USN (?) says my disk needs checking on bootup

**Jerry38018** · July 4th, 2009, 05:42 PM

I recently installed a new HD and have it as the master drive, with the old drive set as the slave as I move files to the new drive and reinstall programs. For the past two or three times when booting, a screen comes up saying one of my disks needs checking, and I can skip this by hitting any key, etc. I think it says USN indicates a disk may need checking. I allow it go go through all the partitions -- three on the new IDE 500 G drive and 5 on the older 250 G HD -- and nothing is wrong. Is there something possibly in one of the drive's operation that causes this, meaning one is about to fail? This has never happened before with either of my computers. Thanks for your help.

**Midknyte** · July 4th, 2009, 08:53 PM

Start with the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics such as Seagate Seatools. If both drives pass, then run chkdsk on each drive.

**Jerry38018** · July 5th, 2009, 03:05 PM

Thanks for the reply. The drives are Western Digital, so I got their diagnostics and ran their extensive test on both drives, and both passed without error, and the SMART test showed no problems. Is there a way to turn off this test at the beginning of the boot process? And what is the signal for the compute to run this. BTW, when the test runs on bootup it does the Chkdsk on each partition unless I press any key to skip the drive.

**Midknyte** · July 5th, 2009, 04:35 PM

You can disable chkdsk, but i'm not sure you really want to do that.

http://www.ss64.com/nt/chkntfs.html
chkntfs /x driveletter:

Instead you should clear the "dirty" bit on the drive:

Chkdsk /f /r driveletter:

To check the status of a drive:
fsutil dirty query driveletter:

http://www.ss64.com/nt/chkdsk.html

**fink** · July 5th, 2009, 05:23 PM

and I can skip this by hitting any key, etc.

Is that what you are doing? Or are you letting it scan the disks when booting? If you're skipping the scan then it will continue asking on every boot until you allow it to do what it's asking for.

**Jerry38018** · July 5th, 2009, 10:27 PM

Thanks for the replies. I let the program run the scans and nothing was indicated to be wrong. I ran the extensive tests with Western Digital's diagnostic, and nothing wrong was found. I viewed the results. Now, in my way of thinking, WD's tests on their drives should be valid. When XP scans the disks, it scans each of the 8 partitions, giving no indication of anything that needs to be repaired. I think you are suggesting the command line switches that will scan a particular partition and repair what is found. I can do that. The first partition scanned is the C: partition on my old drive, then it follows the next four partitions there, and goes to the new drive's 3 partitions. I can do these and see if there is something chkdsk is picking up.

**Jerry38018** · July 6th, 2009, 09:22 AM

I did the command line chkdsk C: /f and because it was a mounted partition, I answered "Y" to have it run at bootup. I followed this with each of the partitions on each drive. The first partition on the older WD drive showed some of the indices were invalid, and it made a number of changes in these and found some orphaned files and put them some place. When I rebooted, the chkdsk for the boot partition was run, and nothing was detected. When it completed the check previously, all the partitions were checked. This time, when C: was complete, the computer was re-started and the bootup was completed. In DOS days, those orphan files were listed as file.001 and so on. I have not checked the disk since startup, so maybe they are there in a special folder. Some of you know where I will find them. There is also a log file which I imagine contains all the info about what was corrected. Thanks for your help. It always amazes me that so much assistance is available here.

**Train** · July 6th, 2009, 10:01 AM

Hidden folder "Found.001", etc is where you will find them.

**fink** · July 6th, 2009, 10:31 AM

control panel>admin tools>eventlog>applications is where you'll find the details on what chkdsk found. It will be under the heading "winlogon".

If you want to try and recover any lost files from the chkdsk (assuming any are recoverable) then there are
a couple of programs here...

http://www.ericphelps.com/uncheck/

**Jerry38018** · July 6th, 2009, 10:22 PM

Thanks for your replies. Train, I have "Show hidden files" designated, and I can not find, using search for found.001, any folder by that name, searching all 8 partitions. I assumed this would be on the boot partition, or C:, even though the indices were defective on the first partition of the secondary drive. But I can not find the folder by that name. Now, I will follow the control panel links that Fink gave, though the indices were corrected not at logon, but from the command line with Windows operating. Everything done at logon showed no problems to correct. I do not think there was anything I wanted to get from the orphaned files, though it appeared some were dll files. Where are the log files for the command line chkdsk? Would they be in the winlogon area?

**Train** · July 7th, 2009, 08:05 AM

Go finks route then and see what that says.

Yes , I have had something simular happen to me and the Found folders were not made.
Why, I have no idea, but was glad the computers was running right agqin.

**Jerry38018** · July 7th, 2009, 08:52 AM

Train, I really appreciate your reply. I thought I was "funny in the head" or something not being able to find that folder. I went Fnk's route and found the winlogon log as well as the othe log. Lots of geek info, to be sure, but nothing that looked as if I needed to paste it here. So, I, with you, am glad the computer is running again well. That drive is 5 years old and it is the drive that my RoboForm icon was showing up black, and the volumn icon was not present, etc., from posting a month or so ago. I think this may have been some of that issue. But I believe we are complete here -- fo the time being. Again, thanks so much for the assistance.

**Train** · July 7th, 2009, 09:04 AM

drive is 5 years old

Just incase - Back up , may want to get a new hdd handy.

FOOD for thought!
I have DBANed http://www.dban.org/
problem drives like that , which wiped everything off the drive and buried what ever was causing the problems.

**Jerry38018** · July 11th, 2009, 05:26 PM

Thanks, Train. That looks like a great way to wipe out things. I really believe this had been going on for a little while, causing some problems in starting up. I had the black RoboForm icon problem, and the volume control that would not load, etc., and we worked a work-around, but with this little problem, I think it may have been the cause of it. Maybe not. but in any case, I have the new drive in and working well, if I can now just everything reinstalled.