Vista - Check Disk - chkdsk

Brink, While adjusting a power plann the laptop crashed and then viewer reportedd "The program ACWLIcon.exe version 5.2.0.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 8e8 Start Time: 01ca1359efe679f2 Termination Time: 15".As such this is not so much a problem, but since then evey time the laptop boots it performs a thorough check of the hard disk. Researching of the web i undertood the 'dirty bit' has been set ON which triggers the check at every boot. (indeed using command fsutil dirty query C it says the bit is on. But while doing the check a clod boot it hangs on at "chkdsk deleting an index entry from index $0 of file 25 " and - even left a night - does not process further which does not release the dirty bit.. So you know would know how to solve the issue. Best regards

Hello Calabrache,

See if running the command chkntfs /d can reset the drive to not being dirty anymore.

Symptoms I was seeing for EHD Maxtor (One Touch):
- the chkdsk would run at start-up but would not complete. I would see an error message such as: "unable to write volume bitmap due to insufficient storage space on drive". However, I'd check the EHD and more than 300GB was left.
- finally, I tried to copy a file to the EHD, unsuccessfully, and received the error message: "The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable 0x0800770571".
- I tried Method 1 for running the chkdsk and it did not work.
- I tried Method 2, command I wrote was: "chkdsk F:f/r/". (No spaces, which I was afraid I did wrong). I chose /r as I wanted the chkdsk to check recover bad sectors as I figured that this was what was going on.

What happened:
- The chkdsk started immediately. I did not need to restart the computer.
- The chkdsk took over 8 hours to complete. I ended up going to bed so I don't know when it actually finished.
- It went through 5 stages, not 3 which is what I usually see when the chkdsk comes up by itself at start-up.

Conclusion: After the completion of the chkdsk, I was able to write files to the EHD, so I am concluding success. However, I do have some questions:
1- Is it normal for the chkdsk to take this long? EHD is Maxtor OneTouch, 422 GB used on 750 GB total.
2- Why did chkdsk F:/f/r run immediately? Method 1 gave me the usual error message: "windows can't check the disk while it's in use".
3- Is it normal that when the chkdsk runs by itself on start-up (probably because Windows notes something), it only goes through the 3 stage chkdsk (much faster, takes only about 5 minutes for the EHD).

Thanks for your help and again, just asking questions even though my ultimate problem is solved.

--Elisabeth.

Hello Elisabeth,

The command should have spaces in it with the / in front of the switch instead: chkdsk F: /f /r

Q1) It can take chkdsk a bit to finish depending how large and/or corrupted the drive is. Plus with it being an external drive, it will take a bit longer as well. Usually nonsystem disks, without a operating system installed on, take less time to finish though.

Q2) If the disk you want to run chkdsk on is not in use by a program, not your system hard drive that Vista is installed on, and a separate disk and not just another partition on the Vista disk; then it is not required to restart the computer to run chkdsk on it at startup.

Q3) If Vista detects corruption on a SMART featured disk, it can mark the drive as being dirty to have chkdsk run automatically at startup.

Hope this helps,
Shawn