Can't run chkdsk /f in Win XP

[Guest]

I have a five-year-old work laptop with Win XP SP1. I can't upload SP2
because I don't have enough room on my application drive anymore. There are
often wierd, small problems in different programs so I ran chkdsk which tells
me there are file system errors. It recommends that I run chkdsk /f, but I
can't when I'm logged on due to NTFS.

I've told the system to run it at startup, but nothing happens, it goes
directly to login. Once I login, there are processes running so the drive
can't be locked... so it can't fix the problems in the file system.

Any suggestions?

 

[Guest]

Try booting from your XP installation disk and choosing the "R" option to get
to recovery console.
Pick the drive which contains your windows installation and then enter your
administrator password.

Then try running CHKDSK /R , this is similar to the F switch.

This should work , and hopefully recover damaged clusters on that disk, but
at the end of the day you need space on your system partition for a paging
file( at least 1.5 GB) so that windows can run properly.

Hope this helps.

 

[Richard Urban]

chkdsk C: /p in the recovery console is the equivalent of chkdsk C: /f when
initiated through Windows command prompt.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!