CHKDSK in a Loop (Windows XP SP2)

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Hello Everyone,
I have an old issue with a new twist, for me at least. I’m hoping someone has an idea.
This home office PC has suddenly begun running CHKDSK at startup on every boot and only on the D: partition. The C: partition stays “clean”. No errors are found by the chkdsk run. Running CHKDSK /f /r or the version from the My Computer>Disk D>Properties>Error Check does not fix the problem. Using CHKNTFS /X D: does not prevent the chkdsk at startup either; neither does fixing the “BootExecute” line in the registry. Running Recovery Console does fix the problem………until the next boot.

I’m thinking some some application or service is not shutting down properly and leaving a bit open somewhere and causing this issue. My question is if anyone knows any trick, other than trial and error (of course ) to try to pin the the (possibly) offending application or service. I suppose I can just go through Task Manager stopping 5 or so processes until the problem stops (possibly).

Anyway, as always, thanks for any suggestions, and enjoy daylight savings time this weekend!!

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Is this a FAT32 or NTFS partition? Have you changed your configuration to use D: for something now that it wasn’t previously? Have you started using any new software? Trial and error is about the only way I know to determine the offender. AumHa Forums is an thread similar to yours and has a script to exlcude D: from being checked at boot time.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi Joe,
This is an NTFS partition. I’m still one of these older guys that keeps the OS on a smaller C partition with apps and data on a D partition. The D partition is about 180 G, more or less on a 250 G drive.

There is a new QuickBooks program that was updated last week. However, I had a total lockup a couple of days ago when I was using Diskeeper v. 11 to defrag a 500 G external drive. The machine was completely locked and the only way I could get it out was to just turn it off. Problems started after that. I may start by turning off the Diskeeper service. The reboots are time consuming and so I have to try these things after I’m more or less finished for he day.

Do you know of anything craxy with Diskeeper?

–Bob

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Sounds like it might have something to do with the hard shutdown. Have you tried a System Restore to a time before that ???

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I wondered about that, but decided not to use the Restore Point for the following reasons, and maybe I’m all wet on this:
1. Since it’s been a couple of days I didn’t want to risk changing any data, documents, etc…?
2. I had the impression that System Restore worked on the OS itself. This issue is related to the “Dirty Bit” being set the wrong way…

Thanks for any thoughts on this. I really appreciate the feedback from you guys!

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System Restore doesn’t affect data, only system settings. The hard shutdown could possibly have damaged a system file and using System Restore might restore the damaged file. I’d use the most recent one and see how it goes. You can always reverse the action if you don’t like the result.

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I think I may have resolved the issue; at least I’ve been able to reboot several times without the chkdsk automatically kicking in. And the “fsutil dirty query d:” shows the disk to be clean.

When the freeze occurred and the hard shutdown happened, Diskeeper was the operational application. So, I stopped the service for Diskeeper and did a reboot. All OK, so I decided to remove Diskeeper and now the reboots are OK. I think the next step will be to reinstall Diskeeper and hopefully it will not be corrupted. The utility has never done this before and so I view it (for the time-being, anyway) as an isolated incidence. If anyone else has had difficulties with Diskeeper it would be good to hear about it.

Thanks a lot, guys, for the very useful input. I really appreciate it. In fact, it’s fun just to read the posts from time to time. I never fail to learn something!

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Sounds like that was the issue. Must have had something to do with Diskkeeper running when the system froze and the hard shutdown cause the problem. Nice job of troubleshooting.

I had some problems with Diskkeeper a few years back and now I use PerfectDisk for my defrag needs. But I understand that Diskkeeper has resolved those issues and is well thought of these days.

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I would like to add to your second recent post in this topic, DocWatson.
Not only does it affect system settings, it affects programs that were installed after the restore point.
If you like a program, and it got removed due to System Restore, you will have to re install them. Do not install the program that caused the mess though.

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Thanks for your input, but I believe that you are misinterpreting the function of System Restore.

While it can affect an installed application it should not affect more than one installation because System Restore sets a restore point automatically each time a new application is installed.

From here…..
System Restore does not affect your personal data files (such as Microsoft Word documents, browsing history, drawings, favorites, or email) so you won’t lose changes made to these files. ……….. System Restore does not replace the process of uninstalling a program. To completely remove the files installed by a program, you must remove the program using Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel or the program’s own uninstall program.

While System Restore may revert some system files that were changed when an application was installed, (see here)….. restore points are created before new device drivers, automatic updates, unsigned drivers, and some applications are installed. ……. System Restore changes many files and registry entries, and in some cases might replace more files than you want restored., it does not uninstall the application and the change that installation made to your system was likely one of the reasons, if not the reason, your system became unstable.

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