Vista on Lenovo - no disk: how to run a scandisk?

My niece's laptop, a Lenovo with Vista Home Premium and no DVD whatsoever, neither Vista's nor a recovery DVD has had both OS and data partitions messed up (from linux's gparted I am informed there's a mismatch in the number of clusters). I already nuked the OS partition and tried to reinstall the previous image from the Rescue partition. Sadly, it does not complete the first boot after restoring it. All I get is a black screen with a blinking cursor.

My problem, I fear, is the data partition that carries Users data: it still has bad clusters.
I would like to try to repair it, if possible. Gparted tells me that I should run scanddisk (o was that chkdsk? I've jotted that down anyway) from windows with the modifier /F.

How can I access a prompt from where to run this scandisk, if I have no recovery cd?
Can I produce one from my laptop with Vista Business?

 

chkdsk will not restore bad clusters--those are physical defects in the drive. It may mark them as bad and tell windows not to use them again, but it will not fix them.

As a general rule, once a disk begins to develop bad clusters they tend to multiply like weeds.

It is best that you save the data you can and replace the driver.

If you are not looking to save the data, replace the drive and reinstall. You can use any Vista disk and the key on the certificate of authenticity on th e bottom to install a clean version of Vista

 

Thank you for your answer,
I might have not expressed myself properly.
From what I've read on the net, this sort of problem could have been caused by an inappropriate shutdown of the system. This could actually be the case, since my other younger niece played with the notebook until it switched off for lack of juice. Since the battery, after a few years, is a bit weak, I surmise that proper shutdown could not be completed.

As a matter of fact the OS partition, once formatted (fast formatted) has not shown any sign of cluster mismatch.
I know how bad a 'bad cluster' problem could be. I had to endure the rapid death of one Samsung disk a few years ago, it was horrible.
Hopefully, this does not seems the case.

(As for the backup, obviously my niece does not have one, even though I frequently asked her to back up her data - I ended up burning a couple of DVDs my self, even if it's just a bunch of pictures and drawing she does not seems to care about.)
The problem with the backup of the data is that I would use Linux and I am afraid that it won't preserve all the file permissions of the Vista Users folder. I do not want to clone the partition since I would also clone the affected FS structure...)

Hence, I'd rather try - before nuking the partition and possibly the whole disk - to recover the file system from a MS console.

Is there some sort of freely available recover CD ord DVD that can be used to get to a command prompt?

 

It depends on your hardware.

Given its Windows Vista, it likely means that you have a sata drive in their. There are bootable Windows repair console CD images out there that will work with ide drives, but do not include drivers for sata drives.

www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso

If you have access to Windows 7, you can create a system repair disk by going to START > CONTROL PANEL > BACKUP AND RESTORE > choose CREATE A SYSTEM REPAIR DISC

This will work with Windows VISTA

 

Ok, my brother-in-law has a friend whose friend has Seven.
After a few weeks I received a DVD-R that's supposedly a System Repair Disc.
But it won't boot.

I had a look at the disc directory and it's 4.5 GB full and there's a setup.exe file in it. Is this really a System Repair Disc or the instructions on how to create one have got lost along the way ?
I have a hunch the guy has just copied (possibily by drag and drop) his windows installation disc :-(

How big should a SRD be?

 

Not that big--depending on the whether it is 64-bit (a little over 160mb) or 32-bit (a little over 140mb).

If he did give you a windows 7 disk, it should be bootable and include a windows repair function on it--assuming he made the disk right. Sounds more like he just copied the files over, leaving off the boot record

 

Yep, that's what I feared.
Back to square one.

 

when things drag out over this long a period of time, the details tend to get lost.

What is the ultimate goal here?

Do you have a desktop. Since this is an sata drive, you can plug it easily into a desktop to do whatever you need to do...just need a little sata cable.

 

Well, I am trying to restore the OS from the backup images with minimum effort. That means trying to recover the filesystem with a checkdisk (or whatever linux suggested me to do). I still believe the problem was caused by an abrupt shutdown.
I have now given detailed instruction on how to create the system repair disk.

Should the FS repair fail, I could still format the data partition and reinstate a previous image. Point is I had recently hardened the system againt my niece's attempts to circumvent parental control, and I'd hate to start again from scratch (I changed users names, permissions, hours, program preferences...).
My biggest fear is that even if I copy the Users folder files with linux, I wont' be able to copy them back in a correct way and Vista won't recognize the respective owners. And, being the partition damaged, image creation is out of question.

There are many options still open, and if my niece had bought that backup disk I told her to, I would have copied the massive data partition back in a jiffy. I have no sata controller on my desktop, it's quite old (2002, but still kicking) . I could put the disk in an external box, but still via usb2 I doubt I could do much.

Thanks for your timely help, gerryf19. I'll come back here to report as soon as the FS recovery fails .

 

Ok, it worked.
But now I have another problem with Microsoft magnificent update skills.
(But that's another story, another thread).

Thanks for your help