[giovi69]

Hi everybody!

I have a problem haunting me for many days!!

In short every time I switch on my PC not only the reboot procedure has become very slow but it performs an annoying SCANDISK, to assess the disk partition coeherence (???), at every reboot even when there's been no improper shutdown (I use XP Service Pack 3 at the moment).


After a short research on the web I learned that this may happen because of a problem which prevents the writing of the contents of the virtual cache to the hard disk. In fact with IDE disks, data may be written to the hard disk's on-board cache but not to the disk itself causing a loss of data and, as result of that, the start of the ScanDisk at every reboot.

I've also understood that to fix this problem users should tweak something in the Windows registry but since I'm not a GEEK I fear to mess up the whole system, even though I could of course make a restore point to avoid this.

Please can somebody help me giving me the right instructions to solve this issue once and for all??



Thanks in advance for your consideration.


Giovanni from Italy

[Advertisements]

Have a read at

http://support.micro...om/?kbid=831426

Chkdsk.exe or Autochk.exe starts when you try to shut down or restart your computer
CAUSE
This issue occurs if any one of the following conditions are true:

You have scheduled the Chkdsk.exe program or the Autochk.exe program to run in Scheduled Tasks.
A Windows registry setting has been set to run the Autochk.exe program at startup
Your hard disk is damaged and must be repaired

[peter99]

Have a read at

http://support.micro...om/?kbid=831426

Chkdsk.exe or Autochk.exe starts when you try to shut down or restart your computer
CAUSE
This issue occurs if any one of the following conditions are true:

You have scheduled the Chkdsk.exe program or the Autochk.exe program to run in Scheduled Tasks.
A Windows registry setting has been set to run the Autochk.exe program at startup
Your hard disk is damaged and must be repaired

[Tyger]

Look in your event logs and see if there are any SMART reports. SMART is the software that monitors your hard drive status.

[giovi69]

Look in your event logs and see if there are any SMART reports. SMART is the software that monitors your hard drive status.

Hi!!

I looked in my event logs and I found 632 events in the APPLICATION LOG and 2100 events with many errors in the SECURITY LOG but don't know what to do next!!

Maybe I'd better follow PETER99's prompt!!


Anyway I profit by occasion to remind you that a few weeks ago I had a problem with my HD...

In short partition D of my HD suddenly disappeared becoming RAW as if it has never been formatted before but I never undestood why this happened (and of course after that I've been unable to recover all my files previously stored there) .

Has this anything to do with the current problem?


But what if I fix this issue through MSCONFIG UTILITY,uncheck all items listed under Selective startup and then select NORMAL STARTUP rather than tweaking the Windows registry?

[peter99]

Have you run any drive diagnostics from the manufacture’s site, here’s a link to the main ones

Hard Disk Drive Diagnostics/Utilities

http://www.duxcw.com/faq/hd/diag.htm

hard disk drive manufacturer's diagnostics to check drives. They may also repair them. Most can also be used to completely wipe a hard disk to cure viruses and master boot record/partition problems


Hitachi (Also bought IBM's hard disk drive drive business some time ago.)

Maxtor Powermax (bought Quantum)

Seagate DiscWizard Starter Edition

Western Digital DLG Diagnostic. WD's Data Lifeguard Tools V. 11.0 are also useful; e.g., the drive copy utility can be used to clone an old drive to a new one.

[giovi69]

Have you run any drive diagnostics from the manufacture’s site, here’s a link to the main ones

Hard Disk Drive Diagnostics/Utilities

http://www.duxcw.com/faq/hd/diag.htm

hard disk drive manufacturer's diagnostics to check drives. They may also repair them. Most can also be used to completely wipe a hard disk to cure viruses and master boot record/partition problems


Hitachi (Also bought IBM's hard disk drive drive business some time ago.)

Maxtor Powermax (bought Quantum)

Seagate DiscWizard Starter Edition

Western Digital DLG Diagnostic. WD's Data Lifeguard Tools V. 11.0 are also useful; e.g., the drive copy utility can be used to clone an old drive to a new one.

Hi Peter!!

Thank you very much for your very useful message and sorry for delay but I was away for 10 days so could not get access on the web regularly!!

Anyway I'll try to run the drive diagnostic tool you kindly pointed out above soon (probably tomorrow).


Until now I had used 2 tools in the attempt to recover my missing files previously stored into the D partion of my HD:


- EASUS WIZARD PROFESSIONAL DATA RECOVERY

- TEST DISK




But I wasn't able to recover any file....

Maybe because I made some mistakes in the recovery procedure?? Simply don't know!!




As for as the SCAN DISK is concerned I finally solved the issue and now it doesn't start at every reboot anymore!!


But I have another problem to deal with now, namely the SLOWNESS of my PC during the boot procedure (I have XP service pack 3 as OS).


I don't know why but now it takes more than 2 minutes to display the DESKTOP ICONS.


To solve this issue I tried to delete all files stored in the PREFETCH registry folder, but nothing happened till now.


So how can I speed up the system at reboot??


Of course I could run a previous restore point but, in doing so, I'm afraid of losing some software I installed in my PC afterwards.

After a short research on the web I discovered a nice and cool (at least it seems so) MICROSOFT TOOL called BOOTVIS which, according to MICROSOFT itself, is designed to provide faster XP boot and resume times.


Have you ever heard about it? I haven't !!

If so, in your view is it fit for purpose?



Cheers from Italy

Giovanni