lost_andrew

I wonder if anyone would be so kind as to lend me a hand in helping me find a solution to this same problem.

I have just taken possession of my dad's laptop. It is running Windows Vista Home Edition. I decided I would run disk defragmentation on the C: drive and this is where the problem arises. It simply won't run the defrag from either the /properties/disk defragmentation, or from the command prompt. It works fine on the partitioned D: drive.

I read a lot of forums and the suggestion seemed to be that I need to run chkdsk. I tried running this from the /properties/error checking and from the command prompt, both attempting this at reboot. However, it simply won't run and each time it tries, I get the message:

Checking file system on C
The type of file system is NTFS
Cannot open volume for direct access
Windows has finished checking the disk

As far as I can tell from reading around, and I may be way off the mark, anti virus and spyware software are two of the main causes of this. I have tried in vein through services.msc to disable everything that I think maybe locking the volume.

I have unistalled both AVG Free and Spybot, I don't believe I have the Crypkey installed, and have checked my drivers for the ikhlayer which I don't appear to have. I even installed Microsoft Onecare to see what that would show, and it says everything is fine.

I have reached the end of my skill level and believe that this is something far beyond what I know. I need some help, and would be grateful for any assistance at all.