The Value Of Self-Healing

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Jon - 29 May 2007 11:58 GMT

I was looking through the new options available with the 'fsutil' command in
Vista (as you do), and stumbled across this little chap.

fsutil repair

eg

C:\Windows\system32>fsutil repair query c:
Self healing is enabled for volume c: with flags 0x1.
flags: 1 - enable general repair
8 - warn about potential data loss

Is self-healing an indispensable option to keep enabled, or is there a
performance impact involved? Would there any value in disabling it for a
particular volume (and say replacing it with a traditional scheduled
'chkdsk' check)?

I tried disabling it, and didn't notice any immediate catastrophic effect.

Ran across this article which also provides some background.

Self-Healing NTFS
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/6f883d0d-3668-4e15-b7
ad-4df0f6e6805d1033.mspx?mfr=true

Thanks for any thoughts.

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Jon

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Richard Urban - 29 May 2007 17:06 GMT

My comment is: Why would one want to disable a function that helps the
system to run in a more reliable condition?

Guess I am a type of person who just doesn't get human nature.

As I have stated, oh so many times, in these newsgroups: The worst enemy of
any running computer is the person at the keyboard! Cause of errors = 99% of
all known problems

We ask people who have a multitude of problems - "What have you done to
alter your system?" They come back with, "I didn't do anything!"

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Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

>I was looking through the new options available with the 'fsutil' command
>in Vista (as you do), and stumbled across this little chap.
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
> Thanks for any thoughts.

Reply to this Message

Jon - 29 May 2007 17:57 GMT

> My comment is: Why would one want to disable a function that helps the
> system to run in a more reliable condition?

Thanks Richard.

It does seem to be good thing. I've noticed that a boot time chkdsk runs
much much faster with Vista. Whether that's related to this particular
feature, though, I don't know.

> Guess I am a type of person who just doesn't get human nature.
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> We ask people who have a multitude of problems - "What have you done to
> alter your system?" They come back with, "I didn't do anything!"

True. Very easy to forget changes that have been made in the past.

I suppose I have a 'need for speed' tendency (of the legal variety) - but
since I've not heard of ,or observed, any major performance hit from having
it enabled, I suspect I'll be leaving it on.

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Jon

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Richard Urban - 29 May 2007 18:19 GMT

Do you remember Win9x days. If you just pulled the plug on a running
computer you would cause all sorts of damage, up to and including losing the
operating system. You had to sit through a lengthy scandisk that usually did
nothing but destroy your files.

Pull the plug on a computer with either Windows XP or Vista. I have yet to
see any system damage when this is done by mistake.

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>> My comment is: Why would one want to disable a function that helps the
>> system to run in a more reliable condition?
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> since I've not heard of ,or observed, any major performance hit from
> having it enabled, I suspect I'll be leaving it on.

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Jon - 29 May 2007 18:35 GMT

True, and progress over the ZX81 where a slight jolt to the machine would
mean complete loss of data, and another 5 minutes loading a 1K program from
a tape recorder. Mind you, you never lost the operating system from that
machine - I'll say that much for it.

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Jon

> Do you remember Win9x days. If you just pulled the plug on a running
> computer you would cause all sorts of damage, up to and including losing
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>> since I've not heard of ,or observed, any major performance hit from
>> having it enabled, I suspect I'll be leaving it on.

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R. C. White, MVP - 30 May 2007 14:55 GMT

Hi, Jon.

Or for the original TRS-80. ;^} You couldn't lose the operating system
because the whole thing (plus BASIC) was in the ROM (4 KB?). And all
programs were safe on their music cassettes - unless they got too close to a
magnet - or the tape drive ate them.

But, Vista IS an improvement over that. ;<)

RC

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R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail desktop beta in Vista Ultimate x64)

> True, and progress over the ZX81 where a slight jolt to the machine would
> mean complete loss of data, and another 5 minutes loading a 1K program
[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]
>>> but since I've not heard of ,or observed, any major performance hit from
>>> having it enabled, I suspect I'll be leaving it on.

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Jon - 30 May 2007 16:56 GMT

Thanks RC. Sounds similar.

Funnily enough it struck me after I'd posted that, that in some ways the
current trend is back towards the old fixed rom once again - thinking of the
desire to 'lock down the kernel', the climate of paranoia over system
security etc . After all, despite its limitations, it was *the* completely
secure operating system.

Can't really see things ever regressing completely back to the untweakable
rom, which would be pretty boring to put it mildly, but who knows.

Signature

Jon

> Hi, Jon.
>
[quoted text clipped - 42 lines]
>>>> but since I've not heard of ,or observed, any major performance hit
>>>> from having it enabled, I suspect I'll be leaving it on.

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