Scandisk problem -- Real or Phantom?

I have a question about a chkdsk (scandisk) error I get.

When I ran chkdsk from the command prompt, I got a report stating that "CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap." It also says: "Windows found problems in the file system. Run chkdsk with the /f option to correct these. "

So I ran chkdsk C: /f at the next startup, but of course I couldn't read its final report since it flashed by so fast on the way to reboot. I also ran chkdsk /R.

But then when I run chkdsk again from the command prompt, I got the same errors. Anyone knows what this means and what I should do about it?

Btw, I have no noticeable problems with either of my machines, both of which report the chkdsk errors. One of them is a brand new Dell Inspiron 500m laptop. But I suppose it's possible I "infected" the laptop when I did an AlohaBob PC Relocator transfer of a few programs and settings to the new machine.

Interestingly also, when I run disk doctor from Norton Utilities 2002, everything shows clean.

Any ideas?

 

Not much help, I'm afraid, but I had the same problem. I ran several different disk checkers and half of them found the error and half didn't.

My problem started after a power failure during defrag. But I was unable to boot past the chkdsk screen until renaming autochk.exe to autochk.old to disable the startup chkdsk and prevent the endless reboots.

Everything worked fine once booted, but I could not image the drive with Acronis or Ghost due to "disk errors ".

I ended up formatting. Hopefully, someone has a better idea. My disk did appear to have much more used space than it should have.

 

More mystery. I just ran an error check by clicking on properties for C in "my computer." It showed no errors (actually it didn't say anything one way or the other -- just that error checking was complete). Then I ran it with the "fix errors" box checked, and of course it scheduled a chkdsk upon restart.

I did that, then went to a command prompt after reboot and ran chkdsk again. No errors reported. But just to make sure, I ran chkdsk from the command prompt once more, immediately afterwards. This time it reported errors in the volume bitmap and file system.

Incidentally, defrag on C operates just fine.

I'm stumped.

 

By the way, long shot here -- but could the fact that I have no volume lable name on C be causing these errors?

I just ran Disk doctor from NU 2002 three times:

The first time it reported errors in the indexes -- "reovering orphaned file 0000NAV~.TMP (38913) into director file 37739" but also "corrective actions were not written to disk" predsumably because it was run in Windows -- as well as in the security descriptors -- "correcting errors in the volume bitmap" (but again not written to disk) and NDD "found problems with the file system ".

The 2nd time I ran it, I got only the indexes error.

The third time I ran it, I got no errors.

Arghhhh!

 

Label isn't needed and make no difference one way or the other.

I'd say you do have a problem but evidently not a usual one.

Suggestions:

- download a copy of page defrag from Sysinternals but don't run it just yet.
- turn off system restore, hibernate, etc. so their store files will go away at next boot.
- set your pagefile to a very small size - 5Mb maybe. Then boot to safe mode (probably won't boot to normal mode with that little pagefile)
- run the cleanup from "properties" on your system drive and any others you have.
- run page defrag and set it to defrag everything at next boot.
- reboot. Then set to do a chkdsk /r and boot again to safe mode.
- set your pagefile back to whatever size suits you and reboot yet again.

 

Thanks, Newt. I'm happy to try your suggestion, but first I have a couple of questions:

1) What's the theory behind trying the above? How does defragging page files and registry "hives" affect my file systems and volume bitmap, etc?

2) You give a command in your post -- sysinternals /b -- that is not part of the page defrag program.

3) Is there any way that setting my page file so low could prevent me from botting up at all, even in safe mode?

Thanks again for your help.

 

Good questions. And let me say up front that I'm hoping one of these will help rather than being sure. But they all fall into the "may help, can't hurt" category.

1. XP does not always do a good job of dealing with the registry hives when you defrag. And problems within them can cause some strange behavior. Page Defrag will either crunch them properly or tell you if it finds a problem. Great app. Less needed with XP than with earlier NT/2K systems but I run it on my systems about once a month anyway. Most times it shows zero fragmentation but once in a while it will need to work on the files.

1.1 (and even though you didn't specifically ask) Shrinking the page file for a little while removes another potential area for problems. In theory chkdsk should have no problems dealing with the file or with the space it occupies. In theory. Usually the theory is correct but you have a really odd problem that isn't responding to the usual fixes so good to eliminate another variable.

2. I goofed when I formatted the link. Fixed now.

3. If your PC won't boot in safe mode with a small page file, you have way too little RAM to safely operate an XP system. The items that XP normally pages at boot time to conserve available RAM don't load in safe mode. But you probably want to use the Automated System Recovery Wizard to make the XP version of an ERD (emergency repair disk) before you start. The disk will contain all the info needed to put you back running with the same size pagefile you had when you built the repair floppies.

Another approach I think would work would be to make a .reg file that contained the pagefile size info you wanted and then from the recovery console you could just run the .reg file and the pagefile should be built when you reboot.

For instance, to set a pagefile with min 190Mb and max 380Mb you'd need a .reg file with the following contents:

Hkey_local_machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
PagingFiles: Reg_Multi_SZ: C:\pagefile.sys 190 380
TempPageFile: Reg_Dword:0x1

 

Thanks for all your time and effort on this, Newt. I'll give it a try, and again, thanks.

You know, it just doesn't make sense to me that the chkdsk problems are real, considering that I can run defrag just fine. I mean, doesn't defrag (XP defrag, not page defrag) do a chkdsk first, and if it finds problems, stops?

Well, whatever, it makes me nervous so I'll try page defrag. And I've got to get a good backup system. Ever since my tape drive went kaput, I've been trusting to fate.

And for an ex war correspondent, that's a pretty dumb thing to do.

 

9x/ME defrag would always stop if a file error was found and make you run scandisk.

NT systems don't do that unless the problem is bad enough to be a real show stopper.