Vista 64 runs CHKDSK every startup

Every time I startup Vista 64 it decides it wants to run CHKDSK. OK, but every time it makes the exact same changes. I ran the full error check on the disk, and it came out clean. But still every startup it decides to run CHKDSK.

No other symptoms as far as I can tell.

Any ideas?

 

Check out this article at ocmodshop.com:
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=874

This should fix the issue for you.

 

Not quite. A couple passes of that got me through a boot without the chkdsk, which is progress.

But when I to the fsutil dirty query step, it still returns "dirty". Even though chkdsk has again made the exact same corrections. I can't seem to clear that bit.

Note - Vista users may have to add "run as administrator" elevation to the suggestion in the previous post.

It appears from looking around the net that this procedure has worked for some Vista users. I'll keep trying it. But the full chkdsk takes a long time on this machine.

 

Yeah it's still not happy. Backup will not run because it thinks the disk is corrupted.

I'd like to back up this disk.

 

Hmmm. The site I'm linking below has detailed (and lengthy) instructions on how to Ghost a hard drive without having Norton's proprietary Ghost software:
http://www.habibbijan.com/?page_id=7

That should let you back the disk up to external media.

 

I'll look into that.

But shouldn't the file system be corrected (even if truncated?) after

CHKDSK /F /R

has finished?

I guess I can answer my own question - it should be, but maybe CHKDSK is broken in the presence of the more complex VISTA "self healing" "shadow copying" stuff.

 

SHOULD the drive be corrected? Absolutely, but that rarely translates to the drive ACTUALLY being corrected, sadly, even in XP.

 

I'm used to fsck, where at least when it says it's done, it's really done.

I have captured what CHKDSK reports in case anyone has an idea what that means. Note that I ran CHKDSK from the desktop only so I could capture the output easily. I do know that you can only run CHKDSK on the root disk in read only mode this way. When I say I have run CHKDSK with an expectation that errors would be corrected, I am referring to running CHKDSK as scheduled for bootup or after booting from the original Vista CD (which I did to see if maybe my copy of CHKDSK was scragged on the disk).

I have found files with the same names as those mentioned by CHKDSK in the Windows System folders, but there are several different copies (they appear to be replicated for different processors - I have included an attachment that shows that too.)

Every time CHKDSK runs, it has exactly the same output - the errors are the same, etc.

Since these are system files, maybe I can stomp them into submission by asking the Vista distribution CD for a repair? I sort of doubt that because the files are not screwed up, it's that there are links in the file system that point at nothing, and files that appear to be unpointed at. Adding good copies of the files to the relevant directories should actually not fix that; it should be CHKDSK that fixes that.

And why hasn't the "self healing" Vista NTFS healed this yet? Self healing file system sounds like a great thing.

 

If there are links that are pointing at nothing, try running CCleaner's registry fix tool. The problem may be in your registry, and CCleaner does a nice job of repairing the registry. CCleaner's startup cleaner may also be able to pick the chkdsk entry out of your startup group. Just head for http://www.ccleaner.com/ to download it.

 

I'll try ccleaner.

But CHKDSK is not run from the startup, it's run before the OS starts up; the way to avoid that is to use the CHKNTFS command to exclude a drive from being checked.

The goal here is not to stop CHKDSK from running though. It is to get the file system clean so if will backup normally. In other words I want to get CHKDSK to run properly.

 

I ran ccleaner. Although it cleaned some redundant stuff from the registry, it did not affect the status of the file system; chkdsk still finds the same indexing errors.

I've also let this computer sit long enough that if the indexing was being rebuilt in Vista in the background, then it would have done that by now.

Remarkable how this obvious problem doesn't respond to the obvious tool.

 

If you know many geeks, start asking around to see if any of them has access to a copy of SpinRite. If there really is a problem with the disk, SpinRite stands a very good chance of fixing it, but the retail license costs $90 if you don't know someone who already has it.

 

I have found a link to another guy with the same problem. It doesn't seem to provide any effective help, but at least I'm not the first.

 

Here is the resolution I got from a few hours of Microsoft tech support.

1. There is some sort of corruption of the system files when this occurs.

2. According to MS this is a "known issue" and an upgrade install can help but usually doesn't fix it completely. In my case, the upgrade install required some extra work to make adquate space, and also some parts of the upgrade install return errors because the file system still appears "dirty". However, the upgrade install did allow me to run a backup. The upgrade install did require activation, and with a different activation than the original clean install, even though it is an upgrade to the same version of Vista.

3. The upgrade install has to do more than one reboot before Vista "sees" all drivers. After the first boot, only 2GB of memory was reported. Another reboot sorted that out.

4. Turbo memory has been disabled by this process, but should be capable of being enabled again.

5. According to these MS engineers, a BIOS flash will not necessarily require re-activation. So I will try the new BIOS for the T61 which just came out.

6. Any further issues and a Clean Install is required. That is the only known way to fix the problem completely. Obviously, since the problem is preventing one from running a backup, then it's worth knowing an upgrade install might get you to the point where you can run a backup. In that case, MS recommends leaving the system alone until another issue develops, but then, do the Clean Install.

 

Turbo memory is back functioning again. It's interesting that even with 4GB the Turbo memory does help system response noticably. I think benchmarks which don't show much advantage with Turbo memory are probably true as far as they go, but it's really only with loading applications that TM makes much difference. But it's noticable.