc

as for scandisk....dont know

although I would think if i was going to use a utility to fix disk errors...it would probably be best to do it when nothing else is running????

Like before the os loads....no????

MLF

Thanks guys, works like a charm :D

Does anyone else have any comments on the scandisk and defrag ...

I don't think it's advisable to run scan disk (if it's even possible) while windows is running. I remember being able to do that in Win98 though :)

Defrag can be done while the computer is running. It's the scandisk part that's a problem, since it doesn't want to run when the disk is "in use". In this case, Windows itself is using the disk to simply run, so the easiest solution is to find a time when you won't use the computer for a few hours (e.g. at night) and have it reboot-and-scan then. Defrag does not always ask you for scandisk, but it does when it has reason to think your computer wasn't shut down properly (e.g. crashed) since the last scandisk.

Thanks for the replies guys. Just was interested as Raion pointed out; Win86 you were able to scan :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandisk

What about chkdsk, you can run that from within a command prompt, see syntax below (from: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Window....mspx?mfr=true)

Syntax
chkdsk [Volume:][[Path] FileName] [/f] [/v] [/r] [/x] [/i] [/c] [/l[:Size]]

Parameters
Volume:
Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), mount point, or volume name.
[Path] FileName
Use with file allocation table (FAT) and FAT32 only. Specifies the location and name of a file or set of files that you want chkdsk to check for fragmentation. You can use wildcard characters (that is, * and ?) to specify multiple files.
/f
Fixes errors on the disk. The disk must be locked. If chkdsk cannot lock the drive, a message appears that asks you if you want to check the drive the next time you restart the computer.
/v
Displays the name of each file in every directory as the disk is checked.
/r
Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information. The disk must be locked.
/x
Forces the volume to dismount first, if necessary. All open handles to the drive are invalidated. /x also includes the functionality of /f.
/i
Use with NTFS only. Performs a less vigorous check of index entries, reducing the amount of time needed to run chkdsk.
/c
Use with NTFS only. Skips the checking of cycles within the folder structure, reducing the amount of time needed to run chkdsk.
/l[:Size]
Use with NTFS only. Changes the log file size to the size you type. If you omit the size parameter, /l displays the current size.
/?
Displays help at the command prompt.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cider

Also are there any other good scan and defrag programs I can use to optimise my system abit.

Thanks all.

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I have always been a fan of any norton utilities since they usually are more effective(defrag atleast).

a good tool to do disk cleaning would be spinrite

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

its a good service from what ive seen, and the guy who wrote it is pretty knowledgable, but u still have to shutdown and restart, booting off the disk, and of course it costs money which isnt fun, but its another option out there

norton utilities, i used to have that, i didnt use it very often cause it was when i was pretty lil and didnt care much, i got rid of it cause it used a lot of RAM and i didnt think worth it, now i do care and i got Tune Up Utilities, which is pretty intense, but ive heard criticisms on that too, so i guess its preference

On previous versions of windows you could run scandisk with the OS running but every time there was another program causing disk activity, scan disk would restart.

Hi Cider,

I have always recommended that people run scandisk (chkdisk) and defrag in safe mode, so that as little as possible was open, and the repair/defragmentation would be optimised.

Windows 2000 and XP have taken this a stage further by doing it before the OS has loaded. That is even more efficient in my opinion, and avoids the "restart problem" that has been mentioned.

Either method is recommended, as you have stuff that is used all the time and/or is updated regularly............. the pattern files for your anti-malware programs are a good example. These would not be accessible after you had booted in normal mode, so would not be checked or defragmented.

Your defrag program is actually "Diskeeper Lite", you could get the pay for version, for more functionality. Otherwise "OO disk defragmenter" is a slightly better product. However, it is the difference between you car being capable of 100mph or 105mph when all you want to do is drive around Cape Town :D

I did some research into this issue back in the days of Windows NT 4.0, which did not ship with a defragmenter, but was prone to insidious fragmentation.

:)

EDIT: I suggest that you get a tool called "Crap Cleaner" and run it before you run scan/check disk and defrag. This will get rid of a lot of unwanted files, and make a much neater job of things ;)

Yeah got the CCleaner. I will run it in safe mode from now on. Never knew that it skips the pattern files.