While attempting to install Ubuntu on a 32-bit Windows XP netbook, the partition resize operation failed due to inconsistencies in the NTFS filesystem (lesson learned: run chkdsk /f in Windows before trying to resize a partition in Linux). Now the installer only gives the option to replace Windows with Ubuntu, the partition can’t be resized in gparted, which displays a red exclamation mark and an error log when you click it. To make matters worse, [...]

I have a Windows 2003 Web Server that was rebooted and is apparently now running ChkDsk. I need to have the server back up in a few hours for the work day – is it possible to stop a ChkDsk is progress and force boot back into the OS? Please note that it is not recommended to stop or interrupt the chkdsk running on the computer until it completes by itself. If you feel the [...]

I have a 40 GB USB hard drive formatted with NTFS on a PC running Windows XP Pro, SP3. I am trying to free as much space as possible. Windows Explorer tells me that I have about 200 MB of files on the drive (showing hidden and system files). When I show drive properties however it shows 73% free, around 10 GB used. I ran CHKDSK and it found all kinds of problems. Now running [...]

The set-up I have a laptop running windows 7 with one internal hard drive with 5 partitions NTFS SystemReserved NTFS c: NTFS Shared data Linux Boot Linux Root. I’m booted into windows and the Linux partitions are not mounted so ignore 4 and 5. I have partition 3 (shared data) mounted as a folder off C drive. The Problem I can’t seem to run check disk/error-checking on this partition, to attempt to do so I [...]

I’ve used several different tools for repairing disks and have been wondering if there is a list of what exactly CHKDSK can repair? The MFT? Boot sector? Backup boot sector? Clusters? What common issues can’t it fix? CHKDSK (autochk.exe and chkdsk.exe, which share dll’s) runs in a few stages (the below is for NTFS volumes, and a bit simplified): Stage 1 – “Verifying Files”. In this stage it examines the Master File Table (MFT). The [...]

I run the file using the command prompt and it got stuck and we had to reboot the server. After the server started I put the exe into another folder and when I run this time it run sucessfully but it still hung when we run it from the original folder. All this suggested that there may either be a problem with the disk or that some other process was interfering. I also noted that [...]

I had a 1TB RAID5 array and Windows is showing “corrupt $Mft” and “unable to read file” errors. It says I should run chkdsk but I’ve heard not to do that when using RAID. Whether or not the underlying physical storage device us using RAID has nothing to do with checking the integrity of the filesystem with tools like CHKDSK, fsck, etc. The only way to check filesystem integrity is with a tool like CHKDSK, [...]

I have a drive in a laptop that was working fine, then all of a sudden stopped. Chkdsk is reporting “unrecoverable errors” and not even linux can manage to mount or see any filesystem structure. Is there a way to repair the filesystem so we can slave the drive and pull information off? Edit: Drive is a Seagate and using their diagnostic utilities reports that SMART has not been tripped and the drive is physically [...]

The system I am working on started to randomly reboot, thinking it was a harddrive error (we’ve had two machines fail due to this already), I rebooted the computer to run chkdsk. Now the problem is that waiting the 1.5 hours for CHKDSK to complete, causes it to reboot without finishing, and hitting any key to skip CHKDSK blue screens with PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. Booting into safemode hangs on AGP40.sys, but booting the computer normally before I [...]

I was wondering approximately how long I should expect a chkdsk on a raid 5 array with a max capacity of 300GB would take? It seems it has been on step 4 of 5 for quite a while. 1 minute per gigabyte. But I’m guessing because I have absolutely no idea about your file system, number of files, amount of data, etc.. (I use my 1 minute per gigabyte based on real-world experience of running [...]