chkdsk runs on boot but never conpletes

[Guest]

I have a WinXP home machine. Two days ago I was doing some system cleanup. I
ran chkdsk on my boot drive, but it wouldn't complete. So I set it to run
again during boot. It does this now, gets through all 5 stages as though
everythings fine, but never "starts" WinXP. So I have to do a hard boot (pull
the plug). The cycle starts over again! Can anyone give me some help with
this?

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Aaron" <[email protected]>

| I have a WinXP home machine. Two days ago I was doing some system cleanup. I
| ran chkdsk on my boot drive, but it wouldn't complete. So I set it to run
| again during boot. It does this now, gets through all 5 stages as though
| everythings fine, but never "starts" WinXP. So I have to do a hard boot (pull
| the plug). The cycle starts over again! Can anyone give me some help with
| this?

Go to the hard disk manufacturer's web site and download their diagnostic software
respective to your hard disk. After the test, you will know if the hard disk is bad or
not..

Quantum/Maxtor - PowerMax
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Western Digital - Data LifeGuard Tools (DLGDiag)
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Hitachi/IBM - Drive Fitness Test (DFT)
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Seagate - SeaTools
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

Fujitsu - Diagnostic Tool
http://www.fcpa.com/download/hard-drives/

Samsung - Disk manager
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/shdiag.htm

 

[Guest]

the hard drive may in fact be "bad", but if chkdsk completes, why would it
NOT try to boot? Is it possible chkdsk moved the boot sectors?

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Aaron" <[email protected]>

| the hard drive may in fact be "bad", but if chkdsk completes, why would it
| NOT try to boot? Is it possible chkdsk moved the boot sectors?
|

Moved ? Probably not.
Corrupted ? Maybe.

 

[Steve N.]

I have a WinXP home machine. Two days ago I was doing some system cleanup. I
ran chkdsk on my boot drive, but it wouldn't complete. So I set it to run
again during boot. It does this now, gets through all 5 stages as though
everythings fine, but never "starts" WinXP. So I have to do a hard boot (pull
the plug). The cycle starts over again! Can anyone give me some help with
this?

I'd boot to the Recovery Console and run CHKDSK /P and or CHKDSK /R from
there.

Here's a pretty good overview of the Recovery Console in case you've
never eXPerienced it:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmb_tol_zldj.asp

Steve N.

 

[Darrin S]

Hello, what you're experiencing is what Windows refers to as "setting the
dirty bit" and what you have to do is unset that bit. Every time Windows XP
starts, autochk.exe is called by the kernel to scan all volumes to check if
the volume dirty bit is set. If the dirty bit is set, autochk performs an
immediate chkdsk /f on that volume. Chkdsk /f verifies file system integrity
and attempts to fix any problems with the volume. It is usually caused by a
hard shut down or a power loss during a read-right operation on that
particular drive. To fix it bring up a command prompt by typing in "CMD" or
boot into safe or safe mode with command prompt and type " fsutil dirty
query c: ". This queries the drive, and more than likely it will tell you
that it is dirty. Next, type "CHKNTFS /X C:". The X tells Windows to NOT
check that particular drive on the next reboot. At this time, manually
reboot your computer, it should not do a Chkdsk and take you directly to
Windows.

Once Windows has fully loaded, bring up another CMD prompt and type and now
you want to do a Chkdsk manually by typing "Chkdsk /f /r c:". This should
take you through 5 stages of the scan and will unset that dirty bit.
Finally, type "fsutil dirty query c:" and Windows will confirm that the
dirty bit is not set on that drive. Good luck!