Problem with disk error checking

I'm running Windows XP Home Edition. After a forced shut down, I want to run an error check on my primary disk. I went to My Computer, clicked on properties of this disk, clicked on Tools and Error Checking. (I've done this successfully before). When I restart the computer, the Error Checking is supposed to be performed. Instead, I get a message saying, "Cannot open the volume for direct access." and Error Checking is not performed. How can I release whatever is locking this volume so it can be checked in the future? I did successfully run Chkdsk from the Recovery Console without the the block occuring.

 

See if this works for you. It is the way I always do a chkdsk (I dislike the GUI method of selecting the sort of check I want but then - I'm an old command line fan)

start~run~cmd and when you get the command prompt chkdsk /f or the more complete chkdsk /r.

If it will run from there then we can go looking for a registry setting that only hits the GUI start for chkdsk.