Partition D is "dirty"

[drybones]

Windows XP SP2 informs me of this upon each startup. Not sure why it should
be, "dirty" as I have just completed a defrag of the partition.

"D" drive only contains one particular game which I 'just' installed two
days ago.

Your advice would be most appreciated.
drybones

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Windows XP SP2 informs me of this upon each startup. Not sure why
it should be, "dirty" as I have just completed a defrag of the
partition.
"D" drive only contains one particular game which I 'just'
installed two days ago.

Your advice would be most appreciated.

Is it a just a partition on a drive with other partitions or an entire
physical drive (partitioned as D)?

If the latter - you might want to copy your saved games, run a full CHKDSK
on it, download and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utrilities
on it and format it again..

 

[drybones]

Is it a just a partition on a drive with other partitions or an entire
physical drive (partitioned as D)?

If the latter - you might want to copy your saved games, run a full CHKDSK
on it, download and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic
utrilities on it and format it again..

It is a partition of the 'Primary' HD. "C" drive holds Win XP.
drybones

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Windows XP SP2 informs me of this upon each startup. Not sure why
it should be, "dirty" as I have just completed a defrag of the
partition.

"D" drive only contains one particular game which I 'just'
installed two days ago.

Your advice would be most appreciated.

Is it a just a partition on a drive with other partitions or an
entire physical drive (partitioned as D)?

If the latter - you might want to copy your saved games, run a
full CHKDSK on it, download and run the hard drive manufacturer's
diagnostic utrilities on it and format it again..

It is a partition of the 'Primary' HD. "C" drive holds Win XP.

Advice doesn't change much.

First - a drive being marked as "dirty" and "defragmentation" have nothing
in common. A "dirty" disk is one that needs CHKDSK ran on it - not
defragmentation. In fact - once should not run a defragmentation on a drive
until it has been checked for issues using CHKDSK since the defragmentation
could dumbly move something into a bad (but unmarked) bad sector.

I would make an additional backup of your system in addition to your normal
periodic backup.
I would run a full CHKDSK on both partitions (C and D) - allowing it to run
at the next startup if asked.
I would download the hard disk drive manufacturer's disk diagnostics and run
it against the drive (non-destructive for now) to see if it picks up
anything.
If nothing was found - I would then defragment both the C and the D drives a
couple of times each.

If you do all that and/or are 100% confident the hardware is without fault..

Start button --> RUN --> CMD --> OK

In the command prompt window, type:

FSUTIL DIRTY QUERY D:

and press ENTER. This will come back with whether or not the "dirty bit" is
set on said drive (d: in the example above.)

If it *is* dirty and you do not want to check it on the next reboot... type
this in at the command prompt:

CHKNTFS /X D:

and press ENTER. This will allow you to reboot without a scan.

Reboot and (after taking note it did not check the drive you told it not
to) - bring up the command prompt again. This time type:

CHKDSK /F /R D:

and press ENTER. This shold take you through the 5 stages of the scan and
definitely unset the dirty bit (you have to let it run through!) After it
is done, type (in the command prompt):

FSUTIL DIRTY QUERY D:

and press ENTER. You should see:

Volume - D: is NOT Dirty


Let us know what happens!

 

[drybones]

Advice doesn't change much.

First - a drive being marked as "dirty" and "defragmentation" have nothing
in common. A "dirty" disk is one that needs CHKDSK ran on it - not
defragmentation. In fact - once should not run a defragmentation on a
drive until it has been checked for issues using CHKDSK since the
defragmentation could dumbly move something into a bad (but unmarked) bad
sector.

I would make an additional backup of your system in addition to your
normal periodic backup.
I would run a full CHKDSK on both partitions (C and D) - allowing it to
run at the next startup if asked.
I would download the hard disk drive manufacturer's disk diagnostics and
run it against the drive (non-destructive for now) to see if it picks up
anything.
If nothing was found - I would then defragment both the C and the D drives
a couple of times each.

If you do all that and/or are 100% confident the hardware is without
fault..

Start button --> RUN --> CMD --> OK

In the command prompt window, type:

FSUTIL DIRTY QUERY D:

and press ENTER. This will come back with whether or not the "dirty bit"
is set on said drive (d: in the example above.)

If it *is* dirty and you do not want to check it on the next reboot...
type this in at the command prompt:

CHKNTFS /X D:

and press ENTER. This will allow you to reboot without a scan.

Reboot and (after taking note it did not check the drive you told it not
to) - bring up the command prompt again. This time type:

CHKDSK /F /R D:

and press ENTER. This shold take you through the 5 stages of the scan and
definitely unset the dirty bit (you have to let it run through!) After it
is done, type (in the command prompt):

FSUTIL DIRTY QUERY D:

and press ENTER. You should see:

Volume - D: is NOT Dirty


Let us know what happens!

Shenan,

Ran a chkdsk D: f
Rebooted and the "dirty disk" disappeared.

Do not understand why Win XP didn't fix it to start with. <oh well>

Many thanks for all your information.
I have it well documented for the (?) next time.
drybones