CHECKING DISK FOR CONTINUITY

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
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G

Guest

A couple of times recently XP Home (with SP2 and all upgrades) has taken an
extraordinary length of time to start - ie several minutes. Then, when I log
on (I have Administrator rights) I find my desktop wallpaper has reverted to
the default, most (but not all) of my desktop icons are gone, and XP welcomes
me like a first time user (ie offers me the "Tour"). The other users (who do
not have Administrator rights) are unaffected.

A reboot prompts a message strongly advising that I let XP check my C:\
drive for "continuity" (which is does) and then checks disk space. The first
time it did this, some bad clusters were found and fixed and everything was
immediately back to normal.

The second time this happened, the process repeatedly hung during the disk
space check when is was 39% complete. Several reboots later, it hung at 89%
complete. Finally, it finished the process and everything was, once again,
back to normal.

I have two questions: first, what could be causing this problem - bad luck,
an impending hard disk failure or a bad setting somewhere in XP? second, if
it happens again and the disk check refuses to finish, is there anything I
can do?

Antivirus and firewall are always up-to-date and I regularly run
anti-spyware. I can think of nothing I did immediately prior to these
incidents that might have caused them. Any thoughts would be most welcome.
 
Chris

Have you used Disk CleanUp to remove all Temporary Internet Files for
each and every user profile?

What are you sing to check for spyware?

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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The reversion to the default wallpaper, etc. is an indication of a damaged
user profile. A disk error is one common cause of that, and I suspect you
have some marginal sectors. If possible, download and use the disk
manufacturers disk checking utility to test further. Also, if you have
standard XP CD, boot to Recovery Console and run chkdsk /r there.
 
As suggested by GTS - and supported by your comment that "other users are
not affected" - my money is on a corrupt user profile. BTW - Home edition
does not provide for setting up an "Administrator" account as such.
 
Chris said:
I have two questions: first, what could be causing this
problem - bad luck, an impending hard disk failure or a
bad setting somewhere in XP? second, if it happens again
and the disk check refuses to finish, is there anything I
can do?
Click to expand...
Do a backup ASAP. At least part of your disk might be
damaged (where your profile is stored). That others are OK
indicates that their profiles have not *yet* been damaged.

It appears from the fact that chkdsk worked OK the first
time but had problems the second time that the problem is
spreading.

This IS a worst case scenario. Even if your disk does not
die, you need backups.

Don't backup everything, just the data that you need (word
files and so on) and any install packages that exist *only*
on the machine (such as downloaded Spyware programs etc).

That way, if you are faced with a rebuild if the didk dies,
but you will have the means to do the rebuild.

Cheers,

Cliff
 
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