Windows 7 chkdsk memory leak?
I was wondering if anyone else has noticed extremely high RAM usage when using windows 7's chkdsk. I've used chkdsk on the same USB flash drive on my XP, vista, and 7 machines, and the memory usage is as follows:xp : 20 - 30 MB (Depending on stage)vista : 2.5MB7 : about 25MB per second running (e.g. after chkdsk has been running for 10 seconds it will be using 250MB, after 2 minutes it will be using 3.0GB)I am monitoring memory usage using task manager. I actually have two machines running windows 7 7100 release candidate (x64) and the I noticed the problem on both.The problem is easiest to duplicate if you run chkdsk on a drive other than your OS drive (so you can actually have task manager open while it runs as opposed to running after a reboot), and if you run a check that will take a long time. chkdsk /f on a large hard drive works fine, or chkdsk /r on a smaller hard drive will work as well. It doesn't seem to depend on which stage it is in - the memory usage balloons during stage 2 of a chkdsk /f on a (full) 1TB hard drive I have, and it happens during stage 4 of chkdsk /r on a half-full 32GB USB flash drive as well.I would be interested to see if anyone else can duplicate this.
June 2nd, 2009 12:26pm

yup mines doing the same, even on local disks....climbs at an alarming speed
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June 2nd, 2009 1:49pm

Hmm, too bad I didn't notice this during the beta so I could push the "submit feedback" button. This seems like a pretty serious problem, I wonder if there is a way to report it to Microsoft.I wonder if it could be driver related? I noticed it on the following:Win7 7100 x64 - AMD SB750 southbridge w/ Catalyst driver suite 8.612 (WHQL) - happens both on the main SATA controller in AHCI mode and on USB devices as wellWin7 7100 x64 - AMD SB600 southbridge w/ Catalyst driver suite 8.612 (WHQL) - only tested on a USB deviceMaybe it's AMD chipset related?
June 2nd, 2009 3:06pm

You're right there, they probably want to fix this one!Im using an intel chipset so not an AMD only problem. I also have windows 7 running in a virtual machine and running CHKDSK there yields the same problem...you would have thought something so obvious would have been picked up in alpha testing....let alone beta and even the Release candidate...That aside...great impression so far of windows 7 :)
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June 2nd, 2009 3:35pm

Well, I did a little more testing and this is what I found: (tests are all done on the same 32GB USB flash drive I have been using throughout)Filesystem - disk space used - chkdsk memory usage (maximum level reached during chkdsk /r)--exfat - 0 - 5408kexfat - 1.42GB - 5416kfat32 - 0 - 10,284kfat32 - 1.42GB - 10,336kntfs - 0 - 23,712kntfs - 1.42GB - 1,431,192kntfs - 2.54GB - 2,610,344k(if anyone is wondering what kind of files make up the 1.42GB they are a bunch of savegames at about 1 - 2 MB each)From my tests it looks like the problem is limited to NTFS, and seems to be closely related to the amount of files on the disk. Could chkdsk possibly be trying to load all the files on the disk into memory and then failing to unload them? The memory usage hits its peak once stage 4 completes, and it does not increase at all during stage 5.After I did this I was thinking maybe the issue was limited to stage 4 of chkdsk, but I took a 500GB drive I have that is about half full and ran chkdsk /f, and the memory usage got to 1.7GB before it completed.
June 2nd, 2009 8:38pm

What happens when other programs are using a lot of memory? In other words if the computer is just running chkdsk it would make sense for it to grab as much RAM as it can to get the job done quickly. To find out what's really happening you'd have to run a very large series of different tests. Some with only chdsk running. Some with a lot of programs running at the same time. Some with various programs starting and ending while chkdsk is running. It may be that chkdsk is optimized to use as much memory as possible without impacting system performance. Kerry Brown MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
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June 3rd, 2009 1:20am

i can understand tha completely but i have tested the speed on an external drive in both vista and windows 7, speed of the check is almost identical.Secondly in vista memory usage is really minimal. I just tried running a CHKDSK ona local disk and at the same time in a virtual machine on the same PC. Both fighting for the memory and disk check was then SLOWER on the disk than the first time....STRANGE
June 3rd, 2009 3:34am

I thought the behaviour might be by design at first too, but I don't think it is because:1. chkdsk does not do this on filesystems other than NTFS2. chkdsk does not seem to be any faster than in vista, and to be honest I don't think chkdsk really needs those resources. I would say chkdsk's speed is definitely determined by the speed of the hard disk on any modern computer (with the exception of maybe SSDs in RAID?)3. the high memory usage of chkdsk -does- impact system performance. If I run chkdsk /f on a full 1TB disk it consumes all available system memory (I have 4GB and physical memory usage pegs at 99%), and the system slows to a crawl. If I run chkdsk /r on a disk with more than about 5GB of data on it the same thing happens. Also (this is how I discovered the behaviour initially) I used to be able to run 4 instances of chkdsk at the same time on 4 hard drives (since chkdsk is so easy on system resources... normally) without any issues, but now if I do that you can see all 4 instances fighting for RAM (and the system is very slow once again). I have a screenshot of task manager where the 4 instances are using 1.7GB, 1.2GB, 340MB, and 161MB of RAM. Once system memory gets full like this even chkdsk itself seems to get slower, although by this time it is usually on stage 4 where it is hard to tell.Lately I've been wondering if I could copy the chkdsk.exe from my vista machine to my win7 machine and see if that improves the situation. Would I have to copy autochk.exe over as well, I wonder?
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June 3rd, 2009 9:52am

Lately I've been wondering if I could copy the chkdsk.exe from my vista machine to my win7 machine and see if that improves the situation. Would I have to copy autochk.exe over as well, I wonder? For anyone who is wondering if the above is possible, the answer is no. I copied chkdsk.exe and autochk.exe over from an install of Vista x64 (no service packs) and it crashes ("chkdsk.exe has stopped working..."). I guess anyone who wants to run chkdsk in Win7 is going to have to wait for Microsoft to fix this first (hopefully they know about it)
June 7th, 2009 4:42pm

Any info about this? Is it present in RTM ? I have 8GB of ram and page file turned off. CHKDSK runs for a few minutes leaking memory, and then after leaking about 7GB of RAM windows shuts it down because of low memory situation. This is definitely not by design ;)
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July 22nd, 2009 5:38am

Could this leak cause my issue: My laptop with win7 RC needs to have its HD checked. However, the boot time scan is hanging at 1 second on the countdown and the keyboard is non-responsive. Anyone else have an issue like this? It took me a couple of reboots to get past it by typing on the keyboard right away.
July 22nd, 2009 6:10am

I have the same "1 second" countdown hang as well. I just upgraded RC to RTM last night. This morning I did a reboot and got the chkdsk notice and hang. It did the same thing during the next two attempts to run chkdsk. I have yet to get past that prompt. Ideas?
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August 22nd, 2009 11:43am

Hi, everyone.I upgraded from Vista Business x64 SP2 to 7 Enterprise RTM and I'm having the same problem described here. Task Manager shows the chkdsk.exe process consuming 2.5 GB of my 4 GB system and performance is considerably degraded. Hope someone at MS will fix this soon...Regards.
September 26th, 2009 4:30pm

Not a memory leak. It is chkdsk getting as much memory as it can to start the scan and keep it somewhat fast. From personal experiences though, it doesn't actually speed it up *that* much, as there is a cutoff point (epicallythose with 8+ gigs of ram). A small workaround that I have found works is to start up a Virtual Machine, and let itacquireits normal amount of memory. (mine is set to 3 gigs of my total 8 gigs). (can probably use a free ramdisk software to do somethingsimilar) After the VM/Ramdisk has aquired the ram, start a chkdsk /r. once the checkdsk gets to stage 4 of 5 ( the long parts), kill the VM or Ramdrive. The ram will befreed, and chkdsk will not consume more than it has already done. Presto, chkdsk runs fine and doesn't bog down your system any as you will have (in my case) 3+ gigs free.
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November 22nd, 2009 7:40pm

I've had the 1-second countdown problem as well. It's been extremely frustrating. I finally found that Microsoft released a hotfix for it about a week ago. The link is: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975778 Make sure to use internet explorer when requesting the hotfix, as it incorrectly detected my system as 32-bit when using Firefox. It'll e-mail you a link to download the hotfix with a unique password, which you have to insert when extracting, after which everything will be solved when you execute the extracted file! Hope this helps to solve this problem.
November 26th, 2009 2:15am

I found this blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/08/10/what-we-do-with-a-bug-report.aspxIt's from August. Unfortunately it seems they're not planning to further address the memory consumption issue.I suggest you consider the fact that we users usually have many activities underway in our computer. Surely checking and fixing a hard disk is important and we would the process to complete as fast as possible. However, not in a way that degrades overall system performance so severly that affects our ability to be productive in other tasks while a disk is being checked. I hope you'll consider adding some switch to specify what percentage of system resources should be allocated for the chkdsk process, or perhaps a way for chkdsk to release some memory when not being the active window or when overall memory utilization is over some threshold.Robotsrock, did the hotfix change anything about memory allocated to the chkdsk process?Thanks
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November 26th, 2009 6:10am

Not a memory leak. It is chkdsk getting as much memory as it can to start the scan and keep it somewhat fast. From personal experiences though, it doesn't actually speed it up *that* much, as there is a cutoff point (epicallythose with 8+ gigs of ram). A small workaround that I have found works is to start up a Virtual Machine, and let itacquireits normal amount of memory. (mine is set to 3 gigs of my total 8 gigs). (can probably use a free ramdisk software to do somethingsimilar) After the VM/Ramdisk has aquired the ram, start a chkdsk /r. once the checkdsk gets to stage 4 of 5 ( the long parts), kill the VM or Ramdrive. The ram will befreed, and chkdsk will not consume more than it has already done. Presto, chkdsk runs fine and doesn't bog down your system any as you will have (in my case) 3+ gigs free. I think it is pretty much by definition a memory leak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak) although as the article says you would need to see the source code to know for sure, and I don't think MS either has any plans to release it or to admit the existence of a leak if there is one. The chkdsk application seems (in my experience) to be limited by the speed of the hard disk and not the amount of available memory. Maybe it's time for me to stop being lazy and do a timed run of chkdsk /r on my xp 32-bit machine and my 7 64-bit machine and see which finishes it faster. I'm confident that the xp machine will be done sooner while only using about 20MB of RAM as opposed to all available system memory. I think it's maybe wishful thinking when people say "it uses more memory in order to improve its speed". I don't think MS would ever intentionally design a program to use all available system memory at the expense of other running applications. They could have designed it to use even 75% of the free system memory, performance would be similar (if not identical) and the system would still be usable for other tasks while the check is running.I like your idea of using a VM as a memory "spacer" of sorts to keep chkdsk out of your memory, though we shouldn't have to.
November 26th, 2009 3:40pm

I'm not sure how this affects memory allocation. According to the article, computers with infrared devices seem to be more likely to incur this problem. I had a HP dv7t with an infrared receiver that always used to pause on the countdown at 1-second and then totally freeze. Then chkdsk would attempt to re-run every time the computer booted up until disabled from the command prompt, causing a lot of problems as I couldn't get to the login page! That hotfix solved the problem. after months of issues. I was always able to run chkdsk within windows7, but couldn't fix issues there as it had to be run during a restart/start-up. Hope this helps.
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November 28th, 2009 1:14am

Just confirming: CHKDSK (no /r) on retail Windows 7 Ultimate running in a VMware virtual machine consumes an ever increasing amount of memory while running, though in my case it finished checking the 64 GB C: drive before even half the available memory is used.-Noel
November 28th, 2009 8:46pm

This is with the final Windows 7 x64 Ultimate the same - and well, it consumes as much memory as possible, on my PCs (12GB / 24GB RAM) it consumes as much RAM as up to nearly 1GB left...Parameters seems not make the difference as well, and in terms of speed - it does not differ in any way from a parallel installed Vista x64 Ultimate... Well, maybe there is a fix or tip on how to handle this, since it is really annoying.Doing something right does mean noone takes notice.
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March 17th, 2010 3:26pm

It sure would be nice to get an indication from Microsoft on whether this is intended behavior; perhaps the increased memory usage is an enhancement to CHKDSK to make it more capable or robust in the new OS...If is using the memory on purpose, and is the most capable CHKDSK yet, then that would be okay. If I'm running CHKDSK I am willing to have it use any and all resources in my computer to get the job done in the best way possible.If it's because of a leak/bug, and it's doing no better a job than its predecessor from Vista that doesn't use huge resources, that's NOT okay. We DO have other uses for the computer resources (e.g., getting work done).-Noel
March 18th, 2010 10:55am

I believe this issue will be addressed according to MS internally assigned priority. I believe it does help, though, to let MS know we're still waiting for an answer, by posting on this thread :)Regards,Mario
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March 18th, 2010 11:35am

im running chkdsk /r on a internal sata 250gb. its taking about 7gb of ram O_O (actually 6.815gb to be precise) but yeah.. lol i havent tried the "fix" yet cuz.. well it is not related to the issue . i hope M$ pay us some attentionuh.. none
April 5th, 2010 10:47am

Interesting that the blog article linked-to above yields this insight from Microsoft: The file system team immediately began to look into the issue. They too were unable to reproduce the crash and from their perspective the memory usage was by design and was a specific Windows 7 change for this scenario (the /r flag grabs an exclusive lock and repairs a disk and so our assumption is you’d really like the disk to be fixed before you do more stuff on the machine, an assumption validated by several subsequent third party blog posts on this topic). So it IS by design that CHKDSK /r uses all the memory it can find. Any subsequent crashes because of the memory being used up, or possibly because of the use of memory in a way different than typical (e.g., a bad location high up that's not usually used) are a separate issue, and may simply be uncovering some latent instability in the computer system. -Noel
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April 6th, 2010 10:06am

I would REALLY like to do more stuff on the machine before the disk is fixed, especially if it isn't the system disk the one being checked. Regards
April 6th, 2010 2:18pm

I would REALLY like to do more stuff on the machine before the disk is fixed, especially if it isn't the system disk the one being checked. Given that file systems shouldn't need fixing very often if at all, what is it you're doing that's causing the need for CHKDSK /r? -Noel
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April 6th, 2010 2:27pm

Hi, Noel. Thanks for your reply. External hard disks are sometimes not removed correctly and thus the file system gets corrupted. Ocasionally they may also suffer physical damage. I understand that in those situations it is strongly recommended to run chkdsk /r in order not to risk an unexpected failure in the future. I agree it is not a very frequent operation, but when required, it is quite a nuisance that system resources are so dramatically drained, especially considering it might take several minutes for the operation to complete. Hope you consider adding some switch to limit resources the command allocates. Best regards, Mario
April 6th, 2010 9:14pm

Hope you consider adding some switch to limit resources the command allocates. Just to be clear, I'm not Microsoft and do not represent them. Your wording implies that you think I may. I'm thinking you're speaking more hypothetically than from experience here... Please correct me if I'm wrong. In real practice (based on my own experience managing many computers) one only VERY rarely has to do a CHKDSK /r to repair the file system on a disk. Windows simply doesn't shut down dirty very easily, even with external drives. Not only that, but the likelihood that you'll 1. need to fix a corrupted drive and 2. be able to use the system otherwise more or less normally seems small. That said, with a particular configuration, such as you've noted, one can easily imagine a scenario that goes against these assumptions. But would having recovery algorithms that work two different ways be a good idea? Wouldn't you want the very best possible algorithm (and not, say, a "second best" algorithm that saves memory) put to the task of restoring your corrupted file system? You'd be WAY ahead to put more energy into developing practices that prevent the corruption in the first place and not worrying about the resources CHKDSK has to use to fix corruption. -Noel
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April 7th, 2010 10:13am

Hi, Noel. Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry if my wording led to think you work for MS. As for the algorithm effectiveness, I agree I wouldn't want to sacrifice effectiveness. However, I think it's not effectiveness, but efficiency we're talking about here, and personally I prefer to wait longer for the disk being fixed, if that allows me to perform other tasks without affecting my system performance. If effectiveness was at risk, then I think system requirements for CHKDSK would have to be specified apart from Windows 7. Otherwise, one would expect CHKDSK to work just as effectivelly with, say 2 GB or 8 GB, it'll just take longer. Regards, Mario
April 11th, 2010 4:42pm

Very good point about it being able to run in 2 GB. This is what bothers me... If CHKDSK wants to use a huge memory allocation to get its job done, is it actually WRITING files to the disk when there's not enough memory to cache all its data? Or is it just less efficiently regenerating the same data by re-reading the disk? It's not hard to see how writing to the disk could complicate matters, when it's a bad file system we're repairing here. Even re-reading gets complicated when we're fixing the very things we're reading. As none of us can see inside CHKDSK to see what it actually does, we may not know whether we're talking effectiveness or just efficiency here. -Noel
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April 11th, 2010 6:33pm

Interesting that the blog article linked-to above yields this insight from Microsoft: The file system team immediately began to look into the issue. They too were unable to reproduce the crash and from their perspective the memory usage was by design and was a specific Windows 7 change for this scenario (the /r flag grabs an exclusive lock and repairs a disk and so our assumption is you’d really like the disk to be fixed before you do more stuff on the machine, an assumption validated by several subsequent third party blog posts on this topic). So it IS by design that CHKDSK /r uses all the memory it can find. Any subsequent crashes because of the memory being used up, or possibly because of the use of memory in a way different than typical (e.g., a bad location high up that's not usually used) are a separate issue, and may simply be uncovering some latent instability in the computer system. -Noel noel - Oh geeze... Randall C. Kennedy's FUD pile STILL has traction!??!? GAH! For the record, Randall C. Kennedy has been exposed for what he is - a fraud who has an Anti Microsoft bias. ZDNet has an expose on his latest attempt at spreading nonsense about Windows 7. He was the one who originally dug up this "bug" back about the time Windows 7 was supposed to be RTM'ed. It was immediately shot down as being nothing but FUD. Of course it's by design. Would you rather sit there for 3 hours while Chkdsk ran in 640 KB or would you rather zip through the process as quickly as possible by using as much RAM as the system has available? Honestly, I vote get it over with ASAP, myself.
April 12th, 2010 9:50am

Well, A) I fully agree that it's really a non-problem (you can see that plainly in all my posts above); but B) I have never heard the name Randall C. Kennedy nor have any of his biases influenced my responses here - as far as I know; and C) I have no idea what the acronym FUD means, though I can guess. My own computers don't crash on CHKDSK operations, though I can easily believe that there are machines with combinations of hardware and software that do under a full-memory condition. -Noel
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April 12th, 2010 11:08am

Noel - It's not you... Sorry if I made it sound like you're the one I was skewering. Randall C. Kennedy is a guy who used to blog for infoworld.com. And by 'used to' - he got fired after it was found that his alter ego - "Craig Barth" reported some nonsense about most Windows 7 machines are constantly using 86% of their RAM. He used the alias to run a company - Devil Mountain Software that did 'metrics' of Windows based systems. Read the link above in my previous post. It's quite amusing. The thing I was upset about is the fact that this non-issue is still being bounced around the Internet. It's like once you start a ball of FUD rolling, it never seems to stop.
April 12th, 2010 6:32pm

I've run chkdsk in a few different scenarios on my vista and 7 machines and maybe I'm not encountering the right conditions but I haven't seen anything to back up the "7's chkdsk is faster because it uses more RAM" claim. Has anyone found a situation where it was actually faster? All my runs were very close. Also I think there's a bit of a misconception about it being limited to chkdsk /r - with either the /r or /f switch chkdsk reserves 20 - 25MB of RAM for every second that passes. It's easier to see with the /r switch because the check takes so long, but if you have a large, slow hard drive with a lot of small files on it the /f switch can easily reserve 1GB of memory or more. I think we can all agree that chkdsk isn't a tool that needs to be used on a regular basis but I don't think that should be an excuse for not fixing (what I believe to be) a legitimate problem with it. I could be wrong and there could be a scenario where the new chkdsk is significantly faster than the old one and it warrants the extra memory usage, but I just haven't been able to find it.
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April 25th, 2010 1:51pm

Maybe it's not faster but somehow more accurate or more likely to correct problems successfully? Without looking into the implementation, it's impossible to know what's better, or really even if anything's better, but it's been stated it's allocating this memory by design. We have no choice but to live with it. There are a LOT more important glaring problems in Windows 7. -Noel
April 25th, 2010 2:38pm

There are a LOT more important glaring problems in Windows 7. -Noel maybe. but they are not the subject of this thread.
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April 25th, 2010 3:54pm

Do you honestly think that, assuming the memory usage by CHKDSK is not an out and out bug, but actually represents an intentional design change, that you will influence Microsoft to return CHKDSK to the prior implementation just so it's not as intensively using the memory? If this is the biggest problem you are facing, you live a charmed life. I should hope Microsoft spends every waking minute cleaning up the mega problems in Explorer and Windows Search before spending even a second on this "issue" with CHKDSK. -Noel
April 25th, 2010 4:13pm

Maybe it's not faster but somehow more accurate or more likely to correct problems successfully? Without looking into the implementation, it's impossible to know what's better, or really even if anything's better, but it's been stated it's allocating this memory by design. We have no choice but to live with it. There are a LOT more important glaring problems in Windows 7. -Noel When you say "it's been stated it's allocating this memory by design" are you referring to the following quote from http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/08/10/what-we-do-with-a-bug-report.aspx "from their perspective the memory usage was by design and was a specific Windows 7 change for this scenario (the /r flag grabs an exclusive lock and repairs a disk and so our assumption is you’d really like the disk to be fixed before you do more stuff on the machine, an assumption validated by several subsequent third party blog posts on this topic)." He states that the behavior is limited to the /r switch but I've seen it with the /f switch - the memory usage increases just as quickly, the only reason it doesn't get as high is because chkdsk /f doesn't take as long. It might be nice to get a little more information from someone on the "file system team", but if they truly have looked at the issue as he stated in the blog, then it either isn't a bug or it is but it would be too much work to fix when weighed against the small number of complaints. Anyway, I don't want to get off topic, and I think it's fine if you disagree with me, but I just genuinely want to hear from other people that are facing the same "issue" that we are (if you can call it that). Who knows - maybe there is someone out there with a specific configuration whose chkdsk only uses the good old 30MB or so of RAM and he can give us all a little advice.
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May 10th, 2010 7:08pm

"the /r flag grabs an exclusive lock and repairs a disk and so our assumption is you’d really like the disk to be fixed before you do more stuff on the machine, an assumption validated by several subsequent third party blog posts on this topic" This could be true when checking the system disk, but not when the disk being checked is a removable/external hard drive. Having the system grind to a halt with 85% memory usage (8GB RAM) while checking an external drive is a bit excessive in my opinion. Especially considering the time it takes to check a large drive. Perhaps the "bug" is in failing to distinguish between such use cases.
June 27th, 2010 1:16am

I fully agree with Paul. Repairing a disk is usually considered of the utmost importance. However, that is not always the case, and one may want to perform other tasks with higher priority on the system while an external drive is being repaired with less priority. Unfortunately that is not possible if memory resources are almost fully allocated to reparing the disk. Glad to see others share my point. Regards
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June 27th, 2010 1:21am

I suggest using the reboot chkdsk mode so that maximum resources are available for it. Vote if answered or helpful, I am running for Office (joke)! IT/Developer, Windows/Linux/Mainframe Need a some parts finish the new server, see the site for remaining items needed
June 27th, 2010 10:47am

"the /r flag grabs an exclusive lock and repairs a disk and so our assumption is you’d really like the disk to be fixed before you do more stuff on the machine, an assumption validated by several subsequent third party blog posts on this topic" This could be true when checking the system disk, but not when the disk being checked is a removable/external hard drive. Having the system grind to a halt with 85% memory usage (8GB RAM) while checking an external drive is a bit excessive in my opinion. Especially considering the time it takes to check a large drive. Perhaps the "bug" is in failing to distinguish between such use cases. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I think the "/r flag grabs an exclusive lock" is a misconception. Chkdsk with either the /r or /f flag will reserve about 30MB of memory for every second it runs - the only difference is that it runs for a lot longer with the /r flag.
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June 27th, 2010 1:57pm

I suggest using the reboot chkdsk mode so that maximum resources are available for it. Is there a way how to apply the /r switch with "reboot chkdsk"? For what I know, you can only do reboot check by marking the disk dirty. And then, it will do the normal file system check, no check for bad sectors. I also noticed that I don't have the memory leak if I don't have any files on the disk. This I find a bit weird.
September 27th, 2010 4:07pm

you can do that from the command prompt chkdsk /r that is the only way to use command line options conveniently, otherwise you would need to make a special shortcut with the specific command line options needed. Vote if answered or helpful, I am running for Office (joke)! IT/Developer, Windows/Linux/Mainframe I also am a true vegan and I am very good with economics and I used to play chess at 2400++ I have lots of papers on my site for power supplies and video card problems, see the resources section
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September 27th, 2010 4:43pm

Thanks Jarno for your response "I also noticed that I don't have the memory leak if I don't have any files on the disk. This I find a bit weird." I formatted the drives I was checking and voila no problem. While this may not be an "issue" for most consumers, Microsoft may want to help out their IT crowd a bit with this one. I have used "chkdsk /r" forever with a USB HD drive adapter to check laptop or desktop hard drives that I am not sure of, which assist me in troubleshooting problems with people machines, especially when they won't boot. Furthermore, when we retire machines we use a program to "kill" the disks random 0 and 1, several passes, then we pop the HD back into the machine. These machines are donated to local charities, people we work with, etc. True our "kill" program will tell us if there is an error with the hard drive, but that can take a while as the passes take hours to complete. Running "chkdsk /r" used to be a quick way for me to see if a drive was worth donating or if it should be headed for physical destruction instead. While it does still work, it does seem very strange to me that by design it is supposed to use that much memory, but if you format the drive before running it, it only uses 26MB of Ram to complete the same command. This leads me to believe that it actually is not a feature and is a bug. That and the fact that it used all of my memory and then started using Virtual Memory, I was showing that it was using 6.6GB of RAM and I only have 4 GB of Physical RAM. Granted I want "chkdsk /r" to run fast and I now have a workaround for those drives that are ready to be wiped, but how about the ones I am testing for live machines that cannot boot...I don't want to format them before running "Chkdsk /r" and I want to do it from my machine to see if I can get the data from them afterward if needed. But I can't do normal activities on my machine, like check email, respond to our Helpdesk tickets through our Web Page. By the way, I have had my machine become almost unresponsive several times while running "chkdsk /r" in Windows 7.
November 12th, 2010 9:44am

I suggest checking all system files. in the command prompt run sfc /scannow and use you Windows disk if its requersted Elected! Your votes and support have got me my 2010 MVP! Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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November 12th, 2010 2:11pm

Suffering with this problem also. I have 6.3gb of available memory (8gb, Win7-64) and doing a chkdsk is using ALL available memory, what's going on with this bug?
July 17th, 2011 9:04am

CHKDSK will use all available memory to load the disk allocation tables and journal. This will be freed once it terminates. On smaller disks it does not need as much as it does on huge disks, Windows MVP, paid Remote Assistance is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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July 17th, 2011 4:37pm

what's going on with this bug? Why do you think it's a bug? I don't see a lot of reports that CHKDSK doesn't deliver proper results. You asked your system to do the best job it possibly can in checking the disks. It has all that memory, which it uses if it can to make the process work more efficiently. Beyond that... Why are you having to run CHKDSK? I haven't found a reason to run that in months. Are you seeing disk corruption? That should be exceedingly rare. -Noel
July 17th, 2011 7:37pm

Disks have issues, I need to run CHKDSK to perform a diagnosis on a serious issue with the workstation. This is a bug (or fault with my install of Windows 7) this is not something where more resources are being allocated because they are available, it's a DOS level application chewing not only 6gb of ram but ending up failing out with out of memory Windows errors. Something is clearly going wrong, this is not standard behaviour
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July 18th, 2011 7:52am

Are you seeing out-of-memory failures on a CHKDSK scheduled to run at bootup? -Noel
July 18th, 2011 8:35am

if you are having chronic disk problems you might be advantaged with a new hard disk Windows MVP, paid Remote Assistance is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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July 18th, 2011 9:23am

May I recommend an enterprise class drive, such as a Western Digital RE4. Got 'em in a RAID and love 'em! High reliability, low noise, low heat, low vibration, fast controllers, and not even altogether too expensive... Nothing not to like! -Noel
July 18th, 2011 9:49am

Some of the comments here are embarassing for any hardware gurus to endure. I'm sure I'm not the only one cringing here. I do not magically have 3 faulty SATA disks out of the blue. I have a software issue on my PC. It may not be a bug, it may be something is broken due to software installed but I in no way have a physical hardware issue. I will say I haven't done a boot level chkdsk but I can't - /R is no longer prompting for some weird reason, it's very odd behaviour all round. To 100% clarify my hardware theory, I'm running a DOS / BIOS level bootable disk check this evening. I expect to find nothing wrong tomorrow.
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July 18th, 2011 11:55am

Recently I had a hard disk fail, thankfully it was under warrenty and the replacement disk is 10x better (bigger and next gen newer) Windows MVP, paid Remote Assistance is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
July 18th, 2011 12:22pm

Embarrassing? Is there something wrong with the statement that CHKDSK should not normally be needed? Software doesn't normally corrupt disks either. Don't forget that you didn't say the issue was on 3 different disks until your last post. That said, I do know of one OLD software issue that could cause the appearance of a corrupted drive, but in reality the disk is fine... I would have thought it should be fixed by now, though, since it was pre-SP1... The "Atomic Oplock" facility used by the Indexer can cause a failure when using certain applications (e.g., Subversion), resulting in a disk that informs you it's corrupted and that CHKDSK needs to be run. Check out this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/df935a52-a0a9-4f67-ac82-bc39e0585148 Could this be similar to what's happening to you? The workaround is to disable Indexing. -Noel
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July 18th, 2011 2:31pm

what's going on with this bug? Why do you think it's a bug? I don't see a lot of reports that CHKDSK doesn't deliver proper results. You asked your system to do the best job it possibly can in checking the disks. It has all that memory, which it uses if it can to make the process work more efficiently. Beyond that... Why are you having to run CHKDSK? I haven't found a reason to run that in months. Are you seeing disk corruption? That should be exceedingly rare. -Noel I have an answer to all your questions, including my opinion about why it is a bug: Let's say i have an external HDD in an enclosure which i accidentaly knock down. I naturally want to check if bad sectors appeared. So I run chkdsk /r on a drive that is anything but huge: 180GB. In a few minutes, all my 7GB+1GB swap are eaten (i have noticed before that either explorer if you run the check using the drive Tools or chkdsk eat up memory). After a bit, the Low Virtual Memory window appears. Then programs start to hang and some even crash (i was running just Winamp and Skype and other background services that always run). Event viewer says: "Windows successfully diagnosed a low virtual memory condition. The following programs consumed the most virtual memory: chkdsk.exe (6608) consumed 5715902464 bytes, " then "The program winamp.exe version 5.6.2.3173 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed." then skype, then... everything. I event tried to reboot and, surprise, it asked me if i want to forcibly terminate.. explorer.exe which was playing the logout song :)) "The program explorer.exe version 6.1.7601.17567 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. " Basically, my computer became unusable because i ran chkdsk /r on an 180GB drive after a fresh reboot with 2-3 programs running and 8GB of ram. Yes Microsoft, very well designed, indeed. When the system tries to do "the best job" in recovering some bad sectors, should NOT under any circumnstances eat up that amount of memory. It can be scanned/processed/fixed by chunks. If the old Norton Disk Doctor running on a 4x86 with 1MB of memory would have behaved the same, what then? There are tens of disk scanners, on all platforms, NONE behaves like this. It should be about blocks, not the whole file system, but what do I know? "allocates/consumes memory by design" is, and I'm sorry, a stupidity and and insult for people like me which use and program computers for some time now. It is just a political answer, but obviously they are "looking into the matter" :). It looks like a memory leak and it behaves like one. It is common knowledge that harddrives appeared because RAM is limited in size and expensive and volatile while drives offer permanent storage and in great quantities and cheap while remaining the slowest component in a computer, but trying to put all or as much as possible data from a drive into memory it will NEVER EVER WORK as long as memory is what it is today. Microsoft, can you hire me as a designer, I think I can do better :) In conclusion, I see that no fixes are provided. I wonder if this is just because the issue is rare in one's Windows 7 based PC lifetime, so in this case... the solution is the well-known with Windows: reboot, because... don't we all know, nothing can be done without reboot :)))
July 28th, 2011 5:52pm

I have access to private areas at Microsoft and I took a peek at CHKDSK and there is no defect to it. By design it allocates as much memory as it finds so that it can load more of the allocations tables and journal at a time. CHDKSK is very resource intensive and its not advisable to have other running programs. It will lock the disk so that other programs cannot access it, this why it needs to reboot when checking the boot disk. RAM is now cheaper than ever and 4 sticks of DDR3 4GB are almost under $100 now. Windows MVP, paid Remote Assistance is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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July 28th, 2011 6:14pm

I am sorry, i just don't buy that. I just said that there were actually no programs opened, Winamp and Skype is nothing. What do you suggest, to run chkdsk in safe mode? :))) It will still Not be enough, i have drives of 1TB, what then? :) How do you actually determine if there is or not a defect to this program? If there is no defect reported does not mean that it's flawless. I understand it is very resource (err.. memory) intensive, but this is just plain ridiculuous. It just eats up ALL the available memory, be it 1GB or 10GB of ram. 1MB of RAM will never be cheaper than 1MB of disk. Still, since when is a good idea to buy some more ram or additional hardware just because a rather unused program is malfunctioning or poorly designed? This issue - afaik - was not (and please correct me if I'm wrong) present in XP. Has NTFS for Win7 changed so much that requires this new "design" for the check utility? I seriously doubt it.
July 28th, 2011 6:53pm

Disks back with XP were generally puny by comparison to modern disks. Bigger the disk the bigger the tables and journal. Windows MVP, paid Remote Assistance is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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July 28th, 2011 7:16pm

Don't worry about these guys. I'm going to do some testing this weekend to figure out the problem, some of these guys have a complete lack of memory when it comes to chkdsk.
July 28th, 2011 8:10pm

are you one of the developers that worked on Win7 chkdsk? @Vegan Fanatic: I have been using XP until Win7 was released with > 500GB drives, this issue was not there.
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July 28th, 2011 8:51pm

I used XP x64 for a while until Vista came along then Windows 7 x64 the reason is I hate the limited memory of XP x86 for extreme programming Windows MVP, paid Remote Assistance is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
July 28th, 2011 8:57pm

Sorry to reply to such an old topic but I might have something to lend to this as well. I ran chkdsk /r on an external disk today and found similar occurrances to what's described in this topic. My system has a lot of memory (16 GB) and chkdsk ran it the whole way up to 14.9 GB. Perhaps chkdsk is designed to use memory until there's only a certain percentage available? I'm not sure how this would affect performance but it was processing files much faster than my other computers (my CPU is also much faster, so my test would have to be refined to say for sure).
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August 25th, 2011 9:37am

The boot mode version of CHKDSK will use as much memory as it can fine. The GUI mode will use less memory but if its available it will also use it. This is to allow the program to run faster as keeping the journal in memory is far faster when it has to be consulted frequently due to errors. Windows MVP, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint etc. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. My Page on SSD is now #2. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
August 25th, 2011 10:31am

Is this ever going to be fixed or classified as a bug, or at least changed in the way this operation is performed? I'm getting CRC error's when trying to copy/delete/access a file on my 2TB external drive. I would like to run scandisk/chkdsk but it keeps using all my available memory. I enabled virtual memory and set a max page file of 200GB, this helped avoid the "Close programs, out of memory" dialog box. Chkdsk is running right now, using 3208512MB of memory (Physical Memory: 94-95%) Stage 4 of 5, 600/123,888 files checked, half hour elapsed, files as large as 6GB and as small as 1KB, any guess on how long this will take?
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September 8th, 2011 1:22pm

Is this ever going to be fixed or classified as a bug, or at least changed in the way this operation is performed? I'm getting CRC error's when trying to copy/delete/access a file on my 2TB external drive. I would like to run scandisk/chkdsk but it keeps using all my available memory. Having used all the available memory, is it still running and making progress? Or did it fail? If it's still running, why do you feel it's a bug? Because you can't use anything else while it's running? Ask yourself: Why would you WANT to use anything else while your hard drive is being repaired? -Noel
September 8th, 2011 2:27pm

Is this ever going to be fixed or classified as a bug, or at least changed in the way this operation is performed? This is not a bug, this is by design behavior.
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September 8th, 2011 2:44pm

Then it's a flawed design. If I want chkdsk to eat up all my system memory, there should be an option to run it in "exclusive mode" or something, but by default it should run exactly as it does in Vista.assimilator of code
September 9th, 2011 1:09pm

Could it be that the Windows 7 CHKDSK is more capable than Vista's version? Can those contributing to this thread PLEASE stop to think for a minute about why under any condition it would be reasonable to run other stuff when your computer is repairing your file system structure? If you have file system problems you need to leave your computer alone until they're fixed! Not only that, but you really, REALLY need to get to the bottom of why you're having file system problems and fix the root cause of that! It's not normal nor typical to have to run CHKDSK! -Noel
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September 9th, 2011 1:34pm

Then it's a flawed design. It is a reasonable design. If someone has hard drive troubles with a possible data loss isn't it better to run disk check as quickly as possible? Isn't this check the most important task? If there is no bad sectors on hard drive, there is no reason to start chkdsk /r at all. Simple file system check may be started without /r as chkdsk /f.
September 9th, 2011 1:58pm

I hope it's buggy and not a normal behavior (or we should pay some serious coding course to some microsoft engineers)... I have 8gb of memory on my main pc (quad core) with 8gb swap and when i'm checking an external drive (some random usb storage drive and not my system disk!!) it consume all available memory (0 under free memory in the taskmgr and only 2% cpu usage) and then my high end pc behaves like an old timer pc (so slow i cannot use it normaly). On every other windows version before, i could do the same without any trouble at all!! And if it's not proof enough, i have a laptop with 8gb too and an ssd disk (with the swap file deactivated). When i do the same i have a very nice blue screen!!! WTF it's not a bug ###???!!! The microsoft way of thinking: buy more memory ...
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October 19th, 2011 2:54pm

If you see a BSOD when using CHKDSK you definitely should consider backup and a clean install of Windows I use CHKDSK all the time and it never bombs on my machine I own Windows MVP 2010-11, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
October 19th, 2011 3:04pm

Glad to see this old thread is still alive and kicking... For those who continue to say that chkdsk's extremely high memory usage in Windows 7 is a "feature", I can only reference my post from earlier in the thread: "2. chkdsk does not seem to be any faster than in vista, and to be honest I don't think chkdsk really needs those resources. I would say chkdsk's speed is definitely determined by the speed of the hard disk on any modern computer (with the exception of maybe SSDs in RAID?) 3. the high memory usage of chkdsk -does- impact system performance." Also cr1cr1's experience with low virtual memory errors is a little alarming. On the plus side Microsoft appears to have fixed the bug in the Windows [8] Developer Preview. I ran the test (chkdsk /r) on an 8GB USB drive formatted with NTFS containing about 1300 files, total size used 1.25GB run time: 1:05, CPU usage average 4%, Memory usage MAX 3.0 MB I ran the same test on my Windows 7 system: run time: 1:33, CPU usage average 2%, Memory usage MAX 1349.4 MB The systems are fairly similar, the first with a Phenom 2 1100T, Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 (SB950), 4GB DDR3, and the second with a Phenom 2 940, Gigabyte 890GX-UD4P (SB750), 4GB DDR2. I wasn't surprised by the memory usage (well maybe pleasantly surprised) but I was surprised to see the Windows 8 system complete the check so much faster. Maybe the SB950's USB controller is much faster for small random accesses, or maybe the drivers in Windows 8 are much better. Windows 8's chkdsk did use significantly more CPU power (4% of a 6-core 3.3GHz vs. 2% of a 4-core 3.0GHz = about 3x the CPU usage) so maybe that's the answer. Anyway, the developer preview is currently a free download open to the public, so if you're a desperate chkdsk-a-holic then come on down: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516
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October 29th, 2011 2:15am

All indications are that Microsoft has continued their relatively new practice of optimizing the OS, so Windows 8 should be more efficient than Windows 7. By the way, it's not a given that the CHKDSK algorithm remains constant throughout all this. It might just be that a Windows 7 CHKDSK /R repairs a corrupted disk more thoroughly/accurately/completely than a CHKDSK from Vista or XP. -Noel
October 29th, 2011 6:46pm

I recently deployed a larger HD and I see that CHKDSK uses more RAM and takes longer to check the disk. I am using 2 TB now, was 750 GB before Not a problem, as long as the task finishes properly Windows MVP 2010-11, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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October 29th, 2011 6:52pm

Here we are in May 2012, and chkdsk under Windows 7 (all updated and patched) is now using 29GB!!! of my 32GB to chkdsk/r a 1TB USB drive.
May 15th, 2012 4:37pm

This is by design. BTW why do you _need_ to run chkdsk /r?
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May 15th, 2012 4:51pm

Yeah if you have a need to run chkdsk /r I would recommend running it in a system that is not doing anything else (remove the drive and use an enclosure with your laptop maybe?) or use a system running either Windows Vista or Windows 8 Consumer Preview (both of these OSes end up using a few orders of magnitude less memory for this function). Scroll up in the thread to my post from October 2011 or to the first post of the thread if you want to see the results of my tests. Another good recommendation if neither of those options works was posted earlier by Adam, he advises you to start a Virtual Machine and allocate it a fair chunk of RAM, and once chkdsk has used up all the other available system memory if you close the VM chkdsk will not go after the memory that the VM previously occupied.
May 24th, 2012 5:56pm

This is by design. BTW why do you _need_ to run chkdsk /r? Trying to fix a friends HDD. It's a 1TB drive I have plugged into my cases external SATA dock taken from her laptop. My PC is i7 2600k @ 3.4Ghz and 16GB of RAM. I have to keep restarting the damn thing because it uses ALL available memory and it's getting warning messages that the system is out of RAM and to end the process. Nothing else is running, all programs are closed and no one was using the computer. Yes, this is clearly by design. No. And why does it matter why someone is running chkdsk /r? If someone is doing it, they obviously have a reason. The HDD I'm trying to recover has important data and it definitely has some dodgy sectors on it judging by frequent I/O errors when trying to transfer the data to my computer before trying a disk check.
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June 3rd, 2012 8:15pm

I use a notebook machine frequently with a USB adapter to scan disks when malware is at issue i also use chkdsk to check for errors machine is an old celeron 370 running windows 7 x86 fine with 2 gb of ddr2 there obviously a problem Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
June 3rd, 2012 8:18pm

And why does it matter why someone is running chkdsk /r? If someone is doing it, they obviously have a reason. The HDD I'm trying to recover has important data and it definitely has some dodgy sectors on it Sure, and this was a reason for building such chkdsk' behavior: to make such check as fast as possible.
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June 4th, 2012 2:03am

That is simply not logical. Sure, I could write a program to get something done very effectively by consuming 99% of system memory - my program would get stuff done fast, but to the detriment of the system as a whole. If it renders the Operating System incapable of responding to simple interrupts, what is the point? I run a "chkdsk /r" on an non-OS drive (E:) and step away to get some coffee. I come back to my machine which is now locked. So I attempt to log back in and the machine is unresponsive? With all due respect to everyone on this thread, there is no way around it - that is a bug. If it is not the system (typically "C:") drive, then it should not consume so much resources as to render the Operating System unresponsive.
June 9th, 2012 12:10am

With all due respect to everyone on this thread, there is no way around it - that is a bug. This. Is. Not. A. Bug. Point. This is by design decision. Is it good or not, do you like it or not, such chkdsk behavior was created intentionally. So it cannot be a bug.
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June 9th, 2012 1:37am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug Whether it is intentional is irrelevant. A design flaw does not simply cease to be a flaw because it is intentional.
June 9th, 2012 7:37am

Do you trust Wikipedia? Oh, my God, why??? Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer please.
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June 9th, 2012 7:45am

Look you can test Windows 7 with a clean install with no CD needed for the test then using a spare disk for the test, attach the disk with problems to a secondary connector and then boot the spare disk back up then try chkdsk on it and watch it in taskman and see if the memory consumption rises Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
June 9th, 2012 8:11am

There is no need to waste time. The developers very clearly stated this is by design behavior.
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June 9th, 2012 8:22am

Vegan Fanatic - Yes it does. On a Dell laptop running Windows 7 Professional x64 (i5 Processor, 8GB Memory) - it just keeps growing. Per my earlier post, I start a "chkdsk /r" and then go to sleep (it is going to take a while after all). The next morning, I cannot even log into my laptop - it is simply stuck on the Welcome screen with a spinning circle. Lights do not change on the laptop to denote when I disconnect external power or LAN - the only way to get the laptop to start responding again is to unplug the disk that I am performing "chkdsk" upon. I am attempting the same procedure again, this time on a Windows 7 Home x64 desktop (i7, 16GB memory), with monitor timeout and screen lock disabled - I hope that makes a difference. It's a clean desktop that I just built (it has 32GB memory, but Windows 7 Home will only use 16GB). But this is pretty crazy stuff. It seems inconceivable to me that the developers really want you to have to unplug the Disk you're chkdsk'ing, simply so the computer responds and you can see the progress of the chkdsk.
June 9th, 2012 8:41am

Does your Dell come with Windows 7 preinstalled Dell is known to me as using a lot of proprietary components in an attempt to compel users to go back to Dell for support and components Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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June 9th, 2012 8:47am

It is not a "waste of time" if they end up re-thinking the behavior. I love Windows and have been using the various incarnations since Win3.1 - I am one of the group who normally wouldn't consider leaving Windows. But people on the fence or knowledge of numerous operating systems - most of them wouldn't put up too well with a System Diagnosis and Repair Utility which, by design or not (flaw or bug or whatever you want to call it), leaves the computer inaccessible.
June 9th, 2012 8:49am

My laptop is issued to me by my Employer, and thus is pre-imaged by the IT Department (they wipe out the Dell installation with all of its bloatware). It does have a bunch of stuff on it like a Firewall, Anti-Virus and a whole-disk encryption suite.
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June 9th, 2012 8:57am

OK then contact your IT dude and ask him what gives I have no idea what your IT person did to Windows, its not a standard retail install Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
June 9th, 2012 8:59am

People in this thread really need to put aside their concerns about why CHKDSK uses a lot of memory, and instead work on the root cause(s) of why they are having to run CHKDSK to recover information. In all my years of running NTFS, going back to NT4.0 and comprising experience with lots of machines (sometimes whole engineering divisions of them), I have only had to run CHKDSK to fix bona fide file system problems a couple of times. If you are having to run CHKDSK regularly, something's wrong with your system, or with the way you do computing. The file system does not and should not normally become corrupted! Fix that, and stop wasting your time worrying about how much RAM the program to uses to try fix your file system problems after the fact! -Noel Detailed how-to in my eBooks: Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options
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June 9th, 2012 9:01am

Noel, chkdsk /f does not "eat" memory. Only chkdsk /r uses all available memory. So you may make your nice words stronger.
June 9th, 2012 9:20am

In my experience I have needed to use CHKDSK occasionally but its never been a problem gobbling memory. chkdsk /r is not needed often unless a 3rd party disk check tool shows a problem with disk Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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June 9th, 2012 9:24am

Noel, My brother dropped his laptop, and it crashed upon the tile floor. It won't boot up, he has exams this coming Monday evening, and I'm attempting to retrieve all of his previously-not-backed-up data (I know - in his defense I'm the computer guy, he's not). I took out his laptop HD, and connected it to my machine to run a "chkdsk /r" on it and see if I can recover anything.... As Igor said, "chkdsk" is fine - "chkdsk /r" has an obvious memory leak (by design, it seems). I haven't had to use "chkdsk /r" in years, but now that I do - it is absolutely strangling my laptop. As Vegan Fanatic stated, it might be something with my laptop - I don't know. My employer's IT staff trusts me to write multi-million dollar software, but not to disable Firewall or even change the time of anti-virus scans. :-) I'm attempting to use an open source tool now on my desktop (which is a clean Windows 7 install) to retrieve the data. If that doesn't work, I'll try "chkdsk /r" on it and see if it consumes all the memory as well...
June 9th, 2012 9:37am

Noel, chkdsk /f does not "eat" memory. Only chkdsk /r uses all available memory. So you may make your nice words stronger. One would use CHKDSK /R (which implies /F) specifically to recover weak data from a spinning disk, right? So let us get this straight: Something - an application error message, or the OS via the log, or a CHKDSK run without switches, or something - has told the user that the file system is corrupted and/or the operating system is having trouble reading data from a hard drive.Then the user is running CHKDSK /R to try to have the system recover weak data and write it elsewhere on the disk.The user is complaining that they can't continue to use their computer while they're trying to recover weak sectors. Why would someone do this? Why would anyone think they could just keep playing while something as basic as data recovery is taking place? Are they too cheap to buy a new disk drive to replace a failing drive?Are they too foolhardy to do backups so that their data is already safe?Are they too naive to know that attempted data recovery from a failing hard drive is a serious, last ditch effort and may actually have to interrupt their fun? In every case here the root problem is not that CHKDSK is poorly programmed, it's that the user is making poor choices that take them to the point where they need CHKDSK. So the solution is not software improvement, it's user education! Or maybe different life choices that don't involve the use of a computer at all. -Noel Detailed how-to in my eBooks: Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options
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June 9th, 2012 9:43am

Noel, My brother dropped his laptop, and it crashed upon the tile floor. It won't boot up, he has exams this coming Monday evening, and I'm attempting to retrieve all of his previously-not-backed-up data (I know - in his defense I'm the computer guy, he's not). I took out his laptop HD, and connected it to my machine to run a "chkdsk /r" on it and see if I can recover anything.... As Igor said, "chkdsk" is fine - "chkdsk /r" has an obvious memory leak (by design, it seems). I haven't had to use "chkdsk /r" in years, but now that I do - it is absolutely strangling my laptop. As Vegan Fanatic stated, it might be something with my laptop - I don't know. My employer's IT staff trusts me to write multi-million dollar software, but not to disable Firewall or even change the time of anti-virus scans. :-) I'm attempting to use an open source tool now on my desktop (which is a clean Windows 7 install) to retrieve the data. If that doesn't work, I'll try "chkdsk /r" on it and see if it consumes all the memory as well... I backup my portables to my server automatically. You can also use Live Mesh to sync between 2 or more computers to also have more fault tolerance. Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
June 9th, 2012 9:45am

As Igor said, "chkdsk" is fine - "chkdsk /r" has an obvious memory leak No, I did not say these words, it is your and only your (wrong) interpretation. Chkdsk _uses_ this memory.
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June 9th, 2012 9:51am

Noel, Maybe they simply want to view the status of the "chkdsk /r" command. If your screen hibernates due to inactivity (you're not using the computer right), and you have "On resume, display logon screen" checked on your screen saver options, then you're out of luck. What do you suggest...just start the "chkdsk /r" command and wait a couple of days to see if it was successful? With all due respect, I disagree on your point: " So the solution is not software improvement, it'suser education! Or maybe different life choices that don't involve the use of a computer at all." So the solution is to tell the user to quit using a computer and go back to paper? In our industry, it is incredibly easy to just blame the user. In the end, a simple change to a couple lines of code could alleviate the whole problem.
June 9th, 2012 10:19am

Yeah, I use combinations of DropBox, Live Mesh and Crash Plan. *If* I can get my brother's data back, I will definitely be setting him up with automated backup.
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June 9th, 2012 10:21am

My apologies Igor - I should have been clearer. I was agreeing with your statement that "chkdsk is fine". To your point, I personally have never had a problem running "chkdsk /f". The "/r" flag is the only place I encounter problems.
June 9th, 2012 10:25am

So the solution is to tell the user to quit using a computer and go back to paper? In our industry, it is incredibly easy to just blame the user. In the end, a simple change to a couple lines of code could alleviate the whole problem. I doubt that you could program a CHKDSK replacement, and so your "couple lines of code" comment is just so much BS. It's clear that you're frustrated, but... There are two entities who need to accept "blame" here, and neither is Microsoft, who has graciously provided you with tools to deal with the messes that you and your brother have created: 1. Your brother chose not to back up his system, then to handle it irresponsibly enough that it has hit the floor. Now we learn the data potentially lost from it is valuable enough for you to spend time trying to recover. Did you ever advise him to back his system up? Do you plan to do so now? 2. You have the expectation that you should be able to recover data from a physically damaged electromechanical hard drive, and further that it should not intrude into the other stuff you want to do, and even further that it should complete quickly without use of many system resources. Wouldn't you agree that what would "alleviate this whole problem" is more responsible computer usage? Consider yourself better educated because you now know that it actually CAN take your system to its knees to try to recover data from a bad hard drive. I'm curious: Do you drive your car until the engine seizes and stops, rather than maintain the oil level and change it occasionally? Then do you expect the car dealership to replace the engine under warranty, all without disrupting your day? And are you really trying to blame Microsoft because YOU have your system configured to go to sleep on lack of user input, in the very same thread where you describe yourself as "the computer guy"? I'm really not being critical of you - life is one long learning experience - but I *AM* being critical of coming on here and trying to blame anyone but your brother and yourself for the mess you're dealing with. Take responsibility for your mistakes instead of trying to pretend you haven't made them. -Noel Detailed how-to in my eBooks: Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options
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June 9th, 2012 11:32am

I have some capacity to recover disks but that assumes that they have not been dropped. I have one disk that survived without a scratch from a drop that cracked the motherboard of the machine. That disk continues to function fine but its in a USB case as its capacity is obsolete. Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
June 9th, 2012 11:53am

My apologies Igor - I should have been clearer. I was agreeing with your statement that "chkdsk is fine". To your point, I personally have never had a problem running "chkdsk /f". The "/r" flag is the only place I encounter problems. Thanks for apologies. Once more - there is no leak in chkdsk/r, it uses all the memory allocated. Sorry for repeating, but chkdsk /r is not normal working procedure. It is for repairing disk to diagnose or avoid problems with possible data loss. This is most important work at this moment and should not be slowered by any other task. Imaging, you go into hospital for a check-up and says, hey, make your investigationgs but do not put obstacles in my work. Isn't it senceless?
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June 9th, 2012 12:46pm

Noel, Concerning your statement: ---------------------------- If you are having to run CHKDSK regularly, something's wrong with your system, or with the way you do computing. The file system does not and should not normally become corrupted! --------------------------- In my case, I run chkdsk/r quite frequently because I am an IT consultant (since 1985). I regularly take out hard drives from client systems, and attach it to an external USB or eSata box, and attach it to a known working system. Then I can run "out of band" antivirus and chkdsk types of analysis and repair. Recently, on a 3TB drive (that ultimatly chkdsked perfectly clean), it took about 9 hours to complete the chkdsk/r. Frankly, I wouldn't have minded if the check took 24 hours, but I (and my client) DID mind that the otherwise useful quad-core 10GB workstation, was incapacitated beyond usefulness during this period. This 3TB disk only had about 300 data files on it, and was less than 10% full. checking at a rate of about 20k clusters/sec over esata. If it is grabbing this memory for the allocation tables, it should release it BEFORE stage 5 (free space scanning). It may be design... but it looks, acts, feels, tastes, smells, like an arrogant designer flaw. And it's obvious many of us have stepped in this poop. However, i'm willing to negotiate. Make it default, but give me a flag to specify maximum memory allocation. Thank you for your consideration. rich
June 11th, 2012 6:48pm

In my shop I often use one of the notebooks I have to do recovery on a disk and notebook are less powerful compared to a modern desktop. I have scanned large disks for errors and malware etc, never been a problem, so I think there is something else at issue. I am able to fix hard disks to a point in the shop and that includes some logic board problems. Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
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June 11th, 2012 7:23pm

In your case something's wrong with the systems of the people you do your work for. That still doesn't make it a generally common activity, and my comment does apply to them. And I'm not clear on what it is you feel you gain for them by using the /R switch. Did you need to use /R or is it just something you do just as a matter of course? In my opinion a drive requiring CHKDSK /R is on its way out and needs to be replaced. Do you deal with many such drives? One could point out that if you DO do this work regularly, then you might want to consider having a separate system that's not useful for much else to do the work, instead of tying up your rompin' stompin' quad-core 10GB workstation all day. I can imagine the CHKDSK /R module reading the same block of sectors over and over a bunch of times, then comparing the block in RAM to make sure the sectors all read successfully every time. Disks read most rapidly and efficiently when contiguous sectors are read. Why it wouldn't release the RAM when entering a new phase I don't know - perhaps you're right about it being a poor design or implementation. I haven't checked to see if CHKDSK /R works the same in Windows 8. Since Microsoft doesn't seem to have done too much to the core functionality of Windows 7 to make Windows 8, I'd guess that it does, but if it doesn't it sure would answer the question here about whether it's a bug. -Noel Detailed how-to in my eBooks: Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options
June 11th, 2012 7:36pm

No they shouldnt. Chkdsk is a utility and as such it should be USEABLE. To design an effectively UNUSEABLE utilility is just had design. Its a question of semantics to say its not a bug or to ask why some one needs to run it. There are millions of windows users out there and a GROWING number of people using external drives for media. These drives now are at 1 TB at a minimum, and are often 2 TB and nowadays can be 4 TB in size. They are plugged into media players and all sorts of devices and have kids pulling them out when being used etc ITS NOT UNREASONABLE that occasonally they need a chkdsk run - and then for the household PC to be unuseable for a whole day is just appalling design. Now Ive just upgraded from a LINUX PC to to windows 7 PC -with 16 GB of RAM and I and running this on a friends External HDD. and I see this problem. Its enough to make me seriously think about ditching windows and going back to linux to be honest - because its such APPALLING lack if user friendliness. Windows is NOT FOR GEEKS its for all users...... and to say you havent need to run it often is just saying YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING - but doesnt mean familiies with Kids do....Now if I decide to stick with windows - I can use the VM solution to reserve memory OR I can set up a machine to do this work on when I need to - I have spare copies of Vista, XP, and 64 BIT XP and PCs so thats no issue for a Geek. BUT IT IS FOR YOUR AVERAGE USER...... and ANY PROFESSIONAL should be thinking about good design and not trying to excuse bad design that locks up an entire PC for an entire day when its not needed... (and yes - doing the boot disk - thats probably needed - but for an external HDD - thats ridiculous). THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED NOT sidestepped/
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June 20th, 2012 9:23am

ITS NOT UNREASONABLE that occasonally they need a chkdsk run - and then for the household PC to be unuseable for a whole day In most cases chkdsk finishes after a few minutes or less then a one minute.
June 20th, 2012 2:56pm

ITS NOT UNREASONABLE that occasonally they need a chkdsk run - and then for the household PC to be unuseable for a whole day is just appalling design. You're confusing two things. As Igor has said, just running CHKDSK or CHKDSK /F on an external hard drive takes a minute. I just did my external MyBook 2 TB drive in 59 seconds. The /R switch is a VERY SPECIFIC setting that tells the system to read the sectors and if any are weak attempt to recover the information and remap the data to another part of the drive. /R should not be needed except under rare circumstances with a failing drive, and could be a last ditch effort to recover data that's otherwise going to be lost. If you're having to do CHKDSK /R regularly on the same machine you need to really consider getting better hardware. Its enough to make me seriously think about ditching windows and going back to linux to be honest You don't have a whole lot to worry about, do you? :) -Noel Detailed how-to in my eBooks: Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options
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June 20th, 2012 7:18pm

modern hard disks use several layers of error recovery with the media to deal with any errors the new 4K disks use larger sectors so that error correcting codes can be improved to increase reliability hard disks also have a spare pool so that if a bad block is noticed it can be substituted, this is where the guaranteed number of sectors comes from So use chkdsk /f if there are read error messages, its time to get a new hard disk as they disk has exhausted it pool of spare sectors its possible that the disk may survive after the spare pool is exhausted, but I use multiple layers of redundancy simply due to the TVS diode debacle a couple of years ago, that was an expensive fiasco for the industry I am considering a second server for more redundancy so that I can tolerate a dead server etc Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7 and 8. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews
June 20th, 2012 7:55pm

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