[matt pearce]

My father in-laws PC is being a bit problematic. Everytime he starts it up it starts up with the following message, i haven't managed to capture all of the message but hopefully someone might know whats going on with it!!!

"Checking system file on C:...."
"The type of file system is NTFS"
"CHKDSK"

And then in runs some sort of scan in 3 stages. After about 5 minutes of running this scan it starts up Vista, but he can't connect to the internet. A month or two ago he got infected with the vista guardian virus, so i installed Norton for him and it was all working fine, but the a few weeks ago this started happening, he says he has done nothing nor has anything out of the ordinary happened, just one day it started doing this.

I tried to do a system restore but it says that there was an error with the operating system.

Any ideas/help much appreciated

Matt

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If the operating system is constantly having problems trying to fix a corrupted file system with CHKDSK, the hard drive itself may be failing, (which CHKDSK canNOT fix). To check, I'd run the appropiate hard drive diagnostic: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287 (Make sure to select the right tool for your brand of hard drive). Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy or bootable CD. If the downloaded file is an ".iso", you can use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn the .iso file to a CD, and make the CD bootable.

Note: Unfortunately Toshiba does not provide any diagnostic tool for their hard drives.

[SpywareDr]

If the operating system is constantly having problems trying to fix a corrupted file system with CHKDSK, the hard drive itself may be failing, (which CHKDSK canNOT fix). To check, I'd run the appropiate hard drive diagnostic: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287 (Make sure to select the right tool for your brand of hard drive). Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy or bootable CD. If the downloaded file is an ".iso", you can use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn the .iso file to a CD, and make the CD bootable.

Note: Unfortunately Toshiba does not provide any diagnostic tool for their hard drives.

[matt pearce]

Thanks for taking the time to reply SpywareDr, The PC in question will eventually start up but it's this annoying CHKDSK thats taking ages to boot up every time. It also won't connect to the Internet, it just hangs for a while and then times out.

I'll open it up and see what hard drive it has, These hard drive diagnostics that you sent the link to - are they .exe that i can download on my computer and then drop them on a USB drive to take up to test on my Father-in-Laws PC.

If i need to get a new hard drive for him, how would i go about installing Vista on the new Hard drive as in was already pre-installed on the PC and didn't come on a seperate disk?

Thanks again

Matt

[wannabe1]

Hello matt pearce...

Click the Start orb and type Run in the Search field...click on "Run" at the top of the results. In the Run window, type cmd, and click "Ok". At the prompt in the command window that opens, type fsutil dirty query c: and press "Enter".

Does the result of this indicate the drive is "Dirty"?

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 01 May 2010 - 09:44 AM.

[matt pearce]

thanks wannabe1, but when i type the 'fsutil dirty query c:' in the command prompt it says that the utility requires you to have administrative priveleges'...???

[matt pearce]

i managed to reinstall vista by re-installing the version that was already pre-installed on the PC, seems to have resolved the CHKDSK massgae issue...fingers crossed.

Matt

[wannabe1]

A little on the "overkill" side, but if it worked for you...

[matt pearce]

spoke too soon! started doing it again!!! Any ideas? I've downloaded the corrrect disk checker as mentioned by spywareDr, will give it a go and see what happens.

[wannabe1]

Let's try it another way.

Click the Start orb, then All Programs, then Accessories.  Right click on Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator.

At the prompt, type fsutil dirty query c: and press Enter. (Leave the session open for the moment.)

Does this come back "Dirty" or "Not Dirty"?

[matt pearce]

it is saying c: is dirty

[FNP]

If I may be so bold as to jump in here...


Please check the following before proceeding:

• If you have Spyware Doctor installed, uninstall it.
• If you have ZoneAlarm installed, open it, click the Overview tab, then select Preferences, and uncheck the Protect ZA Client check box.

Go to Start > Run. Type cmd in the Open box and click OK. At the prompt in the Command window, type the following commands, pressing "Enter" after each one (Substitute the drive letter for the drive you want to check for the ? in the following commands):

chkntfs /d
chkntfs /c ?:
chkntfs /x ?:

At this point, restart your computer. It will not run a chkdsk and will boot directly to Windows.

This next step is very important, as this is where the dirty bit will be unset.

Go to Start > Run. Type cmd in the Open box and click OK. At the prompt in the Command window, type the following commands, pressing "Enter" after each one (Substitute the drive letter for the drive you want to check for the ? in the following commands):

chkdsk /f /r ?: 
Y

This should take you through 5 stages of the scan and will unset the dirty bit. Please be patient- this is a very thorough check and will take quite a while.

Finally, when the chkdsk operation has completed, type the following command (Substitute the drive letter for the drive you want to check for the ? in the following command):

fsutil dirty query ?:

Press "Enter", and Windows will confirm that the dirty bit is not set on that drive.

Reboot again and see if chkdsk still runs on startup. If the machine boots back up to the command prompt, type exit and press "Enter". It should boot to Windows.

Credit to rshaffer61 for these instructions.

Edited by FNP, 09 May 2010 - 02:45 PM.