CHKDSK and Win2K

[Bill Schmidt]

All -

I have an older wok Dell Laptop (366 Mhz, 256 Mb RAM) running Windows 2000.

Suddenly, CHKDSK /F no longer operates on a reboot as did before. I've
tried running this with my own login (Admin rights), and under the
Administrator Login as well. This has happened twice before over the last
two years, and my only recourse was a complete OS re-load.

No data exists in the Event Logs pertaing to CHKDSK or it's operation.

I usually try to run CHKDSK /F once a month (unless needed more frequently).
I had a problem with Outlook 2003, which prompted me to run Outlook's Inbox
Repair Tool. Roughly sixty percent through the scan, Outlook came back and
stated that I needed to run CHKDSK becuase of Hard Disk errors, and then to
run the Inbox Repair Tool again. This is when I discovered that CHKDSK /F
ceased operation. Windows simply boots normally, as if CHKDSK /F was never
scheduled to run.

Any suggestions/thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

- Bill Schmidt

 

[dcdon]

Hi,

Don't know if this has anything to do with your problem, but in the last
several, one of my W2K workstations will not run a chkdsk /f after using the
standard commandline and reboot.

But I also have a popup when I try to run Defrag in the GUI. The Popup says
something like Disk Defragmenter has detected that chkdsk is scheduled to
run on the volume (C:\). Please run chkdsk /f ". You may want to look at
this KB
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320866&Product=win2000 .
You might try a Disk Cleanup, and then an Inplace Upgrade. If you have the
Recovery Console installed try running CHKDSK /R to see if that will do it.

After all that and still having problems, your Clean Install is going to be
the answer.

don

All -

I have an older wok Dell Laptop (366 Mhz, 256 Mb RAM) running Windows 2000.

Suddenly, CHKDSK /F no longer operates on a reboot as did before. I've
tried running this with my own login (Admin rights), and under the
Administrator Login as well. This has happened twice before over the last
two years, and my only recourse was a complete OS re-load.

No data exists in the Event Logs pertaing to CHKDSK or it's operation.

I usually try to run CHKDSK /F once a month (unless needed more frequently).
I had a problem with Outlook 2003, which prompted me to run Outlook's Inbox
Repair Tool. Roughly sixty percent through the scan, Outlook came back and
stated that I needed to run CHKDSK becuase of Hard Disk errors, and then to
run the Inbox Repair Tool again. This is when I discovered that CHKDSK /F
ceased operation. Windows simply boots normally, as if CHKDSK /F was never
scheduled to run.

Any suggestions/thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

- Bill Schmidt

 

[Steve Duff [MVP]]

The chkdsk /f requires administrative access to
the registry to write the command to execute chkdsk
at the next bootup. You may not have this access from
the account you are using, or the registry permissions
may be changed, or you may be running something
like TeaTimer that is blocking it.

The key where this is written is

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager

There should be a "BootExecute" multi-string value there.

Normally this will read one line: "autocheck autochk *".

After you execute the chkdsk /f, it should have another string
in the list to force the C: drive chkdsk: "autocheck autochk /p \??\C:".
If not, the registry permissions are the problem.

Steve Duff, MCSE
Ergodic Systems, Inc.

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Bill - Have you recently upgraded Zone Alarm to v.
5.0.590.015? If so, this is the cause - it's a known bug in this version of
ZA, but no fix has been made available yet (although their newest Beta is
supposed to fix this). Take a look at this thread:
http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=11711

In that thread is a link:
http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=14351
to a workaround. I've tried it in Win2kProSP4, and it works as advertised
there and is reported to be OK in WinXP also; however, it involves making
changes to your boot.ini file, so proceed with
great care if you decide to try it.

Then courtesy of Hilary Karp:

If Zone Alarm is not your problem, I ran into this once. By accident I
stumbled accross a solution. In trying to diagnose another issue I did a
clean boot in diagnostic mode:

Start | Run | MSconfig Put a tick in Diagnostic startup, click ok. Reboot.
This will boot with a minimal configuration. (Note that you will loose all
current restore points, so consider that before you do it and make a restore
point after wards)

After rebooting try a chkdsk c: /f and reboot. See if it will run. It did
for me. On the next boot just go back into msconfig and put a tick
mark in normal mode, ok and reboot.

That seemed to work on my XP Pro system. Chkdsk /f runs ok.

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In

 

[dcdon]

What if the multi-string value in the "BootExecute" has a one line as
follows to force as follows:
autocheck autochk /r \??\C: autocheck autochk * sprestrt

Sorry for butting in. Just trying to get to the bottom of a puzzlement.

don


The chkdsk /f requires administrative access to
the registry to write the command to execute chkdsk
at the next bootup. You may not have this access from
the account you are using, or the registry permissions
may be changed, or you may be running something
like TeaTimer that is blocking it.

The key where this is written is

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager

There should be a "BootExecute" multi-string value there.

Normally this will read one line: "autocheck autochk *".

After you execute the chkdsk /f, it should have another string
in the list to force the C: drive chkdsk: "autocheck autochk /p \??\C:".
If not, the registry permissions are the problem.

Steve Duff, MCSE
Ergodic Systems, Inc.

 

[dcdon]

I may have happened up on the reason my chkdsk /f is showing up when trying
to run Defrag. Seems that Zone Alarm's last upgrade has something to do with
it.

don


The chkdsk /f requires administrative access to
the registry to write the command to execute chkdsk
at the next bootup. You may not have this access from
the account you are using, or the registry permissions
may be changed, or you may be running something
like TeaTimer that is blocking it.

The key where this is written is

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager

There should be a "BootExecute" multi-string value there.

Normally this will read one line: "autocheck autochk *".

After you execute the chkdsk /f, it should have another string
in the list to force the C: drive chkdsk: "autocheck autochk /p \??\C:".
If not, the registry permissions are the problem.

Steve Duff, MCSE
Ergodic Systems, Inc.

 

[Steve Duff [MVP]]

That is actually two lines -- if you use regedt32
and open the value you'll see how it is really
formatted.

Steve Duff, MCSE, MVP
Ergodic Systems, Inc.