chkdsk and safe mode problems

[John E.]

Win XP home SP2 on Dell 8250. Here is the sequence of events. I was trying
to run Error Checking by using Properties/Tool on C: drive. It would not
fix errors until I restarted. So I restarted and got a flash error message
on a Command screen which happened so quickly I couldn't read it, but
something about couldn't access a Windows file. So I ran chkdsk c: in the
cmd window. This seemed to work and found some errors. So I ran chkdsk
c:/f, which said I needed to restart. But when I restarted, nothing
happened, loaded windows normally. So I thought I would try it in Safe
Mode. Safe mode only loaded partially before freezing up, last file to load
was System32\drivers\agp440.sys. I have tried this several times with the
same result. I restored the last changes I made to the registry using
Registry Mechanic. This did not resovle either problem. Since WinXP was
installed as OEM by Dell, the only CD I have is the one supplied by Dell.
When I tried to use it, it said that the current version of Windows I was
using was newer than the one on the CD, so I backed out of that. I could
start going through System Restore points to see if I get to one that works,
but thought I would check in here first. Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[Steve N.]

Win XP home SP2 on Dell 8250. Here is the sequence of events. I was trying
to run Error Checking by using Properties/Tool on C: drive. It would not
fix errors until I restarted. So I restarted and got a flash error message
on a Command screen which happened so quickly I couldn't read it, but
something about couldn't access a Windows file. So I ran chkdsk c: in the
cmd window. This seemed to work and found some errors. So I ran chkdsk
c:/f, which said I needed to restart. But when I restarted, nothing
happened, loaded windows normally. So I thought I would try it in Safe
Mode. Safe mode only loaded partially before freezing up, last file to load
was System32\drivers\agp440.sys. I have tried this several times with the
same result. I restored the last changes I made to the registry using
Registry Mechanic. This did not resovle either problem. Since WinXP was
installed as OEM by Dell, the only CD I have is the one supplied by Dell.
When I tried to use it, it said that the current version of Windows I was
using was newer than the one on the CD, so I backed out of that. I could
start going through System Restore points to see if I get to one that works,
but thought I would check in here first. Any ideas?
Thanks

Is the Dell CD a Quick Restore type or a normal XP CD that allows you to
boot to the Recovery Console?

If the latter access the Recovery Console by Pressing R at the setup
menu, type the number that corresponds to your XP installation (usually
1), type in the system administrator password (in XP Home this will be
blank unless you've changed it), then run

chkdsk /p

If it reports unrecoverable errors then run

chkdsk /r

Steve N.