Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.

[Guest]

I'm running XP Home, NTSF, SP2 on a machine with an AMD 2500+ processor,
Gigabyte of RAM and a Maxtor 40 gig hd. Recently I've had occasion to find
the machine had crashed, attempted to reboot and hung unable to detect the C:
drive.

A cold boot got it up and chkdsk kicked in correcting file errors. ( on a
possibly related note, I also noticed in the last 3 months that I cannot get
System Restore to perform a restore, no matter which restore point I select.)
Suspecting a failing hard drive, I ordered another one and am about to put
it in this weekend.

But I'm wondering if it really isn't the hard drive but other file errors
that chkdsk can't seem to fix. I'll run chkdsk in read only and it says:

"Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system."

When I set it to reboot and run chkdsk /f, it goes through the process and
doesn't fix the errors. I'm running chkdsk about twice a day now.

I was planning on Ghosting the current drive and cloning it to the new
drive. But if the errors are OS related, won't I just be here with a new but
still unstable drive? Is there some way to fix these errors? Or, could it
just be that the drive is failing and that's the real cause?

thx.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Your restore files are corrupted. Right click My Computer/Properties, click
the System Restore tab and check the box "Turn off system Restore on all
drives" and then reboot. This will clear all old corrupted restore files.
After reboot, uncheck the box to restart system restore and then reboot.
Try to create a new restore point. If it works, the system restore is now
working normally.

To run chkdsk and repair, Start/Run/chkdsk /f/r, reboot to let chkdsk run,
do not disturb until it finish the process.

Hope it helps.

Peter

 

[Guest]

Peter,

thanks for the input. I turned off System Restore and I'll check that out
in a bit. I was more concerned with the disk errors, so I ran chkdsk /f/r at
startup as you suggested. It ran through everything, although it started
rebooting before I could read the results.

However, once I was back in Windows, I ran the readonly chkdsk and got a
similar error message as before, telling me to run chkdsk /f again at
startup.

"CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these."

Wondering if this is a false reading and all errors were actually corrected,
I ran chkdsk readonly from an admin login on another computer running XP Pro
and got the exact same errors. That computer has never shown any evidence of
disk problems. One possible explanation (?) I have Executive Software
Diskeeper running for a couple of years on both computers. Maybe it is
causing chkdsk to report errors that really don't threaten the file system.
Any ideas? thanks.

richard

 

[Guest]

Hi,

I also use diskkeeper and have not seen the problems like you have.
May be there are physical bad sectors on the Hdd.
You can go to maxtor website to download the disk utility tools to find and
fix the disk problems.

By the way, I would suggest you to clean install XP instead of cloning the
OS unless you are 100% sure the existing OS is absolutely stable and free
from any registries errors.
Also, clean installation would make you to clear out any unwanted/obsolete
applications and dummy registries.

Peter

 

[GTS]

Running the chkdsk /f /r was the right thing to try. Unfortunately on rare
occasions there are logical disk errors (where there is no related hardware
problem) that chkdsk simply can't repair. 3rd party tools might or might
not help. I've run into a few cases with precisely the situation you
describe and had to backup the client's system, reformat the hard drive, and
restore to finally resolve it.
--

 

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

I also use diskkeeper and have not seen the problems like you have.
May be there are physical bad sectors on the Hdd.
You can go to maxtor website to download the disk utility tools to find and
fix the disk problems.

Glad to hear that (diskeeper). Good idea on the Maxtor disk utility tool.
I'll also try that from the WD site on the other computer that's showing the
same error running chkdsk from within Windows.

By the way, I would suggest you to clean install XP instead of cloning the
OS unless you are 100% sure the existing OS is absolutely stable and free
from any registries errors.
Also, clean installation would make you to clear out any unwanted/obsolete
applications and dummy registries.

Peter

Yes, a clean install would be best, especially if I can't fix the errors.
Before that I'll make sure I have all the emails from MS Support on getting
Access 97 to run under SP1 without having out of memory errors (long story
but excellent help from MS Support on an old application). Maybe SP2 would
correct it anyway. Thanks for your help, Peter.

richard-

 

[Guest]

Yes, I'm starting to think I'll need a clean install. Strange that I'm
running into the same error on another machine that has seemed perfectly
stable. I'd like to find out what application might have caused it all.
Thanks for your reply.

richard

 

[Amazed999]

I have a similar problem. I ran a check disk and the error message came
up "Correcting errors in the master file tables (MFT) BITMAP attribute."
It just kept scrolling the same message over and over. It continued
for over 30 minutes, so I manually shut it down. Does anyone have any
idea how to fix this? Thanks.

 

[Guest]

I'm starting to think the problem is with SP2. Either that or chkdsk is
falsely reporting errors. Yesterday I installed a brand new hard drive. I
installed *only* Window XP Home. I went and got all the security patches,
etc., so far so good. After SP2 installed, I ran chkdsk and got the same
bitmap errors. Brand new drive, no third party software. So I went to the
Asus site and flashed the latest (09/04) BIOS for my motherboard. Same
error, ran chkdsk /r from the Recovery Console, errors fixed, but when I get
back to Windows and run chkdsk from the command line I get the same bitmap
errors. Ironically, running chkdsk /f at boot reports no errors. Could
running chkdsk from the command line within Windows be showing errors that
aren't there because of system files accessing the disk? I went to My
Computer/Drive C:/Properties/Tools/Error Checking and ran the GUI version of
chkdsk. No errors.

My email support with Microsoft was escalated a week ago. The new tech said
Diskeeper was causing the problems, do not install any 3rd Party disk
software unless it's compatible with SP2. Executive Software support said,
"yes, Diskeeper Pro 8.0 is SP2 compatible". Well, there's no software but
Microsoft on my new hard drive and I've got the same errors. I haven't heard
back from the escalated support guy since early last week.

I apologize, but I'm starting to get angry. My three XP computers are only
a little over a year old and one is a Dell, all with the same disk problems.
I've spent many hours trying to resolve this and I use these machines in my
office. Ironically, as steep as the setup learning curve is, my two Linux
machines are rock solid. If I could get MS Access and Peachtree Accounting
to run on them, I'd convert in a heartbeat.

 

[Guest]

Followup:

Thinking I was going to format my new drive again and reinstall Windows (and
not upgrade to SP2 this time), I decided to install my version of Diskeeper
Pro 8.0 that the Microsoft escalated support engineer told me was causing my
disk problems. I defragged the disk and then ran a boot defrag choosing as
one of the options "Defrag the MFT". It booted, ran and rebooted. This time
I ran chkdsk and it reported 0 file problems.

I had tried this on my old disk with no success. The difference here was
that Diskeeper was installed *after* SP2 was installed, if that matters. So
far so good. If anyone else is having similar chkdsk problems I'd say
install Diskeeper after SP2, run a boot defrag to fix the MFT and see if that
does it.

 

[Guest]

Update: Figuring I was going to install Windows again and format the new HD,
I went agains MS Support's advice to not install Diskeeper Pro 8.0. After
installing, I defragged and then set a boot defrag, including the MFT.

Long story short, after it reported an MFT with 0 fragments, I ran chkdsk
again from the command line within Windows and got no errors for the first
time. Running Diskeeper MFT defrag had never worked on the old drive. All I
can think is that installing it *after* SP2 had installed was the answer.
Hope this is helpful. I'll try uninstalling/reinstalling Diskeeper on the
other computers and see if that helps.

 

[Gnugs]

The messages
"CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap"
may be only informational and not be real errors. You need to get to MS
-- this is a problem that has come up with SP2 but you need to be
careful because it could hide a real problem (how about that for
rolling the dice).
Secondly --- DO NOT RUN DISKEEPER AND Norton GoBack. In fact, I
wouldn't run any defrag with Norton GoBack -- it's prone to disassemble
your file system. File corruption and all heck breaks loose!!! JUST
DON'T DO IT!!!

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Your restore files are corrupted. Right click My Computer/Properties, click
the System Restore tab and check the box "Turn off system Restore on all
drives" and then reboot. This will clear all old corrupted restore files.
After reboot, uncheck the box to restart system restore and then reboot.
Try to create a new restore point. If it works, the system restore is now
working normally.

To run chkdsk and repair, Start/Run/chkdsk /f/r, reboot to let chkdsk run,
do not disturb until it finish the process.

Hope it helps.

Peter

 

[Guest]

Hi I have been having problems with chkdsk. When I type in chkdsk/f it keeps
coming up with volume is used by another process would you like to run it
when restart. I click on yes restart but chkdsk doesn't come up.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

If the harddisk of your PC is formatted in NTFS and you received warning
message "Cannot open volume for direct access" after you have set chkdsk /f
on next reboot, try the following methods:

Cannot Open Volume for Direct Access" Error Message When Chkdsk Runs at
Startup
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823439&Product=winxp

Go to Start > Run and type: CMD , and hit enter. Then type in:
chkntfs /x c: , and hit enter. Reboot your computer.

[This disables CHKDSK from running on drive C:]

CHKNTFS.EXE: What You Can Use It For
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=160963

Chkdsk in Read-Only Mode Does Not Detect Corruption on NTFS Volume
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q283340

Hope it helps.

 

[Guest]

Hi when I reboot to run chkdsk it starts and then says chkds cannot open the
volume to the current drive chkdsk done. What does that mean? Any help would
be appreciated.

Debbie

 

[Guest]

Hi,

pls refer to my previous post dated 25/6/2006