ChkDisk on Startup all the time ??? XP Pro

[Viper69]

This one really baffles me. I have my drive partitioned into two partitions. C drive where the OS is (and some minor programs), and the E drive for everything else.

Well a few days ago, Thunderbird had an issue, I did a hard shutdown because the Tbird updater has an issue w/my Logitech webcam. So after the hard shutdown, I was prompted for a chkdsk for the E drive only..No problems were found at all. I reinstalled Thunderbird it's working fine. However, NOW, everytime I turn on my computer, my OS (XP Pro latest SP) prompts me for an E drive chkdsk, and never finds anything wrong.

The hard drive is a total of 300gig...with about 30gig for the C drive (local drive), and the remainder, is the E drive. Each partition has about 41% free space.

I'd appreciate any help on this strange issue please.

Thanks in advance.

 

[El<(')>Maxi]

Check for values in this location and remove as needed.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

 

[redduc900]

Open Explorer and right click the E:\ volume | Select 'Properties' | 'Tools' tab | Error-checking-->'Check Now' button | Under 'Check disk options', put a check next to 'Automatically fix file system errors', and click the 'Start' button | A disk check dialog will pop up asking if you'd like to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart your computer...select Yes | OK out of the Disk Checking windows, close Explorer, and restart your PC. I've found that this procedure, as opposed to running chkdsk from the command prompt, normally overrides the dirty bit.

You can also manually check the state of the dirty flag for your E:\ drive. To do this at the Command Prompt type fsutil dirty query e:.

http://www.updatexp.com/windows-xp-chkdsk.html

... and then follow the instructions in the above article. You could also check and edit if necessary the BootExecute Multi-String under the following registry key...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Control | Session Manager

The default value of BootExecute is...

autocheck autochk *

If the Value Data is different than the default... right-click "BootExecute" in the RH pane, and select "Modify" | Change the Value accordingly (back to it's default).

 

[Viper69]

Thanks guys I'll try it....Any idea how this could have happend out of nowhere, the cause that is?

 

[Viper69]

Open Explorer and right click the E:\ volume | Select 'Properties' | 'Tools' tab | Error-checking-->'Check Now' button | Under 'Check disk options', put a check next to 'Automatically fix file system errors', and click the 'Start' button | A disk check dialog will pop up asking if you'd like to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart your computer...select Yes | OK out of the Disk Checking windows, close Explorer, and restart your PC."


I did the above, but got this response when I pressed the start button.

"This disk check could not be performed because the disk check utility needs exclusive access to some Windows files on the disk. The files can be accessed only by restarting Windows. Do you want to schedule this check to occur the next time you restart the computer?"
THe dialog box then has YES or NO for selection..SO I chose YES.

Was this what you were referring to above???

*** I tried the above portion you mentioned, that is going to the E drive, going to the check boxes and restarting the computer. I got the same problem on startup, going through chckdsk doing consistency checkds, and nothing appears wrong. I checked the volume at the c prompt via Windows, it is still dirty. I've never experienced this before.

New ideas?

Thanks

 

[Viper69]

Check for values in this location and remove as needed.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

I used the Find feature in the registry editor,and didn't find any entries matching the above, at least Windows didn't find any.

 

[Viper69]

You could also check and edit if necessary the BootExecute Multi-String under the following registry key...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Control | Session Manager

The default value of BootExecute is...

autocheck autochk *

If the Value Data is different than the default... right-click "BootExecute" in the RH pane, and select "Modify" | Change the Value accordingly (back to it's default).

I looked in the registry with regedit, and for the BootExecute, in the right hand pane, under the data column, I saw autocheck autochk * lsdelete

If right click and choose modify, it looks like this

autocheck autochk *
lsdelete


I didnt' touch anything because altering the registry is "dangerous" if you don't know what you are doing...And I don't in this case....

What do you think I should do??

 

[DMac]

Have you looked at the system event viewer? If not, right-click My Computer and click "manage". Expand Event Viewer and click on "System". See if there are any warning messages here relating to the hard disk. Have you been experiencing any issues within Windows? (errors, lagging, or the hard drive LED reading a lot) Just wondering if Windows is detecting an imminent hard disk issue.

Otherwise the suggestions mentioned by redduc900 are pretty much what you find if you search online for this issue. I did find an article which talk about how to exclude volumes flagged as "dirty" from chkdsk:

http://www.microsoft.com/germany/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/c28621675.mspx

Just do a search for "chkdsk" on this page. I don't want to tell you to do something that may hose your OS, and there's always that chance, but I would try modifying the registry key you mentioned in your last post and see what happens. If not, maybe read the article from the link and see if you want to try it's suggestions.

 

[Viper69]

Have you looked at the system event viewer? If not, right-click My Computer and click "manage". Expand Event Viewer and click on "System". See if there are any warning messages here relating to the hard disk. Have you been experiencing any issues within Windows? (errors, lagging, or the hard drive LED reading a lot) Just wondering if Windows is detecting an imminent hard disk issue.

Otherwise the suggestions mentioned by redduc900 are pretty much what you find if you search online for this issue. I did find an article which talk about how to exclude volumes flagged as "dirty" from chkdsk:

http://www.microsoft.com/germany/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/c28621675.mspx

Just do a search for "chkdsk" on this page. I don't want to tell you to do something that may hose your OS, and there's always that chance, but I would try modifying the registry key you mentioned in your last post and see what happens. If not, maybe read the article from the link and see if you want to try it's suggestions.

Thanks for this link, it explains in detail a bit more then I found myself on MS's USA site, go figure. I haven't checked the system view, good idea. I was going to do something, with regard to the above post, but i wasn' sure if I should have unmounted the drive as the dialog prompts you for. So I didn't proceed. However I think I may try it. I'm on vacation now w/out my computer I won't be able to try until Sunday.

I'll post again when I get back. THANKS

 

[Viper69]

Have you looked at the system event viewer? If not, right-click My Computer and click "manage". Expand Event Viewer and click on "System". See if there are any warning messages here relating to the hard disk. Have you been experiencing any issues within Windows? (errors, lagging, or the hard drive LED reading a lot) Just wondering if Windows is detecting an imminent hard disk issue.

I just checked the System Event Viewer as you suggested, and I found an error for the drive. I have copied and pasted the info below, the second portion is the data expressed with the WORDS selection, first one is the data expressed as BYTES. You have the option to express the data as either in the properties box of the error message....Now what guys???

I see the same event ID for all the problems with regard to the disk I presume.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Ntfs
Event Category: Disk
Event ID: 55
Date: 5/18/2008
Time: 11:43:54 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ABCD
Description:
The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume E:.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 0d 00 00 00 02 00 4e 00 ......N.
0008: 02 00 00 00 37 00 04 c0 ....7..À
0010: 00 00 00 00 32 00 00 c0 ....2..À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

Data expressed as WORDS:
Data:
0000: 0000000d 004e0002 00000002 c0040037
0010: 00000000 c0000032 00000000 00000000
0020: 00000000 00000000

 

[Viper69]

Well I'm stuck guys...The E drive is still dirty. The C partition is not. I had Windows go through checkdsk again and hopefully fix the problem. It went through FIVE steps upon startup. And found nothing. I restarted the software, and still the same problem..

Any suggestions??

 

[Mathis]

Replace drive/re-install OS/repair OS through recovery console?

Those are three options...

 

[Viper69]

Replace drive/re-install OS/repair OS through recovery console?

Those are three options...

OMG.. I FIXED IT!!! I did the following within the windows GUI C prompt

1. fsutil dirty query e:
2. chkdsk e: /f /x
3. Did step 1 again (said E drive was NOT dirty)
Restarted computer, no CHK DSK upon startup..FINALLY.

 

[redduc900]

I looked in the registry with regedit, and for the BootExecute, in the right hand pane, under the data column, I saw autocheck autochk * lsdelete

If right click and choose modify, it looks like this

autocheck autochk *
lsdelete

I didnt' touch anything because altering the registry is "dangerous" if you don't know what you are doing...And I don't in this case....

What do you think I should do??

I see you've already resolved the issue, but do you happen to have Lavasoft Ad-aware installed? That would've added lsdelete to the default value (autocheck autochk *) of the BootExecute Multi-String. I explained to you what to do (at least I thought it was a sufficient explanation)...

If the Value Data is different than the default... right-click "BootExecute" in the RH pane, and select "Modify" | Change the Value accordingly (back to it's default).

... so I'm not quite sure why you thought altering the registry (that particular string value) would be dangerous. My advice to you would be to uninstall Ad-Aware if you have it installed, as there's other third party software available that does a lot better job of detecting and removing spyware.

 

[Viper69]

I see you've already resolved the issue, but do you happen to have Lavasoft Ad-aware installed? That would've added lsdelete to the default value (autocheck autochk *) of the BootExecute Multi-String. I explained to you what to do (at least I thought it was a sufficient explanation)...

... so I'm not quite sure why you thought altering the registry (that particular string value) would be dangerous. My advice to you would be to uninstall Ad-Aware if you have it installed, as there's other third party software available that does a lot better job of detecting and removing spyware.

Hi, I do have Ad-Aware installed, it's always worked for me, I also have Spybot too. I have both because I have noticed that neither one is 100percent effective. But together they both work great. I can't recall why I didn't exactly change the value based on your explanation.

Out of curiosity, what anti spyware software do you suggest?

Thanks for your help.