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re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 7:59 pm Posted by Steve (19681 messages posted) http://service1.symantec.com/Support/powerquest.nsf/docid/2004066687571562 [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:14 am Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) Maybe I was unclear in my previous message. What I am doing is trying to get CHKDSK to run by starting it just as the link you provided describes. I then restart the computer, the CHKDSK program indicates that it needs to run, starts to run, and then cancels itself. What I am trying to find out is how to prevent it from canceling itself so that it actually does run to completion and fixes what appear to be numerous instances of file corruption on my friend's computer. He doesn't have a Windows startup disk, so I can't tell him to try that, and I'd prefer not to have to create one and mail it to him unless that is the last resort. Something in his setup is interrupting his computer's ability to have CHKDSK run to completion on reboot. Thanks, David On Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 7:59 pm, Steve wrote: > >http://service1.symantec.com/Support/powerquest.nsf/docid/2004066687571562 [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:50 am Posted by Spexx (1951 messages posted) Since nothing else seems to work, I would try either hooking the disk up as a slave on another PC, or booting from a BartPE CD such as UBCD4WIN and then running a chkdsk on it. Clearly something in the existing operating system setup is getting in the way (probably a device driver) so the suggested method(s) would circumvent that. The alternative is to disable various device drivers that might be getting in the way, but without a lot of further information I am loathe to recommend that course of action. Hope this helps. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:56 am Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) Thanks. In terms of devices, his mouse is acting suspiciously. Sometimes it doesn't connect, but then unplugging it from the USB port and plugging it back in always gets it connected. An older mouse, when I plugged it into his PS2 mouse port, didn't display this problem. I guess I'll have to go the BART route and he'll have to struggle along until I can get to it. Thanks, David On Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:50 am, Spexx wrote: >Since nothing else seems to work, I would try either hooking the disk up as a slave >on another PC, or booting from a BartPE CD such as UBCD4WIN >and then running a chkdsk on it. Clearly something in the existing operating system >setup is getting in the way (probably a device driver) so the suggested method(s) >would circumvent that. The alternative is to disable various device drivers that >might be getting in the way, but without a lot of further information I am loathe >to recommend that course of action. Hope this helps. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 7:37 am Posted by Steve (19681 messages posted) I doubt chkdisk would have fixed anything anyways. Since the guy has no software to fix the computer, I would suggest He take it to a Shop to get it fixed. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 8:15 am Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) Don't know why you say that. There are some specific corrupted files that cause problems, and perhaps others he doesn't know about, but CHKDSK has certainly sometimes done more good than harm, at least in the 20 years I've been using PCs. I did find some registry hacks that may clean up the autochk issues and stop it from interrupting itself. Else, BARTPC should do the trick. Most people I know how have had problems like his and taken the computer to a shop have ended up with fresh installs of their system, which is not what he needs. On Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 7:37 am, Steve wrote: >I doubt chkdisk would have fixed anything anyways. Since the guy has no software >to fix the computer, I would suggest He take it to a Shop to get it fixed. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:13 am Posted by Steve (19681 messages posted) XP has only been around 6 years, and for Me it ChkDisk has only solved a problem one time out of maybe ten PC's I have tried it on. That is why I thought it was a long shot. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:22 am Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) XP has been around only 6 years, but CHKDSK has been around since the first versions of DOS. It's annoyingly limited, but it seems to fix what it's supposed to fix, when you can get it to run. On Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:13 am, Steve wrote: >XP has only been around 6 years, and for Me it ChkDisk has only solved a problem >one time out of maybe ten PC's I have tried it on. That is why I thought it was a >long shot. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:29 am Posted by Steve (19681 messages posted) XP chkdisk is different then the old scanDisk utility. I forgot the exact differences, but I always thought chkdisk was a pretty useless tool for really fixing much. At least I never had much success with it. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 11:31 am Posted by Spexx (1951 messages posted) Chkdsk isn't worth a lot in my book, although it has managed to recover at least a few files for me from time to time, even if they were only in very raw form. There are better tools for that job, but I thought the point here is that you want to attempt a full bootup without it getting in the way. I think you know about BootExecute autocheck autochk * in the Session Manager part of the registry. If this is set to be blank instead of the default as above, the disk "dirty bit" does not get checked and chkdsk will not run at bootup. Hope this helps. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 11:48 am Posted by Spexx (1951 messages posted) Oh no - silly me - that isn't the point is it? You want to run it, but something else is in the way. Back to my first answer ... Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 12:49 pm Posted by Ricer46 (20448 messages posted) I've never seen it make the difference as to whether Windows runs or does not run, which is what I think you are looking for. On Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:22 am, David Bookbinder wrote: >XP has been around only 6 years, but CHKDSK has been around since the first versions >of DOS. It's annoyingly limited, but it seems to fix what it's supposed to fix, when >you can get it to run. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:12 pm Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) I'm trying to accomplish one main thing, which maybe I have not made clear: Get chkdsk to run to completion so that it fixes file system errors. There are obvious file system errors that I am pretty sure chkdsk can repair. Currently, chkdsk starts up when the computer is booting but then immediately self-cancels, so it never fixes the errors. Thanks for the tip on how to get it to not check the dirty bit, but that is not the issue right now. Windows runs, but I have no way to fix the file system errors without running chkdsk, and chkdsk won't run to completion. On Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 12:49 pm, Ricer46 wrote: >I've never seen it make the difference as to whether Windows runs or does not run, >which is what I think you are looking for. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 7:55 pm Posted by mel (41 messages posted) if you have the xp cd and start it up i believe that if you try to reinstall widows it will repair the problems and keep your files but you will lose updates (sp2) and possibly drivers and programs. but since according to recent posts by some of the geniuses who post here i'm ALWAYS wrong about EVERYTHING even when things i suggest work on the pcs i use you should probably ignore this.. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:13 pm Posted by Jacob6601 (1710 messages posted) Download an iso image of the Recovery Console. Boot from the cd and try chkdsk from there. http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1180578731 [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Monday, July 28, 2008 at 1:46 pm Posted by C K (6157 messages posted) If it won't complete, then it is not capable of handling the errors it is finding, or you have hardware issues with the HDD. CHKDSK can't magically repair anything.. It needs a good backup of the file system TOC (there are a primary and a secondary TOC on the drives), to replace damaged data and correct file system errors. Keep in mind that chkdsk is very limited in what it can do, and further that a program or utility (and therefore the computer) can only do what the code writer tells it to do. When a problem is encountered that hasn't been specifically programmed into the utility to recognize and fix is encountered, the program or utility will exit so that further damage is not caused. (speaking as a former code writer) First you should run a diagnostics utility from the HDD manufacturer and check for hardware issues (if they have one, some don't) or the hardware diagnostics from the BIOS on some machines, then you would usually run some professional utilities that would attempt to recognize the damage and attempt to repair it. However, you should recognize that you shoud follow recovery procedures when working with HDD's on which you are trying to save data as you can further corrupt more data if you don't know what you are doing. Generally, you would make a bit for bit copy of the drive/partition to another HDD and work on the copy, not the original drive. Many shops won't spend the time to try and figure out the damage as people won't want to pay hourly fees that could/will be many times more expensive than the computer is worth, plus they don't have the recovery expertise that the pro recovery labs do. That's why many machines are just reloaded after hardware has been checked or repaired if needed. Thinking that you are just working with simple file system errors is totally not the whole story in many cases. It's much more complicated than that and may involve data corruption from many sources be it hardware causes (bad memory, HDD etc) or malware/program incompatibility etc.. The list is huge but bottom line, if the HDD stores corrupt data for any reason, you aren't going to get it running if the repair utilities can't handle the errors it finds, and no one utility can in my experience...... Running Windows without having a recovery or install disc is like running any kind of mechanical or electrical device. It will break sooner or later at some point and need repair. If there are no parts available, you buy a new one or it just doen't operate anymore.. ;-) On Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:12 pm, David Bookbinder wrote: >I'm trying to accomplish one main thing, which maybe I have not made clear: > >Get chkdsk to run to completion so that it fixes file system errors. There are obvious >file system errors that I am pretty sure chkdsk can repair. Currently, chkdsk starts >up when the computer is booting but then immediately self-cancels, so it never fixes >the errors. Thanks for the tip on how to get it to not check the dirty bit, but that >is not the issue right now. > >Windows runs, but I have no way to fix the file system errors without running chkdsk, >and chkdsk won't run to completion. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Monday, July 28, 2008 at 3:47 pm Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) Thanks for the response. I'm pretty sure, however, that the file system errors are likely due to my friend's tendency to turn the machine off without necessarily doing an orderly shutdown. I saw him do this several times when we were attempting to fix his problems. This makes less likely that there is physical damage to the system that CHKDSK /R can't find and repair. I will, however, run a HDD utility before I run CHKDSK from the Recovery Console to see if that will help. He has already been told to back up anything he believes to be important, should we end up doing more harm than good. Best, David [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Monday, July 28, 2008 at 4:19 pm Posted by Spexx (1951 messages posted) Disabling write-behind caching on the hard drives will minimise problems arising from sudden rebooting. I can't help wondering what is the exact message that you get when the chkdsk tries to run at boot time, but fails. Is it "chkdsk could not open the volume for exclusive access" or something very similar? That is the one message that I have seen many times and I have kind of assumed that was it. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Monday, July 28, 2008 at 6:54 pm Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) The message is odd. Initially, I get the usual CHKDSK is starting message, then after a few seconds I get the message telling me that CHKDSK has been cancelled -- as if I had pressed the ESC key to cancel it, though I did not touch the keyboard (or mouse). Very strange. It's not that CHKDSK stops because it can't figure out what to do, or that it crashes. It somehow gets the signal that it has been cancelled. On Monday, July 28, 2008 at 4:19 pm, Spexx wrote: >Disabling write-behind caching on the hard drives will minimise problems arising >from sudden rebooting. I can't help wondering what is the exact message that you >get when the chkdsk tries to run at boot time, but fails. Is it "chkdsk could not >open the volume for exclusive access" or something very similar? That is the one >message that I have seen many times and I have kind of assumed that was it. Cheers. >Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Monday, July 28, 2008 at 7:11 pm Posted by C K (6157 messages posted) Head crashes can happen when powered down improperly, especially when a write or read is taking place. Disabling the disk cache can help reduce data corruption but that only helps reduce it, not eleminate it and IME when NTFS gets corrupted past it's built-in protections, it is usually much more difficult to recover/fix then FAT. Although newer hard drives are supposed to be more immune to that, it happens all to often as any recovery lab will tell you. That can and does end up being physical damage that chkdsk was never designed to handle. At this point, you aren't sure why the utility is canceling the check if you don't have the expertise or knowledge of how to troubleshoot it properly. IME, chkdsk can't handle what it is encountering and is canceling. It won't tell you why because it doesn't know and neither does Windows. The closest you will get is the Event Viewer if you are lucky for any error messages pertaining to the drive or issues on/with it. I wouldn't suspect corruption of the chkdsk file itself or it wouldn't start at all, and if it did, it would error immediately before even starting to check the disk. In that case, it is designed to give an you error message which would refer to errors in the code. If I were working on the machine, I do have the experience and other software tools to determine what is going on, but even then it can take some time to determine the cause or causes. Usually there are more than one. The tools I use aren't available to the public and are expensive, but it's the only way to work at low levels to determine the causes of disk or data failures. Outside of that, you have to relay on the utilities preprogrammed error messages for what it was designed to do when issues arise that it CAN take care of. When it can't complete and isn't programmed to handle errors or issues it comes across, it usually will just exit with or without a message. Computers are dumb and so is code. MS never intended it to take the place of other more comprehensive utilities in use by professionals who can delve deeper into problems and their causes. If the program writers aren't continuely updating to handle new problems and bugs as reported from the field, then you don't have code that can truely help you the user in determing what issue you are dealing with and whether it can be fixed (and MS certianly isn't doing it to chkdsk for the most part). Bottom line, many formatting, TOC and file system issues can't be fixed or fixed easily. If they could on a single disk, we would never had to invent redundant RAID systems for a better recover/repair solution. So when disks can't be (easliy) fixed (IE no good backup data available), we end up reformatting and reinstalling if the hardware hasn't been damaged. Just no way around it sometimes. :-( On Monday, July 28, 2008 at 6:54 pm, David Bookbinder wrote: >The message is odd. Initially, I get the usual CHKDSK is starting message, then after >a few seconds I get the message telling me that CHKDSK has been cancelled -- as if >I had pressed the ESC key to cancel it, though I did not touch the keyboard (or mouse). >Very strange. It's not that CHKDSK stops because it can't figure out what to do, >or that it crashes. It somehow gets the signal that it has been cancelled. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Monday, July 28, 2008 at 8:26 pm Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) Thanks for your insights. I'll see what I can do with the manufacturer's HDD diagnostics for physical damage checking and with CHKDSK from the Recovery Console for file system errors. If I can't fix it, I'll get him to buy a new disk, copy the disk image from old to new, make sure the new disk boots and runs (and do a repair install of Windows if it doesn't), and then format the old one. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 3:23 am Posted by az0000000 (106 messages posted) What is the good tool to replace the need of Chkdsk? I am looking for such for long time. On Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 11:31 am, Spexx wrote: >Chkdsk isn't worth a lot in my book, although it has managed to recover at least >a few files for me from time to time, even if they were only in very raw form. There >are better tools for that job, but I thought the point here is that you want to attempt >a full bootup without it getting in the way. I think you know about BootExecute autocheck >autochk * in the Session Manager part of the registry. If this is set to be blank >instead of the default as above, the disk "dirty bit" does not get checked and chkdsk >will not run at bootup. Hope this helps. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 3:59 am Posted by Spexx (1951 messages posted) Interesting question. I'm not sure that this is the answer you are looking for though ... there is no direct replacement for chkdsk/autochk as far as I know. There are some good tools for data recovery (which was the context of my posting there) and two things I can think of quickly are NTFS Recovery and File Recovery. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 5:28 am Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) The problem turned out to be a keyboard issue. Apparently there was a stuck or shorted key which, though POST didn't catch it and it didn't interfere with use of the computer, CHKDSK regarded as a cancelation signal. Thanks for all your interesting observations. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 5:45 am Posted by Spexx (1951 messages posted) Oh my goodness! You've got to laugh. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 5:58 am Posted by David Bookbinder (306 messages posted) Sometimes computers are as quirky and apparently unpredictable as the creatures (i.e., humans) who design and build them. They have always seemed to me to be the machines we have created most in our own image. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 7:11 am Posted by az0000000 (106 messages posted) Well, i am looking for a tool that will do what chkdsk does, check the hd and its surface for errors. On Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 3:59 am, Spexx wrote: >Interesting question. I'm not sure that this is the answer you are looking for though >... there is no direct replacement for chkdsk/autochk as far as I know. There are >some good tools for data recovery (which was the context of my posting there) and >two things I can think of quickly are NTFS >Recovery and File >Recovery. Cheers. Spexx. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 7:14 am Posted by az0000000 (106 messages posted) And how did you detect what keys specifically shorted? On Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 5:28 am, David Bookbinder wrote: >The problem turned out to be a keyboard issue. Apparently there was a stuck or shorted >key which, though POST didn't catch it and it didn't interfere with use of the computer, >CHKDSK regarded as a cancelation signal. > >Thanks for all your interesting observations. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 7:52 am Posted by tinman (268 messages posted) I've not used this. I can't justify the cost for my pc that has everything backed up, but might be what your looking for. http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: CHKDSK won't run to completion Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 3:23 am Posted by az0000000 (106 messages posted) Thanks. On Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 7:52 am, tinman wrote: >I've not used this. I can't justify the cost for my pc that has everything backed >up, but might be what your looking for. >http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum