Unable to run CHKDSK with "Fix" option

Richard Urban wrote:

> Chkdsk, on a large drive, may take a couple of hours to complete -
> depending upon what type of errors it encounters. If you let it run over
> night, and it still doesn't complete, then you may have unrecoverable
> errors. In that case, download, and run, the specific utility from the
> drive manufacturer as a confirmation.
>
ROFL! Pathetic. And that is how Microsoft expects people to run their
computers?

Shake Hands With,
Mr. Happy

--
"Cheer up, things could be worse." So I cheered up, installed Vista and
sure enough, things got worse.

What you just posted makes no sense. The fellow has a possibly defective
hard drive.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)
>

You might want to try running the Memory Diagnostics Tool in Start
Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools, to see if there's a problem in that
area.

"Paulie" <Paulie DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A970A8BC-E9C2-4551-AAE8-30F6C3429F36@microsoft.com...
> Hi All
>
> My new Notebook is unable to run a CHKDSK with the Fix option selected.
> I can run a normal CHKDSK within VISTA and it works without a problem.
> If I choose the Fix option it schedules a scan on the next boot. Upon
> rebooting,
> CHKDSK will begin but it will freeze after 8% of the scan. The
> Notebook does not respond and I have to power it down and restart. Any
> idea
> what this may be? I have run full virus scans and updates on the drive and
> there are no issues. Other than this the Notebook runs fine. Its just a
> strange issue that i am unable to fix at this stage.
>
> Cheers
>
> PF

Memory Diagnostic found no errors.

"dean-dean" wrote:

> You might want to try running the Memory Diagnostics Tool in Start
> Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools, to see if there's a problem in that
> area.
>
> "Paulie" <Paulie.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:A970A8BC-E9C2-4551-AAE8-30F6C3429F36@microsoft.com...
> > Hi All
> >
> > My new Notebook is unable to run a CHKDSK with the Fix option selected.
> > I can run a normal CHKDSK within VISTA and it works without a problem.
> > If I choose the Fix option it schedules a scan on the next boot. Upon
> > rebooting,
> > CHKDSK will begin but it will freeze after 8% of the scan. The
> > Notebook does not respond and I have to power it down and restart. Any
> > idea
> > what this may be? I have run full virus scans and updates on the drive and
> > there are no issues. Other than this the Notebook runs fine. Its just a
> > strange issue that i am unable to fix at this stage.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > PF
>
>

Hi Richard

I downloaded Sea Tools from the Seagate website. tests found no errors on
the drive. Any other ideas?

"Richard Urban" wrote:

> Chkdsk, on a large drive, may take a couple of hours to complete - depending
> upon what type of errors it encounters. If you let it run over night, and it
> still doesn't complete, then you may have unrecoverable errors. In that
> case, download, and run, the specific utility from the drive manufacturer as
> a confirmation.
>
> --
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard Urban
> Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
> (For email, remove the obvious from my address)
>
> "Paulie" <Paulie.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:A970A8BC-E9C2-4551-AAE8-30F6C3429F36@microsoft.com...
> > Hi All
> >
> > My new Notebook is unable to run a CHKDSK with the Fix option selected.
> > I can run a normal CHKDSK within VISTA and it works without a problem.
> > If I choose the Fix option it schedules a scan on the next boot. Upon
> > rebooting,
> > CHKDSK will begin but it will freeze after 8% of the scan. The
> > Notebook does not respond and I have to power it down and restart. Any
> > idea
> > what this may be? I have run full virus scans and updates on the drive and
> > there are no issues. Other than this the Notebook runs fine. Its just a
> > strange issue that i am unable to fix at this stage.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > PF
>
>

At this point I would think that you have one, or more, files that are
corrupted to the point that chkdsk is choking.

If it were my computer I would save whatever to DVD's. Then I would delete
all partitions off the hard drive, create a new partition and format same. I
would then install the drive in another functioning computer as a slave and
I would immediately run chkdsk /r on that drive.

If the new partition passes muster the drive is OK. If the drive fails it is
bad - no matter what the drive tools indicate.

But that is me.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

"Paulie" <Paulie.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5C6378A6-ECD2-46FA-A11B-F6C0521D81F9@microsoft.com...
> Hi Richard
>
> I downloaded Sea Tools from the Seagate website. tests found no errors on
> the drive. Any other ideas?
>
> "Richard Urban" wrote:
>
>> Chkdsk, on a large drive, may take a couple of hours to complete -
>> depending
>> upon what type of errors it encounters. If you let it run over night, and
>> it
>> still doesn't complete, then you may have unrecoverable errors. In that
>> case, download, and run, the specific utility from the drive manufacturer
>> as
>> a confirmation.
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Richard Urban
>> Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
>> (For email, remove the obvious from my address)
>>
>> "Paulie" <Paulie.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:A970A8BC-E9C2-4551-AAE8-30F6C3429F36@microsoft.com...
>> > Hi All
>> >
>> > My new Notebook is unable to run a CHKDSK with the Fix option selected.
>> > I can run a normal CHKDSK within VISTA and it works without a problem.
>> > If I choose the Fix option it schedules a scan on the next boot. Upon
>> > rebooting,
>> > CHKDSK will begin but it will freeze after 8% of the scan. The
>> > Notebook does not respond and I have to power it down and restart. Any
>> > idea
>> > what this may be? I have run full virus scans and updates on the drive
>> > and
>> > there are no issues. Other than this the Notebook runs fine. Its just a
>> > strange issue that i am unable to fix at this stage.
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> >
>> > PF
>>
>>

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:46:03 -0700, Paulie

I think it is beyond time that we had a proper interactive file system
maintenance tool for NTFS. ChkDsk is a relic from the MS-DOS 5 days;
I wish NT would at least catch up to, say, MS-DOS 6 Scandisk.

Now folks will flame me for saying that. "File systems are too
complex for users to understand, just trust us to fix everything for
you". Fine; let's read on and see how well that works...

>My new Notebook is unable to run a CHKDSK with the Fix option selected.
>I can run a normal CHKDSK within VISTA and it works without a problem.
>If I choose the Fix option it schedules a scan on the next boot. Upon
>rebooting,
>CHKDSK will begin but it will freeze after 8% of the scan. The
>Notebook does not respond and I have to power it down and restart.

Great, so now we combine a possibly corrupted file system in need of
repair, with recurrent bad exits. What's wrong with this picture?

>Any idea what this may be?

Given that ChkDsk and AutoChk are closed boxes with little or no
documentation of what they are doing (and little or no feedback to you
while they are doing it), one can only guess.

My guesses would be one of:

1) Physically failing HD

When a sector can't be read, the HD will retry the operation a number
of times before giving up. Whatever driver code that calls the
operation will probably also retry a few times, before giving up, and
so may the higher-level code that called that, etc.

The result can be an apparent "hang" lasting seconds to minutes while
the system beats the dying disk to death.

That's before you factor in futile attepts to paper over the problem
and pretend it isn't there, both by the HD itself, and by the NTFS
code. Each will attempt to read the sick allocation unit's data and
write it to a "good" replacement, then switch usage so that the dead
sector is avoided in future. And so on, for next dead sector, etc.

2) Lengthy repair process

Scandisk and ChkDsk have no "big picture" awareness. If they were
you, walking from A to B, they would take a step, calculate if they
were at B, then take another, and repeat. If they were walking in the
wrong direction, away from B, they'd just keep on walking forever.

So when something happens that invalidates huge chunks of the file
system, these tools don't see the "big picture" and STOP and say "hey,
something is invalidating the way this file system is viewed". No;
they look at one atom of the file system, change it to fit the current
view, and repeat for the next. If that means changing evey atom in
the file system, that is what they will do. Result; garbage.

3) Bugginess

Whereas (2) is a bad design working as designed, sometimes the code
doesn't work as designed and falls off the edge.

Needless to say, AutoChk and ChkDsk don't maintain any undoability.
They also "know better than you", so they don't stop and ask you
before "fixing" things, they just wade in and start slashing away.

>I have run full virus scans and updates on the drive and
>there are no issues. Other than this the Notebook runs fine. Its just a
>strange issue that i am unable to fix at this stage.

I would at least exclude (1) by checking the HD's surface using the
appropriate tests in HD Tune (www.hdtune.com), after backing up my
data. You should be able to get a "second opinion" on the file
system, but you can't; ChkDsk and AutoChk are all you have.



>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
To one who only has a hammer,
everything looks like a nail
>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

Buncha silly answers here - The more they blame hardware the sillier they
seem. I have a new laptop with Vista and CHKDSK with the Fix switch worked
for a month, then did not work for a month and now it works again. The
answer is Vista is flaky and there is no known solution to this problem at
the time and will not be as long as MS ignores it.

It worked for a month, then didn't, and now does again? Most users will
never manually run chkdsk,

You've a hardware problem, by the sounds of it. MS can't fix your hardware
for you.

rtk

"Foxy" <Foxy.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7B7A7817-6E68-4173-8709-5DBABF583789@microsoft.com...
> Buncha silly answers here - The more they blame hardware the sillier they
> seem. I have a new laptop with Vista and CHKDSK with the Fix switch
> worked
> for a month, then did not work for a month and now it works again. The
> answer is Vista is flaky and there is no known solution to this problem at
> the time and will not be as long as MS ignores it.