Check disk problem

[Guest]

Recently I have had a problem with chkdsk when I schedule it to run on
restart. The check disk program starts and appears to go through the normal
motons, but after it fininishes, windowsXP pro will not load and the computer
reboots and starts check disk again in an endless loop. To get windows to
start again I can select Last known Good Configuration after hitting F8 (it
will also go into safe mode if I select that). I suppose I could try running
checkdsk from the recovery console from the cd but I doubt that would fix the
problem. Is this a symptom of a virus?

 

[Rock]

Recently I have had a problem with chkdsk when I schedule it to run on
restart. The check disk program starts and appears to go through the normal
motons, but after it fininishes, windowsXP pro will not load and the computer
reboots and starts check disk again in an endless loop. To get windows to
start again I can select Last known Good Configuration after hitting F8 (it
will also go into safe mode if I select that). I suppose I could try running
checkdsk from the recovery console from the cd but I doubt that would fix the
problem. Is this a symptom of a virus?

See this MS KB article.
Chkdsk.exe or Autochk.exe starts when you try to shut down or restart
your computer
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;831426

 

[Guest]

I looked at the article you sent. I then rebooted my computer with the
original XP Pro disk and entered the recovery console. I tried to run check
disk using chkdsk /r command and received this message "The volume appears to
contain one or more unrecoverable problems"

 

[Rock]

I looked at the article you sent. I then rebooted my computer with the
original XP Pro disk and entered the recovery console. I tried to run check
disk using chkdsk /r command and received this message "The volume appears to
contain one or more unrecoverable problems"



:

Download a drive diagnostic utility from the drive manufacturer's web
site. That will create a bootable floppy or CD and run a diagnostic on
the drive from there.

If you don't have a current backup slave the drive in another XP or
win2k computer and see if you can copy the critical data.

 

[Richard Urban]

Hi Rock,

I just went through this on my main computer. The "unrecoverable error" was
the fact that the 160 gig drive in question was attached to a plug-in
ATA-133 card that does not support S.M.A.R.T.

Hope you can use this in the future. (-:

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

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

 

[Rock]

Hi Rock,

I just went through this on my main computer. The "unrecoverable error" was
the fact that the 160 gig drive in question was attached to a plug-in
ATA-133 card that does not support S.M.A.R.T.

Hope you can use this in the future. (-:

Thanks Richard.

 

[Guest]

The hard drive is a relatively new 300gig serial Maxtor (3 or so months old).
It seems to be functioning ok other than it will not run check disk.

 

[Rock]

The hard drive is a relatively new 300gig serial Maxtor (3 or so months old).
It seems to be functioning ok other than it will not run check disk.

:

I don't know what else to suggest to you, but I would run the
diagnostics from the drive manufacturer. New drives can go bad too.
I'm not saying that's what it is but you should eliminate that question.

 

[Guest]

I checked the maxtor site and see that the utility is not desgined for SATA
and also appears to get rid of all data while it is performing the diagnosis.
Not a lot of good choices there.

 

[R. McCarty]

How did you create the partitions/format this drive ? If it was a
Windows XP CD-ROM was it Gold, SP1 or SP2. There are
some functional differences in SP2 that changes what Chkdsk
considers errors or are correctable faults. In other words the
SP1and SP2 Chkdsk utilities don't work exactly the same.

 

[Rock]

I checked the maxtor site and see that the utility is not desgined for SATA
and also appears to get rid of all data while it is performing the diagnosis.
Not a lot of good choices there.

Yeah that's not good. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

[Guest]

I'm having major problems with structural errors on my c drive. Running FixIt
Utilities tells me that I have to run chkdsk to fix these errors. I did that
and also ran chkdsk with /f/r option and it's still not fixed.

I've tried to reformat my c drive but I get a message saying that there are
installation files on that drive and cannot reformat the drive. I have a
second hard drive too. How can I reformat the drive and fix these errors. The
computer crashes every time I use it.

Help!
--
JimRobbins

Hi Rock,

I just went through this on my main computer. The "unrecoverable error" was
the fact that the 160 gig drive in question was attached to a plug-in
ATA-133 card that does not support S.M.A.R.T.

Hope you can use this in the future. (-:

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

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

 

[Richard Urban]

The correct syntax is; chkdsk c: /f /r OR chkdsk c: /r (the /f is included
and does not have to be typed). Note the space between the /f and the /r.

If you were not asked to reboot to check the drive you did it wrong.

When you boot from a Windows XP retail CD to install Windows, you have the
option of deleting and then recreating and formating the drive partition you
intend to install to.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

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

I'm having major problems with structural errors on my c drive. Running
FixIt
Utilities tells me that I have to run chkdsk to fix these errors. I did
that
and also ran chkdsk with /f/r option and it's still not fixed.

I've tried to reformat my c drive but I get a message saying that there
are
installation files on that drive and cannot reformat the drive. I have a
second hard drive too. How can I reformat the drive and fix these errors.
The
computer crashes every time I use it.

Help!

 

[Steve N.]

I checked the maxtor site and see that the utility is not desgined for SATA
and also appears to get rid of all data while it is performing the diagnosis.
Not a lot of good choices there.

Try Drive Fitness Test:

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Not sure if it will fix your problem non-destructively but it may give
you more info to go on.

Steve

 

[Anna]

Roy:
While I haven't used it myself for Maxtor SATA drives, I was under the
impression that the Maxtor PowerMax diagnostic software *could* be used for
Maxtor SATA drives. See
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/...3RpYyBzYXRhIGhhcmQgZHJpdmVz&p_li=&p_topview=1
Anna

 

[Guest]

Hi again,

I tried the correct syntax with no positive results. I also tried to
reformat my c drive again using the Dell Windows recovery disc. Again it
tells me that I cannot reformat that drive because there are installation
files on the drive.

I then installed Window on my second drive and tried to reformat the c drive
partition. Again it said I cannot reformat that drive because of installation
files being there.

How do I get around this? And how do I delete the second Windows
installation? I reformatted that drive but when I boot up, there are two
Windows installations listed there.

Can I relabel my second drive C and then install Window there, reboot and
delete the former c drive partition? How do I do that? I see that just
changing the letter on the drive in Windows Explorer doesn't work.

Thanks for your help.

 

[R. McCarty]

What vendor & model # is the drive ? Dell PC's have a non-standard
disk partitioning scheme. What you might do is use a Windows 9X/ME
boot disk which contains FDisk. You can use this to remove all existing
partitions on the drive. Then use the Vendor diagnostics disk to do a
Low-Level format (Which actually writes Zeros to all disk locations).
Without any content, you should be able to partition and format to your
liking. NOTE: Using this process will remove whatever Dell recovery
partitions are on the drive.
Do you know anyone with a system that has Partition Magic or any of
the other Disk Management programs. You might be able to take the
drive out and do required operations on it from there, but that's anything
but easy or convenient. What you should do is probably boot with a
WinME style boot floppy and use the FDISK tool to determine what
partition structure is on the drive. (Number of and sizes).

 

[Guest]

I'm having major problems with structural errors on my c drive. Running FixIt
Utilities tells me that I have to run chkdsk to fix these errors. I did that
and also ran chkdsk with /f/ r option and it's still not fixed.

I've tried to reformat my c drive but I get a message saying that there are
installation files on that drive and cannot reformat the drive. I have a
second hard drive too. How can I reformat the drive and fix these errors. The
computer crashes every time I use it.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I'm having major problems with structural errors on my c drive. Running FixIt
Utilities tells me that I have to run chkdsk to fix these errors. I did that
and also ran chkdsk with /f/ r option and it's still not fixed.

I've tried to reformat my c drive but I get a message saying that there are
installation files on that drive and cannot reformat the drive. I have a
second hard drive too. How can I reformat the drive and fix these errors. The
computer crashes every time I use it.

Given the price of drives and the time you are spending trying to fix, you
might want to simply replace the drive(s).

Getting repeated drive errors is usually a Bad Sign.

You can't format the system drive while you're running Windows. You must
boot from the CD and either step into Setup where you can choose to remove
and replace the partition and/or format the disk.

HTH
-pk

 

[Guest]

I was able to reformat amy c drive and reinstall xp. But I'm stilll getting
messages saying that there are structural errors on the drive. I've run
chkdsk c: /f /r a couple of times and stilll get the messages

Any suggestions of what I can do now. I can't afford a new drive now. Could
I change the clip on the back of my second drive and make it my primary drive
and then install xp on that drive? Would that work?