Vista - Chkdsk will Not Run at Startup in Vista

Hello Ray, and welcome to Vista Forums.

You would want to use the version in step 7 instead since you only have SP1 installed.

Hello all. I'm glad that I found this site, it seems like there is a lot of good information here.

Now, onto the problem. I managed to install Windows 7 Premium 32 bit on my computer and was in the process of installing it on my other computer (Vista Home Premium 32bit SP2).

Naturally, I ran into issues with the installation. I noticed on my computer that when I tried to install Windows 7 that it failed the first time (the power went out). My computer automatically ran a chkdsk and fixed several errors that I didn't know existed. I ran the upgrade for 7 again and it installed perfectly.

So, after 5 attempts at unsuccessfully installing it on the other computer, I put 2 and 2 together and decided "Hey, maybe I should run chkdsk to see if there are any errors".

I tried to run chkdsk to find out that I'm having the same problem as others have had.

I right click on the C: drive and tell it to perform the chkdsk function when it restarts. I restart the computer and when it goes to perform the chkdsk function it instead tells me:

"The file type is NTFS. Cannot open the volume for direct access."

Hello SpawnoChaos, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Since the installation was interrupted by a power failure, I would recommend to completely format the hard drive and do a clean install again.

Thanks for the expedient reply, Brink!

Unfortunately, I believe my description may have been confusing. The computer that I was uprgrading, that lost power during the upgrade, has upgraded just fine and is currently running Windows 7. It was after the power loss that chkdsk ran and discovered the errors. This, I believe, allowed me to install Windows 7 afterwards with no issues.

The other computer (Vista Home Premium 32bit) was not upgrading anything at the time that I lost power. Once I had my above computer running 7 normally, I set about the task of upgrading my 2nd computer from Vista Home Premium 32bit to Windows 7. After several failed attempts, I decided "Hey, maybe if I run chkdsk like I did with my other computer, this one will upgrade to 7 also without any problem".

Now when I ran chkdsk on this computer. I ran into the following chkdsk condition:

"The file type is NTFS. Cannot open the volume for direct access."

I've read on this forum, somewhere, that this could be related to another program running during startup that is preventing chkdsk from running. There is no anti-virus program installed on the computer (at least not anymore, I removed them due to Windows 7 possibly conflicting with them... it didn't help the upgrade process...).

Right now I'm experiencing the "62% Windows 7 install, then reboot, then BSOD for 1/3 of a second, followed by Windows didn't update successfully. Restoring old OS" message. I figured that chkdsk may have fixed my other system that successfully upgraded... it may allow this one to do the same thing. At this point, aside from getting even NEWER hardware than what I just put in there, I can't think of anything else to do but wait for Microsoft to fix the Windows 7 install issue.

I would still recommend doing a clean install instead of upgrading. It sounds like the drive may have corrupted with the power loss and needs to be formatted.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version - Windows 7 Forums

That's actually the only thing that I haven't tried yet. I suppose I'll give that a shot. I was hoping to avoid that... but lets hope that it will fix it.

Thank you very much. This worked like a charm.

I tried adding "Take Ownership" registry setting, but ended up having to manually take ownership through the advanced file features.

End result was the same and now my chkdsk runs perfectly on boot when scheduled to do so.

Thanks again for posting this procedure.

You're welcome Pasca, and welcome to Vista Forums.