Somehow, a file on my portable hard drive has become corrupt. The file is the .ini file for adblockplus, an add-on for Firefox.
- Adblockplus and Firefox don't complain about the corruption.
- Toucan and 7-Zip give corruption warnings.
- Text editors give corruption warnings.
- Delete does not work and gives Windows-level corruption/error messages, as does rename.
- Uninstalling the add-on in Firefox won't help either, since the self-delete does not work. Reinstall of the add-on merely uses the same directory and files.
So far, I have partially solved the problem by first uninstalling the add-on, renaming the directory, and then reinstalling the add-on. This has forced Adblockplus/Firefox to make and use a new directory. However, I still have the old directory there.
I have also tried to do a CHKDSK on the portable hard drive, expecting the offending clusters to be marked BAD. The Windows system says it will perform the CHKDSK on restart, but since the USB hard drive isn't mounted until well after restart, the CHKDSK never happens.
Also, I can't defrag/optimize the hard drive, because the CHKDSK is pending.
My next step is the question... the only thing I can think to do is to copy/backup the entire portable hard drive, format it, and then put everything back onto the drive.
Does anybody have any other suggestions?
Jim
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Boot into some Linux distro (I recommend Ubuntu or Puppy Linux live CD) and try deleting it from there. That always worked for me when I had that problem. (Well, I actually dual-boot), but that should work.
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
If you have it plugged in during boot, Windows will mount it and should run chkdsk.
Vintage!
Yeah, that's what I figured, too... but it doesn't work. It never recognizes the USB drive soon enough in the boot process.
Something I haven't tried is to make CHKDSK run for Drive C: and maybe it will catch the portable drive too.
Jim
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
Why not just run chkdsk after it's booted? Close any programs/files on the drive and run chkdsk [drive letter]: /R /X. You must've had something on the drive being used and Windows wouldn't run the check until a boot.
Vintage!
also try renaming any auto.inf type stuff so it won't load, even an icon.
Disable System Restore for that Drive ONLY.
Safely remove the drive and plug it in again.
Don't do ANYTHING except run a full check disk on the drive.
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
That's what the /X switch is for ;).
Vintage!
CHKDSK with the /r /x parameters did the trick.
I thought the process died the first time through, so I stupidly interrupted it. After that, couldn't access ANYTHING on the drive. Restarted the CHKDSK again and walked away from the computer (watched some of the Olympics). This time it completed, marked the clusters "bad", and fixed other stuff.
I've been backing up my Firefox and Thunderbird profiles. Now it is time to start thinking about the other stuff, too.
Thanks for the CHKDSK tip!
Jim
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
/X closes all handles on the drive so that chkdsk can do its job properly and without interruptions. Just don't use it on your Windows drive.
Vintage!
Sounds like an excellent way to trash any boot drive!
Jim
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
It wouldn't trash the drive. Either chkdsk would recognize it's acting on a root filesystem or (more likely) Windows would crash.
Vintage!