• Hard drive error

    From philo@21:1/5 to All on Thu May 19 15:47:01 2022
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup with
    the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows
    versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in
    reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.


    As a precaution I ran both a memory test and the mfg's full HD
    diagnostic ...no errors found>

    I then booted the machine from a Win7 live cd and ran CHKDSK /F and this
    time I was able to now see what CHKDSK was doing.

    Here is the message of note:


    Index entries referring to file 777285 will not be validated because
    this file contains too many file names.



    I Googled this error and most of the forums I've seen advise running a
    utility called diskedit.exe , then cite some complex instructions.

    All the responses post back saying: Tried that but it didn't work.


    Now I am stumped and would appreciate some help.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul@21:1/5 to philo on Thu May 19 19:38:37 2022
    On 5/19/2022 4:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup with the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.


    As a precaution I ran both a memory test and the mfg's full HD diagnostic ...no errors found>

    I then booted the machine from a Win7 live cd and ran CHKDSK /F and this time I was able to now see what CHKDSK was doing.

    Here is the message of note:


    Index entries referring to file 777285 will not be validated because this file contains too many file names.



    I Googled this error and most of the forums I've seen advise running a utility called diskedit.exe  , then cite some complex instructions.

    All the responses post back saying: Tried that but it didn't work.


    Now I am stumped and would appreciate some help.

    What is the physical health of the disk like ?

    https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=68605

    I would start with the nfi.exe utility. At least
    it hasn't been "chased down and ruthlessly eliminated" :-)

    https://web.archive.org/web/20070104083656if_/http://download.microsoft.com:80/download/win2000srv/utility/3.0/nt45/en-us/oem3sr2.zip

    I cannot find a copy of diskedit.zip . It's been removed
    from archive.org . As for the notion the file is in the
    Win2K SP4 ISO, it must be well hidden, because I looked in
    my copy and while I see utilities with diskXXXX names, there
    is no diskedit.zip in there. Maybe it was some original or
    beta version of the file that had it. I suppose the public
    version "diskedit.zip" is diskedit.exe plus DLLs, and it
    wasn't actually shipped as a ZIP. I still could not find
    a diskedit.exe on the SP4 ISO.

    The Google search seems suspiciously "lean".

    *******

    In nfi.exe output, normally each filenum, is followed by a path.

    The path could be contained in one of the two $FILE_NAME entries.
    nfi.exe does not show us both paths at the same time. It
    should do this, but it does not.

    File 59272 \Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed\68AB67CA330133017706CB5110E47A00\21.1.20135\acrotextextractor.exe
    $STANDARD_INFORMATION (resident)
    $FILE_NAME (resident)
    $FILE_NAME (resident)
    $DATA (nonresident)
    logical sectors 88751496-88751615 (0x54a3d88-0x54a3dff)

    File 59273

    Linux, if you use the "ls -i" option, shows inode numbers.

    If two items reside in filenum 59272, then Linux should
    list both of them, with the same "inode number". So maybe
    you would see

    inode = 59272 filename = dog.txt
    ...
    inode = 59272 filename = cat.txt

    That's because Linux stuffs the inode field in the stat()
    info for an NTFS file, with the filenum number.

    The problem with Linux is, the NTFS filesystem driver (there are
    at least three of them), it has problems with Reparse Points, and
    we don't know which file system driver does the very best job.
    The default one, would cause "I/O Error" to be printed on the
    screen, for any item which has a Reparse Point. Every "new compression"
    file in the Windows directory, would throw an "I/O Error", when
    in reality it is a "I do not know how to parse this information"
    error. It is not a physical problem with the drive, like a CRC
    error or something. The first time I saw those errors listed,
    I was kinda freaking out :-)

    The Paragon NTFS driver, is the latest on offer. A quick test
    of it, found it to be defective and not ripe. You need a
    very recent kernel (5.13, 5.15, it was some high number like that).

    The objective of getting the Paragon driver, is just so it
    does not spray the screen with error messages and not a lot
    of help for you.

    So if we saw this...

    File 59272
    <=== blank line for path
    $STANDARD_INFORMATION (resident)
    $FILE_NAME (resident)
    $FILE_NAME (resident)
    $DATA (nonresident)
    logical sectors 88751496-88751615 (0x54a3d88-0x54a3dff)

    in principle, the file at one time had a path.

    *******

    The Search Indexer keeps the Windows.edb file. And that is a Jet Blue
    database. And it has a neat little mechanism for compressing
    path info for files. It uses simple integer numbers.

    \Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed\68AB67CA330133017706CB5110E47A00\21.1.20135\acrotextextractor.exe
    23 37 417 652 1058 2894 54678

    There are two tables in Windows.edb, and you walk back and forth
    between the two tables, until you rise up to the top of the
    hierarchy. This is my report on the little project.

    http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Cpa7oma%2491q%241%40dont-email.me%3E

    But given this secondary source of info (would require the user
    to have properly set up Indexing Options... which never happens!),
    how would you profit from that info ?

    I don't know.

    You still don't know what the "blank" item is. If you did not
    have the "acrotextextractor.exe" tidbit, you could not walk the tree.

    Unlike in my example, where I knew of an existing item, and
    I was able to traverse the table dumps to get the info I wanted.

    You can list every file contained in Windows.edb, if you have
    the intestinal fortitude (just writing some code would do).

    But if the indexer only indexed the users "Downloads" folder,
    there will be little useful info in the Windows.edb file. And
    that is the most likely outcome.

    I do have a fully functional Windows Search on my Windows 7 machine,
    but it took a lot of work, poking and prodding, to get it stable.
    No ordinary end user will put up with the amount of aggravation
    I went through to do that. The index seemed to "blow out" a couple
    of times, and dump what it had done and started over again.

    *******

    Summary: diskedit.exe would be of little solace, if the root cause
    of these errors is some "not logical" set of conditions.

    Maybe CHKDSK would have orphaned these defective files...
    if the media was good enough to accept writes.

    Paul

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From philo@21:1/5 to Paul on Fri May 20 06:28:14 2022
    On 5/19/22 6:38 PM, Paul wrote:
    On 5/19/2022 4:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup
    with the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows
    versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in
    reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.


    As a precaution I ran both a memory test and the mfg's full HD
    diagnostic ...no errors found>

    I then booted the machine from a Win7 live cd and ran CHKDSK /F and
    this time I was able to now see what CHKDSK was doing.

    Here is the message of note:


    Index entries referring to file 777285 will not be validated because
    this file contains too many file names.



    I Googled this error and most of the forums I've seen advise running a
    utility called diskedit.exe  , then cite some complex instructions.

    All the responses post back saying: Tried that but it didn't work.


    Now I am stumped and would appreciate some help.

    What is the physical health of the disk like ?

       https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=68605

    I would start with the nfi.exe utility. At least
    it hasn't been "chased down and ruthlessly eliminated" :-)


    https://web.archive.org/web/20070104083656if_/http://download.microsoft.com:80/download/win2000srv/utility/3.0/nt45/en-us/oem3sr2.zip


    I cannot find a copy of diskedit.zip . It's been removed
    from archive.org . As for the notion the file is in the
    Win2K SP4 ISO, it must be well hidden, because I looked in
    my copy and while I see utilities with diskXXXX names, there
    is no diskedit.zip in there. Maybe it was some original or
    beta version of the file that had it. I suppose the public
    version "diskedit.zip" is diskedit.exe plus DLLs, and it
    wasn't actually shipped as a ZIP. I still could not find
    a diskedit.exe on the SP4 ISO.

    The Google search seems suspiciously "lean".

    *******

    In nfi.exe output, normally each filenum, is followed by a path.

    The path could be contained in one of the two $FILE_NAME entries.
    nfi.exe does not show us both paths at the same time. It
    should do this, but it does not.

    File 59272 \Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed\68AB67CA330133017706CB5110E47A00\21.1.20135\acrotextextractor.exe

        $STANDARD_INFORMATION (resident)
        $FILE_NAME (resident)
        $FILE_NAME (resident)
        $DATA (nonresident)
            logical sectors 88751496-88751615 (0x54a3d88-0x54a3dff)

    File 59273

    Linux, if you use the "ls -i" option, shows inode numbers.

    If two items reside in filenum 59272, then Linux should
    list both of them, with the same "inode number". So maybe
    you would see

       inode = 59272   filename = dog.txt
    ...
       inode = 59272   filename = cat.txt

    That's because Linux stuffs the inode field in the stat()
    info for an NTFS file, with the filenum number.

    The problem with Linux is, the NTFS filesystem driver (there are
    at least three of them), it has problems with Reparse Points, and
    we don't know which file system driver does the very best job.
    The default one, would cause "I/O Error" to be printed on the
    screen, for any item which has a Reparse Point. Every "new compression"
    file in the Windows directory, would throw an "I/O Error", when
    in reality it is a "I do not know how to parse this information"
    error. It is not a physical problem with the drive, like a CRC
    error or something. The first time I saw those errors listed,
    I was kinda freaking out :-)

    The Paragon NTFS driver, is the latest on offer. A quick test
    of it, found it to be defective and not ripe. You need a
    very recent kernel (5.13, 5.15, it was some high number like that).

    The objective of getting the Paragon driver, is just so it
    does not spray the screen with error messages and not a lot
    of help for you.

    So if we saw this...

    File 59272
                                             <=== blank line for path
        $STANDARD_INFORMATION (resident)
        $FILE_NAME (resident)
        $FILE_NAME (resident)
        $DATA (nonresident)
            logical sectors 88751496-88751615 (0x54a3d88-0x54a3dff)

    in principle, the file at one time had a path.

    *******

    The Search Indexer keeps the Windows.edb file. And that is a Jet Blue database. And it has a neat little mechanism for compressing
    path info for files. It uses simple integer numbers.

    \Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed\68AB67CA330133017706CB5110E47A00\21.1.20135\acrotextextractor.exe

       23      37         417        652 1058                   2894          54678

    There are two tables in Windows.edb, and you walk back and forth
    between the two tables, until you rise up to the top of the
    hierarchy. This is my report on the little project.


    http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Cpa7oma%2491q%241%40dont-email.me%3E


    But given this secondary source of info (would require the user
    to have properly set up Indexing Options... which never happens!),
    how would you profit from that info ?

    I don't know.

    You still don't know what the "blank" item is. If you did not
    have the "acrotextextractor.exe" tidbit, you could not walk the tree.

    Unlike in my example, where I knew of an existing item, and
    I was able to traverse the table dumps to get the info I wanted.

    You can list every file contained in Windows.edb, if you have
    the intestinal fortitude (just writing some code would do).

    But if the indexer only indexed the users "Downloads" folder,
    there will be little useful info in the Windows.edb file. And
    that is the most likely outcome.

    I do have a fully functional Windows Search on my Windows 7 machine,
    but it took a lot of work, poking and prodding, to get it stable.
    No ordinary end user will put up with the amount of aggravation
    I went through to do that. The index seemed to "blow out" a couple
    of times, and dump what it had done and started over again.

    *******

    Summary: diskedit.exe would be of little solace, if the root cause
             of these errors is some "not logical" set of conditions.

             Maybe CHKDSK would have orphaned these defective files...
             if the media was good enough to accept writes.

       Paul




    Thanks Paul, I will see what I can do with nfi.exe .
    I ran the manufacturer's long test on the drive and it passed.


    I think that what I'll do is just replace the drive and reload the OS
    and run the machine for a while and see what happens.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From philo@21:1/5 to philo on Fri May 20 17:09:53 2022
    On 5/19/22 3:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup with
    the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows
    versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in
    reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.





    <snip>


    Replaced the mechanical drive with an ssd and reloaded the OS.


    Used the machine today with no problems.

    It's just a backup machine but might as well keep it in as best
    condition as possible.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From philo@21:1/5 to philo on Sat May 21 06:28:18 2022
    On 5/20/2022 5:09 PM, philo wrote:
    On 5/19/22 3:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup
    with the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows
    versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in
    reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.





    <snip>


    Replaced the mechanical drive with an ssd and reloaded the OS.


    Used the machine today with no problems.

    It's just a backup machine but might as well keep it in as best
    condition as possible.




    Now the the laptop is working better than ever with the SSD, figured I
    can put the old drive in an enclosure.

    From another Win10 machine, I ran CHKLDSK /F on the drive and not only
    did it see MANY errors and correct them, I also got messages as to
    exactly what was going on which is exactly as I would expect.


    Now I am wondering why CHKDSK /F was not working originally/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul@21:1/5 to philo on Sat May 21 15:48:18 2022
    On 5/21/2022 7:28 AM, philo wrote:
    On 5/20/2022 5:09 PM, philo wrote:
    On 5/19/22 3:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup with the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.

    <snip>


    Replaced the mechanical drive with an ssd and reloaded the OS.


    Used the machine today with no problems.

    It's just a backup machine but might as well keep it in as best condition as possible.


    Now the the laptop is working better than ever with the SSD, figured I can put the old drive in an enclosure.

    From another Win10 machine, I ran CHKLDSK /F  on the drive and not only did it see MANY errors and correct them, I also got messages as to exactly what was going on which is exactly as I would expect.

    Now I am wondering why CHKDSK /F was not working originally/

    It's possible the CHKDSK used is not working the same
    as it used to.

    Windows 10 (and possibly some earlier OSes) have "robust" NTFS.
    This means there is a background scan being done for NTFS. I
    suspect it is a background scan of "recently carried out operations",
    rather than a thorough evaluation.

    Then, if you request CHKDSK from Properties, can that be run
    while the robust stuff runs in the background ? Dunno. Since
    I've never seen any documentation for the robust NTFS feature,
    I can't point you at a reference.

    All I can tell you, is that Windows 7 remains the best place
    to be doing a CHKDSK. For whatever that is worth. Windows 7
    does not "understand" why there are Extended Attributes all
    over the place on the NTFS you ask it to fix. But, all the
    features are there to mechanically fix it. Even if it is
    slow as molasses in springtime. Win7 CHKDSK will eventually
    fix your file system.

    And always do:

    chkdsk /?

    to make sure you aren't missing some of the newer repair flags.
    On some occasion, I found a new option, and it actually helped me.

    Paul

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From philo@21:1/5 to Paul on Sat May 21 13:51:37 2022
    On 5/21/22 2:48 PM, Paul wrote:
    On 5/21/2022 7:28 AM, philo wrote:
    On 5/20/2022 5:09 PM, philo wrote:
    On 5/19/22 3:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup
    with the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows
    versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in
    reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.

    <snip>


    Replaced the mechanical drive with an ssd and reloaded the OS.


    Used the machine today with no problems.

    It's just a backup machine but might as well keep it in as best
    condition as possible.


    Now the the laptop is working better than ever with the SSD, figured I
    can put the old drive in an enclosure.

     From another Win10 machine, I ran CHKLDSK /F  on the drive and not
    only did it see MANY errors and correct them, I also got messages as
    to exactly what was going on which is exactly as I would expect.

    Now I am wondering why CHKDSK /F was not working originally/

    It's possible the CHKDSK used is not working the same
    as it used to.

    Windows 10 (and possibly some earlier OSes) have "robust" NTFS.
    This means there is a background scan being done for NTFS. I
    suspect it is a background scan of "recently carried out operations",
    rather than a thorough evaluation.

    Then, if you request CHKDSK from Properties, can that be run
    while the robust stuff runs in the background ? Dunno. Since
    I've never seen any documentation for the robust NTFS feature,
    I can't point you at a reference.

    All I can tell you, is that Windows 7 remains the best place
    to be doing a CHKDSK. For whatever that is worth. Windows 7
    does not "understand" why there are Extended Attributes all
    over the place on the NTFS you ask it to fix. But, all the
    features are there to mechanically fix it. Even if it is
    slow as molasses in springtime. Win7 CHKDSK will eventually
    fix your file system.

    And always do:

       chkdsk /?

    to make sure you aren't missing some of the newer repair flags.
    On some occasion, I found a new option, and it actually helped me.

       Paul



    Yes. There indeed were options I never heard about.

    Anyway, the machine seems to be fine now and I will keep the old drive
    for additional backups

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From philo@21:1/5 to philo on Mon May 23 20:00:56 2022
    On 5/19/22 3:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup with
    the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows
    versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in
    reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.


    As a precaution I ran both a memory test and the mfg's full HD



    <snip>


    Popped the drive into another machine and the performance is
    terrible...so I'm not going to put it back into service.


    Also: it was from a Lenovo laptop and the disk label said Windows SSD
    even though it was a mechanical drive. My opinion of Lenovo is a bit
    diminished now

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul@21:1/5 to philo on Mon May 23 22:15:15 2022
    On 5/23/2022 9:00 PM, philo wrote:
    On 5/19/22 3:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup with the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.


    As a precaution I ran both a memory test and the mfg's full HD


    <snip>


    Popped the drive into another machine and the performance is terrible...so I'm not going to put it back into service.


    Also: it was from a Lenovo laptop and the disk label said Windows SSD even though it was a mechanical drive. My opinion of Lenovo is a bit diminished now

    My experience is, an HDTune abnormal read benchmark may make
    an appearance, before the Reallocated raw data field goes off 0.

    Things like SmartMonTools rely on the SMART for their determination
    of "Healthy". And you as the user, can use things like HDTune
    to determine "it is not Healthy".

    In my case, it was a drive with an obvious 50GB-wide "bad spot" on
    the disk, which was likely wear-related. (An OS used to sit there.)
    HDTune would measure 5MB/sec to 10MB/sec or so, through that
    region. The rest of the disk formed part of a more normal-looking
    curve.

    It's especially hard to get a "noise-free" environment for HDTune.
    Win2K was my favorite for "noise-free" benching. It didn't have a
    lot of scanning going on, in the background.

    Gnome-disks can do a read-bench as an option, but you have to be
    careful to not select the "write" option by accident. And the results
    don't appear to be "smoothed" quite like HDTune. The thing is, the
    caching on Linux is pretty hard to defeat, and there have been
    programs that claim to defeat the cache while measuring, where
    the cache schemes were still evident in the results.

    If you want, you can use the Command Prompt in the Troubleshooting
    section of a Windows installer DVD, and call HDTune from there.
    As long as it's sitting on some storage you have access to. Typically,
    32-bit installer DVDs have 32-bit install environments and are good
    for running a 32-bit application like HDTune 255. Not every thing
    you would like to run, works that way. But a few things do. And the
    32-bit DVD is the place to test them. Since Windows 11 has no 32-bit
    option, you won't be using a Windows 11 DVD for this purpose. But
    earlier versions would be fine.

    The theory being, a WinPE environment is less likely to have
    background noise while it is running. The OS is loaded into X:
    and X: is a RAMDrive provided by Microsoft. This also implies
    the DVD can be popped out, once the Command Prompt window is open
    (in theory at least, YMMV...).

    Paul

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From philo@21:1/5 to Paul on Tue May 24 19:25:39 2022
    On 5/23/2022 9:15 PM, Paul wrote:
    On 5/23/2022 9:00 PM, philo wrote:
    On 5/19/22 3:47 PM, philo wrote:
    I'm working on a Win10 machine that occasionally crashes on startup
    with the message: Windows has encountered an error.

    If I run CHKDSK /F I see that CHKDSK on
    Win10 givers no annunciation as it did with previous Windows
    versions...all it does is say that the drive was repaired, then in
    reboots, but it did not actually fix anything.


    As a precaution I ran both a memory test and the mfg's full HD


    <snip>


    Popped the drive into another machine and the performance is
    terrible...so I'm not going to put it back into service.


    Also: it was from a Lenovo laptop and the disk label said Windows SSD
    even though it was a mechanical drive. My opinion of Lenovo is a bit
    diminished now

    My experience is, an HDTune abnormal read benchmark may make
    an appearance, before the Reallocated raw data field goes off 0.

    Things like SmartMonTools rely on the SMART for their determination
    of "Healthy". And you as the user, can use things like HDTune
    to determine "it is not Healthy".

    In my case, it was a drive with an obvious 50GB-wide "bad spot" on
    the disk, which was likely wear-related. (An OS used to sit there.)
    HDTune would measure 5MB/sec to 10MB/sec or so, through that
    region. The rest of the disk formed part of a more normal-looking
    curve.

    It's especially hard to get a "noise-free" environment for HDTune.
    Win2K was my favorite for "noise-free" benching. It didn't have a
    lot of scanning going on, in the background.

    Gnome-disks can do a read-bench as an option, but you have to be
    careful to not select the "write" option by accident. And the results
    don't appear to be "smoothed" quite like HDTune. The thing is, the
    caching on Linux is pretty hard to defeat, and there have been
    programs that claim to defeat the cache while measuring, where
    the cache schemes were still evident in the results.

    If you want, you can use the Command Prompt in the Troubleshooting
    section of a Windows installer DVD, and call HDTune from there.
    As long as it's sitting on some storage you have access to. Typically,
    32-bit installer DVDs have 32-bit install environments and are good
    for running a 32-bit application like HDTune 255. Not every thing
    you would like to run, works that way. But a few things do. And the
    32-bit DVD is the place to test them. Since Windows 11 has no 32-bit
    option, you won't be using a Windows 11 DVD for this purpose. But
    earlier versions would be fine.

    The theory being, a WinPE environment is less likely to have
    background noise while it is running. The OS is loaded into X:
    and X: is a RAMDrive provided by Microsoft. This also implies
    the DVD can be popped out, once the Command Prompt window is open
    (in theory at least, YMMV...).

       Paul



    What I finally did was pop the drive in a spare computer I had in my
    workshop, format it and perform a fresh install of Win10.

    The machine is a single core 3ghz cpu with 4 megs of ram.

    It's actually running ok.

    Sooner or later a friend will need a free machine, so I'll have one all
    ready. I used to keep at least six spares

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