I have a question about Prevent 
file corruption problems:


I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.

When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
had been completed - and nothing more.

When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the output 
was more informative:

"The type of the file system is NTFS.

WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Index verification completed.
Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"

My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Paul: I'm amazed that I have not seen more messages like yours on the Web! For the last several months on both of my machines I have experienced problems similar to yours with my Windows XP Pro boot drives that are formatted with the NTFS file system. If you're interested I suggest you read Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q315688. I'm not endorsing the article per se, however you may want to note their brief paragraph toward the end of the article, which is titled "NTFS File System Corruption". It is indicative of the kind of problems I have experienced running Chkdsk from the command prompt. I could go on and on, but I will make only a couple of more points. One, if you call Microsoft, the techs will probably tell you to load Recovery Console (if you haven't already; it is not installed by default) in order to correct the Chkdsk reporting errors. My experience is that as soon as you think you accomplished something with it (using Chkdsk with the "p" and "r" switches), the problem comes right back. This is not to suggest that Recovery Console in and of itself is not a good thing. In fact as I write this I am seriously comtemplating using it to reformat my boot drives with FAT32. The last comment I want to make is that I have recently discovered that in excess of 20% of my boot drive usage (as reported by various disk utilities) cannot be accounted for (yes, after making adjustments for page and hibernation files). And, in contradistinction to the KB article referred to above (note the references to "misreporting of disk space allocation"), my folder/file sizes compared to "size on disk" is relatively tight. So who knows what's going on? Thanks for providing an outlet for my frustration. Later, Mike


On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:

>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Mike,

Thanks for the tip on Recovery Console.

Glad that I could be of help in providing an outlet for your frustration ;).

Paul

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

huhuhu... AFAIK... in Windows 2000 occurs the same problem :'(


On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:

>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I got the best one of all and i do know what is going on...... but will they ever fix it who knows? First off it has somthing to do with not cleaning up after itself and it does have to do with windows such as shutting down and other file movement Explorer.exe has some serious problems the faster you computer is the qicker you see these problems and the faster you use it the MORE Problems you will see...... i push my system to the limit 24/7 and see all kinds of errors left and right even with all the updates installed like all of a sudden a folder is in use because somthing in windows forgot to release it "It's lock on the folder and when you reboot while the folder is locked it will do somthing to the volume bitmap" index curruption Etc. that is just one of the things amongst many others But here is the wild thing run chkdsk and then wait a bit work on the system doing stuff give it about 1/2 hour of doing stuff and or 15 minutes and Wham it's back again with errors it has to do with file movement but the worst is you have poc health running all the time and when stuff doesn't work right and you see no errors give it another 15 minutews of working on it and you run chkdsk at the cmd prompt and WHAM back again.............. and yes over time it does degrade! but when you reboot you see no errors getting fixed because of NTFS saved it self when it booted up by going to another somthing that does not have the error present. sorry i can't help any further but yup i did test .Net and i did see the same problem with it but it corrects it self WICKED FAST and it does cure itself of stupid ass errors......

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Paul Did you ever get a solution ? I have exactly the same expereince. If I install Xp using FAT 32 then there is no problem. If I install Xp as NTFS then XHDSK reports errors. If I convert from FAT32 to NTFS then the problem goes away . Microsoft say that a Disk converted to NTFS from FAT is not the same as a drive formated as NTFS.


On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:

>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

No solution yet John. 





On Thursday, November 28, 2002 at 10:24 am, John Blackmore wrote:
>Paul
>
>Did you ever get a solution ? I have exactly the same expereince. 
>
>If I install Xp using FAT 32 then there is no problem.
>If I install Xp as NTFS then XHDSK reports errors.
>
>If I convert from FAT32 to NTFS  then the problem goes away . Microsoft say that 
>a Disk converted to NTFS from FAT is not the same as a drive formated as NTFS.
>
> 
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Paul How are you running CHKDSK ? In windows 2000 if you go to the C prompt you get C:\ > and you then type CHKDSK -- no errors reported unless you type CHKDSK /v when minor issues are reported - which are not a problem. With Windows Xp pro whn I go to the C prompt it starts C:\> Documents and settings\John> if I type CHKDSK I get errors. If, howeber, I type CD\ first and go back to just C:\> and type CHKDSK I get no errors (so far). I have set up a second partition for data ( E:) and this has shown no errors at all. I looks like CHKDSK is somewhat suspect. Also of you type CHKNTFS C: what answer do you get. If there are no problems you should get C: is not dirty John


On Thursday, November 28, 2002 at 11:45 pm, Paul wrote:

>
>No solution yet John. 
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Oh my god! I knew it! The constant corruption wasn't just my computer! What suprise me most of all is why isn't there more news about this over the internet. After running chkdsk /f, then doing some task, the same error would report again! My computer doesn't crash often or at all and I usually shut it down through XP. Can someone tell me if it truly corrupts my files or just a reporting error? I have lots of important files on my computer and I rather not take the chance of it being corrupted.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi all, Phew am I glad I found this thread! My problems started a few weeks back after buying a new computer with new HD. I installed XP and everything seemed to be okay. That was until one day, while XP was booting I switched my USB (music) keyboard on. All of a sudden UNMOUNTABLE_VOLUME was displayed and XP wouldn't load. So I used the CD to load the recovery console and ran chkdsk, XP booted and I thought everything was okay. Once XP loaded I ran chkdsk and it was reporting bad sectors on the drive! I assumed I'd been given a bad HD by maxtor so I went to their website to return the drive. Maxtor have a piece of software called powermax which you can download. They use it to certify their drives and remove bad sectors after construction. I downloaded this and performed a low-level format and certified the drive. It was coming up okay? So I re-installed XP, while XP was formating the drive (NTFS) it complained saying the partition was too small. When I looked XP had partitioned my drive in two, an 8Meg partition and a 40Gig partition? I have no idea why this happened but I installed XP on the 40 Gig partition and everything seemed okay. Now ultra-paranoid of my drive I found myself running chkdsk every 10 minutes. I grew even more concerned when the drive was constantly indicating minor errors, I assumed it was some indication that a major error was about to happen? However upon further inspection I realised the error reporting was completely inconsistent! I'd run chkdsk in the command prompt window (read-only mode) and it would report errors suggesting I re-run chkdsk with /f option. However if I then ran chkdsk again immediately afterwards (without the /f option) still in the command prompt, chkdsk would report no problems? Obviously the error can't have been fixed if chkdsk was in read-only mode so obviously the error wasn't ever there? After further investigation I've realised chkdsk seems to report spurious errors about the volume bitmap? What the hell is going on?? Perhaps the reason there isn't more news on this is people never run chkdsk manually, they rely on XP to check for drive inconsistencies on booting?


On Tuesday, December 10, 2002 at 2:44 am, Ken Do wrote:
>Oh my god! I knew it! The constant corruption wasn't just my computer! What suprise
>me most of all is why isn't there more news about this over the internet. After running
>chkdsk /f, then doing some task, the same error would report again! My computer doesn't
>crash often or at all and I usually shut it down through XP.
>
>Can someone tell me if it truly corrupts my files or just a reporting error? I have
>lots of important files on my computer and I rather not take the chance of it being
>corrupted.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Just found this, :) http://www.webspiffy.com/archives/2002/08/ntfs_file_system_glitch.php


On Monday, December 16, 2002 at 9:15 am, Michael Lees wrote:
>
>Hi all,
>
>Phew am I glad I found this thread! My problems started a few weeks back after buying
>a new computer with new HD. I installed XP and everything seemed to be okay. That
>was until one day, while XP was booting I switched my USB (music) keyboard on. All
>of a sudden UNMOUNTABLE_VOLUME was displayed and XP wouldn't load. So I used the
>CD to load the recovery console and ran chkdsk, XP booted and I thought everything
>was okay. Once XP loaded I ran chkdsk and it was reporting bad sectors on the drive!
>I assumed I'd been given a bad HD by maxtor so I went to their website to return
>the drive. Maxtor have a piece of software called powermax which you can download.
>They use it to certify their drives and remove bad sectors after construction.
>I downloaded this and performed a low-level format and certified the drive. It was
>coming up okay? So I re-installed XP, while XP was formating the drive (NTFS) it
>complained saying the partition was too small. When I looked XP had partitioned my
>drive in two, an 8Meg partition and a 40Gig partition? I have no idea why this happened
>but I installed XP on the 40 Gig partition and everything seemed okay. Now ultra-paranoid
>of my drive I found myself running chkdsk every 10 minutes. I grew even more concerned
>when the drive was constantly indicating minor errors, I assumed it was some indication
>that a major error was about to happen? However upon further inspection I realised
>the error reporting was completely inconsistent! I'd run chkdsk in the command prompt
>window (read-only mode) and it would report errors suggesting I re-run chkdsk with
>/f option. However if I then ran chkdsk again immediately afterwards (without the
>/f option) still in the command prompt, chkdsk would report no problems? Obviously
>the error can't have been fixed if chkdsk was in read-only mode so obviously the
>error wasn't ever there?
>
>After further investigation I've realised chkdsk seems to report spurious errors
>about the volume bitmap? What the hell is going on?? Perhaps the reason there isn't
>more news on this is people never run chkdsk manually, they rely on XP to check for
>drive inconsistencies on booting?
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Yeah, I get paranoid too and run check a lot. This solution might not be solve your problem, but it helped me a bit. So far I did not notice any file corruption when I move files between drive or while downloading. In the bios, disable IDE Block Mode and IDE Prefetch (if you have any). It disable 32bit access since XP probably has problem with it. It is a MS documented bug in Windows NT NTFS which apparently was *supposed* to be fix, but it seems that it still exist in XP as well. I hope that helps you, it helped me somewhat.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I see this as well (the problem)....It's quite annoying and I actually bought a new a drive, thinking my drive was at fault (glad I saw this thread, as I was GOING to buy a new motherboard....I HATE this problem...seems to me like my hard drive slows down and starts *clicking*....).....But anyway...thanks for the info, now I'll start bitching at Microdunces.....err...soft.. Dan


On Monday, December 16, 2002 at 1:43 pm, Ken wrote:
>Yeah, I get paranoid too and run check a lot. This solution might not be solve your
>problem, but it helped me a bit. So far I did not notice any file corruption when
>I move files between drive or while downloading. In the bios, disable IDE Block Mode
>and IDE Prefetch (if you have any). It disable 32bit access since XP probably has
>problem with it. It is a MS documented bug in Windows NT NTFS which apparently was
>*supposed* to be fix, but it seems that it still exist in XP as well. I hope that
>helps you, it helped me somewhat.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I just found this thread and I too am glad to hear that I am not alone. My new system uses an Intel motherboard with SATA RAID - I thought that the problem was due to the RAID controller, but your descriptions match mine too well. The answer as to corruption, unfortunately, is YES - I expereienced actual corruption of the disk and had to fix it before the comptuer would boot. Fotunately, CHKDSK seems to be enough to fix it. I seem to have isolated true corruption as occuring only during shutdown. To avoid this corruption, I started to turn off the power without doing a Windows shutdown - I know that this is exactly opposite of what Microsoft tells us to do, but it seems to work for me. Any comments and experiences from other folks would be appreciated. For reference, I am running XP Pro with SP1. The hard disk is SATA RAID (Silicon Image 3112r) with two WD800JB drives partitioned as a stripe set (RAID 0) and a single NTFS partition of 149GB.


On Tuesday, December 10, 2002 at 2:44 am, Ken Do wrote:
>Oh my god! I knew it! The constant corruption wasn't just my computer! What suprise
>me most of all is why isn't there more news about this over the internet. After running
>chkdsk /f, then doing some task, the same error would report again! My computer doesn't
>crash often or at all and I usually shut it down through XP.
>
>Can someone tell me if it truly corrupts my files or just a reporting error? I have
>lots of important files on my computer and I rather not take the chance of it being
>corrupted.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I've been watching strains in several places about this topic. The one thing that I have noticed, that it is always NTFS that is the problem. That is the only common factor in many cases. This leads me to believe that NTFS IS SCREWED UP!!! Go for FAT32 every time you get the chance. If XP won't format FAT32, then get a win98 boot disk and do it yourself. The win98 boot disk is the only piece of software that microsoft ever wrote without errors. fdisk and format.com are the only partition/format programs that I ever use, because they are the only ones that ever work. Anything else that tries to format FAT32 always screws it up and I have to go back and do it again with format.com. sigh.


On Saturday, January 4, 2003 at 9:47 am, Peter Shkabara wrote:
>I just found this thread and I too am glad to hear that I am not alone. My new system
>uses an Intel motherboard with SATA RAID - I thought that the problem was due to
>the RAID controller, but your descriptions match mine too well. The answer as to
>corruption, unfortunately, is YES - I expereienced actual corruption of the disk
>and had to fix it before the comptuer would boot. Fotunately, CHKDSK seems to be
>enough to fix it. I seem to have isolated true corruption as occuring only during
>shutdown. To avoid this corruption, I started to turn off the power without doing
>a Windows shutdown - I know that this is exactly opposite of what Microsoft tells
>us to do, but it seems to work for me. Any comments and experiences from other folks
>would be appreciated. For reference, I am running XP Pro with SP1. The hard disk
>is SATA RAID (Silicon Image 3112r) with two WD800JB drives partitioned as a stripe
>set (RAID 0) and a single NTFS partition of 149GB.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I don't think that NTFS per se is to blame. I ran it on NT 3.1 through NT 3.51 and never had any problems. From other forums I have been to, it seems that Win2k and XP have introduced a change in NTFS that indeed has a problem. Some users say that if you format to FAT32 and then convert to NTFS the problem goes away - but the NTFS done that way is different from formatting using XP directly. I have not tried it yet, but am tempted to do so since my computer keeps getting corrupted - unless I don't use shutdown!


On Sunday, January 5, 2003 at 5:18 pm, Robot wrote:
>I've been watching strains in several places about this topic. The one thing that
>I have noticed, that it is always NTFS that is the problem. That is the only common
>factor in many cases. This leads me to believe that NTFS IS SCREWED UP!!! Go for
>FAT32 every time you get the chance. If XP won't format FAT32, then get a win98
>boot disk and do it yourself. The win98 boot disk is the only piece of software
>that microsoft ever wrote without errors. fdisk and format.com are the only partition/format
>programs that I ever use, because they are the only ones that ever work. Anything
>else that tries to format FAT32 always screws it up and I have to go back and do
>it again with format.com. sigh.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Warning, Chkdsk errors are occuring high chances are because you are running Chkdsk with open files. The accurate reporting can only be done when running Chkdsk during bootup mode (when not using Windows and Chkdsk runs *before* the Windows desktop loads). Chkdsk often *will* report an error if the hard disk drive has open files.


On Sunday, January 5, 2003 at 7:33 pm, Peter Shkabara wrote:
>I don't think that NTFS per se is to blame. I ran it on NT 3.1 through NT 3.51 and
>never had any problems. From other forums I have been to, it seems that Win2k and
>XP have introduced a change in NTFS that indeed has a problem. Some users say that
>if you format to FAT32 and then convert to NTFS the problem goes away - but the NTFS
>done that way is different from formatting using XP directly. I have not tried it
>yet, but am tempted to do so since my computer keeps getting corrupted - unless I
>don't use shutdown!
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Randy is correct. See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=109524 Even though it doesn't say so it also applies to XP. Also if any program writes to the drive while Chkdsk is running, chkdsk mayl report more severe errors as it will think the index has become corrupted. There was an old MSKB article about this, but its been removed: Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 246882 - If you run the Chkdsk.exe tool with no command-line switches against a Windows NT file system (NTFS) volume, Chkdsk.exe may report that problems were found, and suggest that you run the Chkdsk command with the /f switch to fix the volume. This is why you can run chkdsk multiple times and sometimes it will report errors and sometimes it will not. If you run chkdsk /v /f and it comes back with no errors than your disk is fine. You can also run chkntfs to see if Windows believes there is a problem with the drive.


On Monday, January 6, 2003 at 12:44 pm, Randy J. Anderson wrote:
>Warning, Chkdsk errors are occuring high chances are because you are running Chkdsk
>with open files. The accurate reporting can only be done when running Chkdsk during
>bootup mode (when not using Windows and Chkdsk runs *before* the Windows desktop
>loads). Chkdsk often *will* report an error if the
>hard disk drive has open files.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I just want to say that I am in the same boat as Peter. I apparently made the mistake of installing XP Pro on a NTFS formatted partition. My XP Pro SP1 runs fine, but corrupts files regularly *only* upon shutdown or reboots. I am running an AMD XP 2100+, gigabyte motherboard, maxtor 60 GB, samsung PC2700 256 MB, latest bios, chipset drivers etc. I am now afraid to shutdown or reboot, good tip peter to shut down by powering off!! ;-) I'll have to try that as I am sick of having to enter the recovery console to salvage the registry and then using system restore in safe mode. I can't believe MS isn't aware of this problem with their shutdowns.. FWIW, I am convinced this is a software issue as I have checked my hard drive for surface errors using a Maxtor utility and I have also checked my RAM.


On Saturday, January 4, 2003 at 9:47 am, Peter Shkabara wrote:
>I just found this thread and I too am glad to hear that I am not alone. My new system
>uses an Intel motherboard with SATA RAID - I thought that the problem was due to
>the RAID controller, but your descriptions match mine too well. The answer as to
>corruption, unfortunately, is YES - I expereienced actual corruption of the disk
>and had to fix it before the comptuer would boot. Fotunately, CHKDSK seems to be
>enough to fix it. I seem to have isolated true corruption as occuring only during
>shutdown. To avoid this corruption, I started to turn off the power without doing
>a Windows shutdown - I know that this is exactly opposite of what Microsoft tells
>us to do, but it seems to work for me. Any comments and experiences from other folks
>would be appreciated. For reference, I am running XP Pro with SP1. The hard disk
>is SATA RAID (Silicon Image 3112r) with two WD800JB drives partitioned as a stripe
>set (RAID 0) and a single NTFS partition of 149GB.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Still trying to resolve this issue...I recently came across Q315403 Could this be related to our problem??? Known problem with NTFS with IDE drive cache...supposed to be fixed in SP1, but maybe they didn't properly patch it. I noticed that I have always had my write cache enabled of course for performance...I've tried disabling it and so far 2 for 2 on shutdowns...but who knows if this is the issue..time will tell..

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I now have my system under control and can share some of what I learned with this forum. To prevent corruption on my system, I changed my computer type form ACPI to Standard PC. When I shut down, XP stops and tells me "It is safe ...". No more corruptions! Regarding CHKDSK - if CHKDSK is run agains the boot drive, it will report errors because some files are open. Need to run it with /f so it is done at startup. Also - very strange - certain $I30 errors are "normal" according to Microsoft and only indicate "housekeeping" tasks that CHKDSK does. Apparently there is no real corruption in the directory. The corruption I expereienced on shutdown, however, was not limited to these "expected" errors and actually damaged directory structure entries. Microsoft needs to add more delay before turning power off on ACPI systems - there was such a problem with Win98 I believe. On my own system, the RAID driver on the SATA drives does not allow me to turn off write cache, so that is not an option for me. I there a way to send such bug reports to Microsoft? There are a number of us that are seeing this problem, but I know of no way to report it to the big company.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Just so you know, I went to my hard drive manufacturer site and most of them have a download that you put on a floppy and boot with it and IT will put your hard drive through 5 or 6 checks of integrity and fix errors OR tell you if your drive is really bad..... Found errors that MS did NOT find and fixed them.....and does it all in dos so doesn't screw up your windows.....


On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:

>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I don't remember where I read this but Winblows XP O/S doesn't like to be run on NTFS because ithat format makes it too difficult to handle files the way it was meant to, which is to say chaotically rather than nice and organized. I run XP pro on my FAT32 drive and other drives are NTFS formatted and I have no problems other than what's normal for Winblows. - allan


On Thursday, February 27, 2003 at 8:26 am, fran wrote:
>Just so you know, I went to my hard drive manufacturer site and most of them have
>a download that you put on a floppy and boot with it and IT will put your hard drive
>through 5 or 6 checks of integrity and fix errors OR tell you if your drive is really
>bad..... Found errors that MS did NOT find and fixed them.....and does it all in
>dos so doesn't screw up your windows.....
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Alan, that's interesting because all the 'geeks' say just the opposite.... that XP is basically a bloated windows 2000 which loves NTFS. All the literature I've read says that it runs best on NTFS - that's why I did it that way. I'd like to know where you saw that article. I have 2 hard drives... the other is FAT32 which holds my files and for ghosting. Interesting response though.....


On Sunday, March 16, 2003 at 9:29 pm, Allan wrote:
>I don't remember where I read this but Winblows XP O/S doesn't like to be run on
>NTFS because ithat format makes it too difficult to handle files the way it was meant
>to, which is to say chaotically rather than nice and organized. I run XP pro on
>my FAT32 drive and other drives are NTFS formatted and I have no problems other than
>what's normal for Winblows.
>
>- allan
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I'm assuming you only need to change the driver in system setup. If that is so then what driver file are you using for Standard PC?


On Tuesday, January 28, 2003 at 8:09 am, Peter Shkabara wrote:
>I now have my system under control and can share some of what I learned with this
>forum. To prevent corruption on my system, I changed my computer type form ACPI to
>Standard PC. When I shut down, XP stops and tells me "It is safe ...". No more corruptions!
>
>Regarding CHKDSK - if CHKDSK is run agains the boot drive, it will report errors
>because some files are open. Need to run it with /f so it is done at startup. Also
>- very strange - certain $I30 errors are "normal" according to Microsoft and only
>indicate "housekeeping" tasks that CHKDSK does. Apparently there is no real corruption
>in the directory.
>
>The corruption I expereienced on shutdown, however, was not limited to these "expected"
>errors and actually damaged directory structure entries. Microsoft needs to add more
>delay before turning power off on ACPI systems - there was such a problem with Win98
>I believe. On my own system, the RAID driver on the SATA drives does not allow me
>to turn off write cache, so that is not an option for me.
>
>I there a way to send such bug reports to Microsoft? There are a number of us that
>are seeing this problem, but I know of no way to report it to the big company.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I solved the corruption on shutdown problem by setting my system to not use ACPI - that is, I told XP that I have a standard PC without power management (a lie!). What I would like to see, however, is to have Microsoft add a delay before turning power off when using ACPI.


On Tuesday, March 25, 2003 at 10:12 am, esmithz wrote:
>I'm assuming you only need to change the driver in system setup. If that is so then
>what driver file are you using for Standard PC?
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

One of the side effects I have found from this is that the file system systematically 
consumes the available harddrive space to the point where WindowsXP no longer functions. 
On my system it takes about 24-36 hours for Windows to report 4.5GB of free space 
as being in use, when in fact it is really not. A reboot will free up all the space 
again and then the process starts over.

I did find this article at MS: How to Locate and Correct Disk Space Problems on NTFS 
Volumes in Windows XP, but it hasn't provided any viable solutions.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315688

If anyone has a solution to these problems, please please post it!

-Fred






On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:
>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Very interesting thread. I also have a sil3112 sata raid controller with two wdigital 120gb 8mb cache in raid 0 with ntfs. I use a SATA to Parallel ATA converter for these drives. My boot drive is a wd 100gb 2 mb cache also witn ntfs connected as a master drive to the primary IDE controller. What is interesting is that I am not experiencing any file corruption on the boot drives but lots of errors on the SATA Raid. Fairly frequently I find corrupted and unusable files. This setup is almost unusable. The RAID setup worked well on initial setup so I was thinking the problem was with the raid controller or with the disks gone bad. The disks support SMART and smart reports them as healthy, so I was blaming the motherboard and the sil sata controller. I was about to return it. The problem is not on shutdown, it is file write, randomly some files are corrupted. From the initial setup I installed sp1 and the MS suggested patches. I am going to try FAT32 if it supports a large (240gb) drive or I am going to try to use XP software raid and see if it works better. Also the raid disks are 70% full and who knows if that matter (poor handling of large drives?) Any sugestion on the problem appreciated.


On Sunday, January 5, 2003 at 7:33 pm, Peter Shkabara wrote:
>I don't think that NTFS per se is to blame. I ran it on NT 3.1 through NT 3.51 and
>never had any problems. From other forums I have been to, it seems that Win2k and
>XP have introduced a change in NTFS that indeed has a problem. Some users say that
>if you format to FAT32 and then convert to NTFS the problem goes away - but the NTFS
>done that way is different from formatting using XP directly. I have not tried it
>yet, but am tempted to do so since my computer keeps getting corrupted - unless I
>don't use shutdown!
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I had tried NT RAID before with poor results - would be curious to see your experience if you try it. What adaptors are you useing for your drives? Mine are Iwill I2S, and the controller is built-in on my Intel D845PEBT2 motherboard. Since I disabled the ACPI shutdown, I have had no more corruption. Are you certain that your corruption is not occuring at shutdown?


On Tuesday, April 1, 2003 at 6:48 am, JJstecchino wrote:
>Very interesting thread. I also have a sil3112 sata raid controller with two wdigital
>120gb 8mb cache in raid 0 with ntfs. I use a SATA to Parallel ATA converter for these
>drives. My boot drive is a wd 100gb 2 mb cache also witn ntfs connected as a master
>drive to the primary IDE controller. What is interesting is that I am not experiencing
>any file corruption on the boot drives but lots of errors on the SATA Raid. Fairly
>frequently I find corrupted and unusable files. This setup is almost unusable. The
>RAID setup worked well on initial setup so I was thinking the problem was with the
>raid controller or with the disks gone bad. The disks support SMART and smart reports
>them as healthy, so I was blaming the motherboard and the sil sata controller. I
>was about to return it. The problem is not on shutdown, it is file write, randomly
>some files are corrupted. From the initial setup I installed sp1 and the MS suggested
>patches. I am going to try FAT32 if it supports a large (240gb) drive or I am going
>to try to use XP software raid and see if it works better. Also the raid disks are
>70% full and who knows if that matter (poor handling of large drives?) Any sugestion
>on the problem appreciated.
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I got this error that told me that I needed to run chkdsk on my hard drive. I tried to run the command but it wouldnt work the prompt immediately closed w/o any action. So I rebooted thinking I could do it on the command prompt mode, but when I restarted my computer the drive was nowhere to be found. It is however recognized in the bios, but XP doesnt see it. It has some great data that I dont want to lose. If anyone could help I would appreciate it

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I am no expert and don't know the answer to your problem speciifically but I am pretty certain (that is is SOUNDS like but might not be), based on your brief description, that your data is probably there but your boot.ini is missing or corrupted. If you can find a thread on how to repair/replace your boot.ini you should be OK. This happend to me once and ever since I keep a copy of my boot.ini file. Screwing around with boot.ini can make your HD unbootable but since it already is ... Good luck.


On Tuesday, April 1, 2003 at 4:23 pm, bagtagsell wrote:
>I got this error that told me that I needed to run chkdsk on my hard drive. I tried
>to run the command but it wouldnt work the prompt immediately closed w/o any action.
> So I rebooted thinking I could do it on the command prompt mode, but when I restarted
>my computer the drive was nowhere to be found. It is however recognized in the bios,
>but XP doesnt see it. It has some great data that I dont want to lose. If anyone
>could help I would appreciate it

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

It's incredible to find this thread! I was experiencing the same problems in Windows 2000, even worse cause the ntfs corruption often caused BSOD in my system. At first it's was difficult to find a relation among constant blue screens and ntfs corruption till I noticed that chkdsk eliminated them for the next 3-4 reboots. After that, ntfs went sick again with the sympthoms you described. I started to think about shutdown problems when I noticed that the hd red led was always still on when Windows performed the powerdown (seems it didn't wait for the hd to stop). Yesterday I found this holy thread that has confirmed my suspicions. Now I wish there was an easy way to disable the auto-powerdown feature and return to the old "It's safe to turn off your computer" screen. It's annoying to search the net to see that everyone has exactly the opposite problem (their auto-powerdown feature doesn't work and they want to enable it). I know I could possibly disable the ACPI from the BIOS setup and reinstall Windows 2000 to get a non-ACPI hal... but this method sucks. Hope that Microsoft adds that delay in SP4, will they? Thanks a lot, you have saved me from a horrible headache. Antonio


On Tuesday, March 25, 2003 at 1:06 pm, Peter Shkabara wrote:
>I solved the corruption on shutdown problem by setting my system to not use ACPI
>- that is, I told XP that I have a standard PC without power management (a lie!).
>What I would like to see, however, is to have Microsoft add a delay before turning
>power off when using ACPI.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I have been struggling with this too (it's like a recovery group -- Microsoft Victims Anonymous) and here's the latest -- CHKDSK runs every time on bootup (the abbreviated 3-step version that it decides to do on its own, not the longer 5-step version you get when you run it from the disk tools menu) and doesn't complete. It bombs in the middle and goes straight into boot. And it's like Groundhog Day -- because it never completes it tries to do it again every time it reboots. Everything seems to work OK once it boots but it's making me nervous as I have had all the file corruption problems described earlier in the thread.

I downloaded the diag tool from Maxtor and it says everything is clean but I don't know what it checks vis-a-vis the filesystem (if anything). Has anyone else had problems with CHKDSK not completing? I guess everyone keeps asking this but what's the best third-party substitute for checking file system integrity?


On Monday, January 27, 2003 at 9:26 pm, Kass wrote:
>I just want to say that I am in the same boat as Peter. I apparently made the mistake
>of installing XP Pro on a NTFS formatted partition. My XP Pro SP1 runs fine, but
>corrupts files regularly *only* upon shutdown or reboots. I am running an AMD XP
>2100+, gigabyte motherboard, maxtor 60 GB, samsung PC2700 256 MB, latest bios, chipset
>drivers etc. I am now afraid to shutdown or reboot, good tip peter to shut down by
>powering off!! ;-) I'll have to try that as I am sick of having to enter the recovery
>console to salvage the registry and then using system restore in safe mode. I can't
>believe MS isn't aware of this problem with their shutdowns.. FWIW, I am convinced
>this is a software issue as I have checked my hard drive for surface errors using
>a Maxtor utility and I have also checked my RAM.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

"Microdunces" ... that is so funny!


On Tuesday, December 24, 2002 at 5:31 am, Dan wrote:
>I see this as well (the problem)....It's quite annoying and I actually bought a new
>a drive, thinking my drive was at fault (glad I saw this thread, as I was GOING to
>buy a new motherboard....I HATE this problem...seems to me like my hard drive slows
>down and starts *clicking*....).....But anyway...thanks for the info, now I'll start
>bitching at Microdunces.....err...soft..
>
>Dan
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I have discovered my Windows XP (home edition) starting to break down as well.  I 
would like to summarize what I have learned from the posts above.  Please comment 
if I am on the right/wrong track with these.


=== 1st Suggestion ===
1. Use Windows 98se to FAT32 format larger hard drives
2. Install Windows XP onto the FAT32 formatted hard drive
3. Ask Windows XP to convert my FAT32 to NTFS

- or -

1. Install Windows 98se using FAT32 format for larger hard drives
2. Ask Windows 98se to convert the file system from FAT32 to NTFS
3. Install Windows XP onto the "converted" NTFS

Note:  I have long heard that NTFS is the preferred file system for Windows XP; however, 
after reading several posts I am no longer convinced of the best Windows XP installation 
solution.  Please help me select from the following:
1. Fresh install of NTFS
2. Converted FAT32 to NTFS (using one of the suggestions above)
3. FAT32 only
4. NTFS partition for the Windows XP operating system and a separate FAT32 partition 
for the data files
5. FAT32 partition  for the Windows XP operating system and a separate NTFS partition 
for the data files


=== 2nd Suggestion ===
Just power the computer off without using the standard automated Windows XP shut-down 
feature ... because the automated Windows XP shutdown either saves the "corruption 
/ corrupted files and folders" or Windows-controlled ACPI does not wait long enough 
for the computer to save all it's important settings (ie. the hard drive will still 
be spinning as Windows XP automatically powers off everything) not giving enough 
time for a proper shut-down.

Question ... how do you ask Windows XP to display the "Your computer is now safe 
to shut down" dialog without shutting down the computer automatically?


=== 3rd Suggestion ===
In slight opposition to what was suggested in the "2nd Suggestion" ... unplug/turn-off 
your computer without using the standard automated Windows XP shutdown so that you 
do not give Windows XP a chance to save "corruption / corrupted files and folders" 
to the deteriorating file system/hard drive.


=== 4th Suggestion ===
Apparently, CHKDSK will report errors of different kinds with each running of the 
application when files are currently open and in use (this includes Windows XP operating 
system files which will always be open and in use … so you will continue to see errors 
of different kinds as new files/applications are being run by windows all the time 
in the background).  The work-around for this is to run CHKDSK only when rebooting 
your computer system.  From what I have heard this can be done by:  Right-click on 
the drive in question > Select “Properties” from the menu > Select the “Tools” tab 
> Under the “Error-checking” area select “Check Now…” > Select both “Automatically 
fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”.  During 
this process, I have been told, the computer might let you know that it will need 
to continue running the CHKDSK operation when the computer reboots.


=== 5th Suggestion ===
Check you system’s files and folders using third-party CHKDSK software.  

Question … what is the best third-party substitute for checking the integrity of 
your file system?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Windows XP home edition I use norton systmworks 2003, Disk Doctor and get the same problem. If I try to fix it computer freezes after first reboot on second reboot still shows the Usn Journal has errors but doesn't freeze etc


On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:

>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I had the same problem, but managed to create a work around. try the following:
1. start XP in safe mode, do this by pressing f8 just before xp loads and select 
safe mode.
2. goto device manager, right click My Computer select properties click hardware 
and then Device Manager.
3. open "IDE ATA/ATAPI controlers.
4. duble click "Primary IDE Channel"
5. select "Advance Settings" tab.
6. Change "Transfer Mode" from "DMA" to "POI" on the hard drive that XP is loaded 
on, e.g. on my PC XP is loaded on "Device 0".
7. click "Ok", close all windows and restart XP.
i'm still looking for the reason and mybe an answer as 2 y XP is doing this.






On Monday, December 16, 2002 at 9:15 am, Michael Lees wrote:
>
>Hi all,
>
>Phew am I glad I found this thread! My problems started a few weeks back after buying 
>a new computer with new HD. I installed XP and everything seemed to be okay. That 
>was until one day, while XP was booting I switched my USB (music) keyboard on. All 
>of a sudden UNMOUNTABLE_VOLUME was displayed and XP wouldn't load. So I used the 
>CD to load the recovery console and ran chkdsk, XP booted and I thought everything 
>was okay. Once XP loaded I ran chkdsk and it was reporting bad sectors on the drive! 
>I assumed I'd been given a bad HD by maxtor so I went to their website to return 
>the drive. Maxtor have a piece of software called powermax which you can download. 
>They use it to certify their drives and remove bad sectors after construction.
>I downloaded this and performed a low-level format and certified the drive. It was 
>coming up okay? So I re-installed XP, while XP was formating the drive (NTFS) it 
>complained saying the partition was too small. When I looked XP had partitioned 
my 
>drive in two, an 8Meg partition and a 40Gig partition? I have no idea why this happened 
>but I installed XP on the 40 Gig partition and everything seemed okay. Now ultra-paranoid 
>of my drive I found myself running chkdsk every 10 minutes. I grew even more concerned 
>when the drive was constantly indicating minor errors, I assumed it was some indication 
>that a major error was about to happen? However upon further inspection I realised 
>the error reporting was completely inconsistent! I'd run chkdsk in the command prompt 
>window (read-only mode) and it would report errors suggesting I re-run chkdsk with 
>/f option. However if I then ran chkdsk again immediately afterwards (without the 
>/f option) still in the command prompt, chkdsk would report no problems? Obviously 
>the error can't have been fixed if chkdsk was in read-only mode so obviously the 
>error wasn't ever there?
>
>After further investigation I've realised chkdsk seems to report spurious errors 
>about the volume bitmap? What the hell is going on?? Perhaps the reason there isn't 
>more news on this is people never run chkdsk manually, they rely on XP to check 
for 
>drive inconsistencies on booting?
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Glad to know I'm not imagining it. Firstly - any way to recover the files. Secondly - any sign of a proper fix yet? Cheers Paul

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

hehe i just found this thread too but the last message had been posted oct 2002 so it look like either fat32 or no acpi are the choices we have left :)


On Tuesday, June 3, 2003 at 2:03 pm, Paul wrote:
>Glad to know I'm not imagining it.
>
>Firstly - any way to recover the files.
>
>Secondly - any sign of a proper fix yet?
>
>Cheers
>
>Paul

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Chkdsk errors – file system errors, problems with the volume bitmap, etc… Symptom: chkdsk /f will not fix the errors. My Solution: (It took me days to figure this out. HP could not provide a solution and I could not find one on the Windows website…. Use this solution at your own risk! Double click “My Computer” Right click on C: (local disk) and then select properties Uncheck the box at the bottom where it says allow indexing service to index this disk… Select apply or OK…if you have any errors while the drive is un-indexing select ignore all. Go back to “My Computer” and select C: (local disk) properties again, then select the tools tab. Select “Check Now” and the check the box that says automatically fix file system errors. The computer will prompt you to reboot. Reboot the computer…let the checkdisk run and then go back to “My computer” C: (local disk) properties and check the box (so it’s selected to re-index) to allow indexing service to index this disk…. Select ignore all errors Run chkdsk again and it should be clean! You may have to do this again after running widows updates or adding programs!


On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:

>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

You said:
>Use this solution at your own risk! Well, I just discovered this forum. I, like many others, have had an XP for about a year now, Norton SoftWork (recently upgrading to 2003), etc etc and get those same errors showing up. What's the risk if I don't?


On Wednesday, July 9, 2003 at 6:28 pm, Keith wrote:
>Chkdsk errors – file system errors, problems with the volume bitmap, etc…
>
>Symptom: chkdsk /f will not fix the errors.
>
>
>My Solution: (It took me days to figure this out. HP could not provide a solution
>and I could not find one on the Windows website….
>
>Use this solution at your own risk!
>
>Double click “My Computer”
>
>Right click on C: (local disk) and then select properties
>
>Uncheck the box at the bottom where it says allow indexing service to index this
>disk…
>
>Select apply or OK…if you have any errors while the drive is un-indexing select ignore
>all.
>
>Go back to “My Computer” and select C: (local disk) properties again, then select
>the tools tab.
>
>Select “Check Now” and the check the box that says automatically fix file system
>errors.
>
>The computer will prompt you to reboot.
>
>Reboot the computer…let the checkdisk run and then go back to “My computer” C: (local
>disk) properties and check the box (so it’s selected to re-index) to allow indexing
>service to index this disk….
>
>Select ignore all errors
>
>Run chkdsk again and it should be clean!
>
>
>You may have to do this again after running widows updates or adding programs!
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I also wonder what the risk is.

I have been watching this thread for months while having this very same problem with 
a new Dell computer.  Dell has had me reformat three times and they have replaced 
the hard drive twice due to these volume bitmap, MFT, and index errors.  

The only performance issue that I experience with these errors is that System Restore 
won't restore.

I wish I could figure out how to prevent this?

Cindi
>
>







On Thursday, July 10, 2003 at 6:36 pm, Gordon wrote:
>You said: 
>

>Use this solution at your own risk! 
>
. What's the risk if I don't? 

>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi, finally I see this problem in the net, I had it, in fact it made me go back to win2K, now I have a hunch after reading everithing I found about this, try disabling the indexing service(which what a coincidence runs only over NTFS filesystem) here a lik to how to do it, http://www.techaholic.net/support/xp-indexing.html I will get it a shot to see what happens, some of the posts was quite usefull and match my experience, for example I had XP installed in 2 machines, one of them was AT case with AT/ATX board, and the other ATX, the AT one never got corrupted(same XP on both) so seems that is consistency around the shutdown issue, I hope the indexing can get rid of the problem, if it does please post it, so we know it Fer


On Thursday, July 17, 2003 at 11:55 am, Cindi wrote:

>I also wonder what the risk is.
>
>I have been watching this thread for months while having this very same problem 
with 
>a new Dell computer.  Dell has had me reformat three times and they have replaced 
>the hard drive twice due to these volume bitmap, MFT, and index errors.  
>
>The only performance issue that I experience with these errors is that System Restore 
>won't restore.
>
>I wish I could figure out how to prevent this?
>
>Cindi
>
>
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Ahhh, I am yet another WinXP user realizing this problem. I've made posts at www.amdmb.com, www.mypcclinic.com, and in the MS Newsgroup. I'm glad to see I'm not alone. You can see the exact details I posted at: http://mypcclinic.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1301&PN=1&TPN=1 So far, not much in the way of responses. I'm seriously contemplating switching back to Fat32. I only did NTFS for the support of files > 4G.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Well, Ive done what I said, disabling indexing, even deleted the index repository, and so far so good, no more strange behavior, so I think that is it, I recommend you should try it to confirm it Fernando


On Thursday, August 7, 2003 at 1:43 pm, Bill wrote:
>Ahhh, I am yet another WinXP user realizing this problem. I've made posts at www.amdmb.com,
>www.mypcclinic.com, and in the MS Newsgroup. I'm glad to see I'm not alone.
>
>You can see the exact details I posted at:
>http://mypcclinic.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1301&PN=1&TPN=1
>
>So far, not much in the way of responses. I'm seriously contemplating switching
>back to Fat32. I only did NTFS for the support of files > 4G.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

So far so good. Fat32 is treating me like it should.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi, i recently bought a new pc (p4 2.8Ghz FSB 800Mhz) and since i installed winxp pro i've experienced lots of problems.i've got a S-ATA hdd (seagate barracuda 80Gb) connected on the 4th ide master.some times the system stops responding and a blue screen appears.Messages like: KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERRROR atapi.sys address xxxxxx or Stop: xxxxx UNKNOWN HARD ERROR or UNMOUNTABLE_VOLUME or even KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED were some of the blue screen errors i got. i've formated the disk "n" times, and i even installed win2000 to make sure it was winxp problem...no way of getting rid of this problem! when i used win2000 repair option and i got the following msg: "Setup has determined that drive c: is corrupted and cannot be repaired". I paid very attention to all these posts and i wonder if changing from NTFS to FAT32 will resolve this issue or if it's a hardware failure... i'd appreciate very much any help from you. Thank you very much, Rui Portugal

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi All, Thank you all for posting to this thread. I've been experiencing similar problems, though the corruption to my file system has been more fatal and has prevented me from using the system 95% of the time. I built the box in mid July. I'm running Win XP Pro on top of two Seagate 120GB SATA drives setup in a RAID-0 configuration with NTFS. I'm using the RAID controller built into the motherboard (A7N8X Deluxe), a Silicon Image Sil 3112A controller. RAM is a pair of Corsair TWINX1024-3200LL DIMMs. The box ran stable for the first three weeks after I completed the build. One day I booted up into the BSOD. After restoring the system, it would run fine for a few days then, BAM, file corruption errors and eventually the BSOD. I found a post to try memtest86 to test out my RAM. I did and found some errors on one of the two Corsair DIMMs. I removed the effected module and am running the box on one DIMM. So I'm thinking problem solved, and I repair my Windows installation for the 40th time. System runs stable for a couple of days then BAM, more file corruption problems and the BSOD. It got to the point where I would leave the system on for days at a time, running CHKDSK from the command prompt only to find new errors cropping up all the time. I tried to turned the box off without letting XP shutdown and still XP somehow gets corrupted. I'm going to throw in the towel on NTFS and try FAT32. I noticed some other posts here with people having problems with NTFS and RAID. I hope this fixes the problem. If this doesn't work, it's back to Windows ME.


On Thursday, August 14, 2003 at 4:36 am, Rui wrote:
>Hi,
>
>i recently bought a new pc (p4 2.8Ghz FSB 800Mhz) and since i installed winxp pro
>i've experienced lots of problems.i've got a S-ATA hdd (seagate barracuda 80Gb) connected
>on the 4th ide master.some times the system stops responding and a blue screen appears.Messages
>like:
>
>KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERRROR
>atapi.sys address xxxxxx
>
>or
>
>Stop: xxxxx UNKNOWN HARD ERROR
>
>or
>
>UNMOUNTABLE_VOLUME
>
>or even
>
>KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
>
>were some of the blue screen errors i got.
>
>i've formated the disk "n" times, and i even installed win2000 to make sure it was
>winxp problem...no way of getting rid of this problem! when i used win2000 repair
>option and i got the following msg:
>"Setup has determined that drive c: is corrupted and cannot be repaired".
>I paid very attention to all these posts and i wonder if changing from NTFS to FAT32
>will resolve this issue or if it's a hardware failure...
>
>i'd appreciate very much any help from you.
>
>Thank you very much,
>
>Rui
>Portugal

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

So far, no problems whatsoever. It wasn't a RAID issue, it was an NTFS issue. Since converting to Fat32, I've not had one problem.


On Sunday, August 17, 2003 at 9:14 am, VolTrdr wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>Thank you all for posting to this thread. I've been experiencing similar problems,
>though the corruption to my file system has been more fatal and has prevented me
>from using the system 95% of the time.
>
>I built the box in mid July. I'm running Win XP Pro on top of two Seagate 120GB
>SATA drives setup in a RAID-0 configuration with NTFS. I'm using the RAID controller
>built into the motherboard (A7N8X Deluxe), a Silicon Image Sil 3112A controller.
> RAM is a pair of Corsair TWINX1024-3200LL DIMMs. The box ran stable for the first
>three weeks after I completed the build. One day I booted up into the BSOD. After
>restoring the system, it would run fine for a few days then, BAM, file corruption
>errors and eventually the BSOD. I found a post to try memtest86 to test out my RAM.
> I did and found some errors on one of the two Corsair DIMMs. I removed the effected
>module and am running the box on one DIMM.
>
>So I'm thinking problem solved, and I repair my Windows installation for the 40th
>time. System runs stable for a couple of days then BAM, more file corruption problems
>and the BSOD.
>
>It got to the point where I would leave the system on for days at a time, running
>CHKDSK from the command prompt only to find new errors cropping up all the time.
> I tried to turned the box off without letting XP shutdown and still XP somehow gets
>corrupted. I'm going to throw in the towel on NTFS and try FAT32.
>
>I noticed some other posts here with people having problems with NTFS and RAID.
>I hope this fixes the problem. If this doesn't work, it's back to Windows ME.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This is a copy of a post I made at another forum with a possible solution. 

Id already tried all the usual things that have been suggested here. Like most people 
my main suspicion was the early power off problem - so to eliminate this I hot wired 
the PSU to provide power all the time and ignore the power off signal from the motherboard 
- and I still got the same corruption on reboot. 

After searching and trying numerous vaguely related patches and fixes from MS I came 
across Q331958 - 137GB ATAPI driver limit in XP (in all versions of XP upto and including 
SP1). Id noticed this before but as it said it only applied to Hibernate and kernal 
dumps I hadn't bothered installing it. 

To quote from MS "The ATAPI driver for Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) does not use 
48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) when it writes memory dump files or hibernation 
files. Additionally, the flush cache command is not issued to a large hard disk that 
has 48-bit LBA enabled when Windows XP enters standby or hibernation" 

However I thought I might as well install it - and so far after 10 reboots I havent 
had one chkdsk or any other sign of corruption. 

Either thats a 1 in a million coincidence or MS are being economical with the truth 
and the bug applies to ALL disk accesses. I was also under the impression that as 
most IDE Raid devices used virtual SCSI devices that these ATAPI problems shouldn't 
apply. 

For anyone thats interested in trying this -
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];331958 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I got the same problem with XP. I agreed with you, it seems like HD is still writting / reading during powerdown, leaving open archives in the operation. That causes chkdsk starts on startup and, if you got bad luck, some important system file corrupted and no boot at all. The issue disappears if you restart instead shutdown, and shut it down manually after reboot. Anybody out there got or knows about any solution? Thanks in advance


On Thursday, April 10, 2003 at 2:42 pm, Antonio Giner wrote:
>It's incredible to find this thread! I was experiencing the same problems in Windows
>2000, even worse cause the ntfs corruption often caused BSOD in my system. At first
>it's was difficult to find a relation among constant blue screens and ntfs corruption
>till I noticed that chkdsk eliminated them for the next 3-4 reboots. After that,
>ntfs went sick again with the sympthoms you described. I started to think about shutdown
>problems when I noticed that the hd red led was always still on when Windows performed
>the powerdown (seems it didn't wait for the hd to stop). Yesterday I found this holy
>thread that has confirmed my suspicions. Now I wish there was an easy way to disable
>the auto-powerdown feature and return to the old "It's safe to turn off your computer"
>screen. It's annoying to search the net to see that everyone has exactly the opposite
>problem (their auto-powerdown feature doesn't work and they want to enable it). I
>know I could possibly disable the ACPI from the BIOS setup and reinstall Windows
>2000 to get a non-ACPI hal... but this method sucks. Hope that Microsoft adds that
>delay in SP4, will they?
>
>
>Thanks a lot, you have saved me from a horrible headache.
>
>
>Antonio
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I too have installed this patch on a twin-disk 160Gb XP system, and it seems to have cured my frequent startup corruptions. These corruptions were always in system or registry fies. There is now a noticeable 1 or 2 second delay on shutdown, which used to be instantaneous. So, as you say, the fix does appear to affect shutdown as well as standby and hibernate. Thanks


On Saturday, September 6, 2003 at 3:21 pm, Zippy wrote:

>This is a copy of a post I made at another forum with a possible solution. 
>
>Id already tried all the usual things that have been suggested here. Like most people 
>my main suspicion was the early power off problem - so to eliminate this I hot wired 
>the PSU to provide power all the time and ignore the power off signal from the motherboard 
>- and I still got the same corruption on reboot. 
>
>After searching and trying numerous vaguely related patches and fixes from MS I 
came 
>across Q331958 - 137GB ATAPI driver limit in XP (in all versions of XP upto and 
including 
>SP1). Id noticed this before but as it said it only applied to Hibernate and kernal 
>dumps I hadn't bothered installing it. 
>
>To quote from MS "The ATAPI driver for Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) does not 
use 
>48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) when it writes memory dump files or hibernation 
>files. Additionally, the flush cache command is not issued to a large hard disk 
that 
>has 48-bit LBA enabled when Windows XP enters standby or hibernation" 
>
>However I thought I might as well install it - and so far after 10 reboots I havent 
>had one chkdsk or any other sign of corruption. 
>
>Either thats a 1 in a million coincidence or MS are being economical with the truth 
>and the bug applies to ALL disk accesses. I was also under the impression that as 
>most IDE Raid devices used virtual SCSI devices that these ATAPI problems shouldn't 
>apply. 
>
>For anyone thats interested in trying this -
>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];331958 
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I am having this same type problem. I run chkdsk from the command line prompt and consistently see the error, Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute. Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap. -------------- I have this compaq presario, windows xp or prof., brand new pc since 11/02. Just recently, over the past 4 to 8 weeks, I am not able to correct the problem above. A couple of the newsgroups from yahoo suggest that the HDD is corrupt. Also, HP/Compaq say the same, corrupt. I was introduced to the 6 floppy disk set of xp boot disk setup. Was told to delete the partition and start over. Tried this several times. No success. Tried several FDISK's, no success. Early this morning, after doing a disk sanitizer, windows IS able to fix the errors above. AFTER I install most of the critical updates, I have the errors, again. Have tried both, c.l.i. or the 'c' drive icon, properties, tools, check now. Neither will fix the errors. I have tried 20 attempts. I have a LOW tolerance if a problem CANNOT fix a problem. Windows did crash due to a re-boot. I am getting the report, the HDD is not dirty. I will try the suggestion, format in fat32. If you have any comments, feel free to e-mail me, js8jim@msn.com Thank you, JIM =================================


On Friday, October 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm, Paul wrote:

>I have a question about Prevent 
>file corruption problems:

>
>I have tried running the "new" CHKDSK under Windows XP using both the Error Checking 
>tool in "My Computer/File/Properties" and from the command line.
>
>When I used the Error Checking tool (without selecting the Automatic fix of file 
>system errors or the scan for bad sectors) XP displayed a dialogue with a sequence 
>of messages, telling me that the Error Checker was performing phase 1 of its check, 
>then phases 2 and 3 and finally a new dialogue appeared telling me that the check 
>had been completed - and nothing more.
>
>When I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt, using the command "CHKDSK C: /V" the 
output 
>was more informative:
>
>"The type of the file system is NTFS.
>
>WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
>Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
>
>CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
>File verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
>Index verification completed.
>Detected minor inconsistencies on the drive.
>CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused index entries from index
>Cleaning up 33 unused security descriptors.
>Security descriptor verification completed.
>CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
>Usn Journal verification completed.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>Windows found problems with the file system.
>Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct"
>
>My question is, which should I trust - the Error Checking tool (which I assume invokes 
>CHKDSK in the background) or the command line? Or perhaps a third party program?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

All these problems seem all too familiar. Had built my machine in March....ran great with XP home (NTFS). About a month ago my hard drive (120 GB Maxtor) crashed after a reboot. Just a simple reboot. Received message "disk read error" (or something like that). I had no problems till then. The only thing I had done was 2 weeks prior to this crash was installl extra memory. And 1 week prior install a sencond hard drive (120 GB Maxtor) to my RAID promise controler. I took the hard drive out and slaved it off another XP machine. Upon trying to gain excess to this drive I recieved the error "file or directory is corrupted and unreadable". Cost me $500.00 to have a recovery place retrieve all my lost pictures and imoprtant files (like a fool did not back-up on CD). Anyway, I purchased a new hard drive, another 120 GB maxtor hard drive, formated with NTFS WINXP, and loaded some of my programs, email, etc. Suddenly a few days later started getting file corruptions again. Messages told me to run check disk. When I went to run check disk (under tools and check now) nothing would happen. Almost like a dead function. I click the button and nothing would happen. I used the command window and typed in "CHKDSK" and I would recieve the messsage "file or directory is corrupted and unreadable". I could not even used the check disk to fix the disk. The diagnostics of winXP was corrupted. I rebooted with a continuous reboot happening over and over again. WinXP would not boot up. I slaved the drive off my working XP machine and gained access to the files in there, with a bunch missing (like outlook PST files). I used this second XP machine to do a CHKDSK on this screwed up drive......found problems and fixed them. But, it would still not function in my main computer, just keep rebooting by itself. Now my second machine running XP has been a dream. Not one problem. Both using an NTFS format. Only difference is my main machine uses a RAID controller with two 120 GB maxtor hard drives (one being the boot drive). I redid the hard drive with a fresh NTFS load and winXP, using the win XP disk for this. Ran great for a few days, then a file corruption came up. Quickly ran CHKDSK. Found problems, fixed them, and kept running fine. So whats the real sollution here? Run CHKDSK every chance you get?? Kill the power suddenly instead of letting winXP shut it down.....does that include a reboot??? Try some of the suggestions from above?? I have to use NTFS for my file system because I connect my DV camera to the computer and save my video to the hard drive for converting over to a DVD format to burn to a DVD. Most of these files are over 4 GB which a FAT32 does not support. So any more ideas would be great help. Thanks.


On Monday, September 15, 2003 at 3:04 pm, James S. wrote:
>I am having this same type problem. I run chkdsk from the command line prompt and
>consistently see the error,
>Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
>Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
>--------------
>I have this compaq presario, windows xp or prof., brand new pc since 11/02. Just
>recently, over the past 4 to 8 weeks, I am not able to correct the problem above.
>A couple of the newsgroups from yahoo suggest that the HDD is corrupt. Also, HP/Compaq
>say the same, corrupt. I was introduced to the 6 floppy disk set of xp boot disk
>setup. Was told to delete the partition and start over. Tried this several times.
>No success. Tried several FDISK's, no success. Early this morning, after doing a
>disk sanitizer, windows IS able to fix the errors above. AFTER I install most of
>the critical updates, I have the errors, again. Have tried both, c.l.i. or the 'c'
>drive icon, properties, tools, check now. Neither will fix the errors. I have tried
>20 attempts. I have a LOW tolerance if a problem CANNOT fix a problem. Windows did
>crash due to a re-boot. I am getting the report, the HDD is not dirty. I will try
>the suggestion, format in fat32. If you have any comments, feel free to e-mail me,
>js8jim@msn.com Thank you, JIM
>=================================
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hello; I think I may have found a way to fix my problem and yours, too. If I delete the partition the error messages are coming from when doing chkdsk, then format the HDD in fat32, c: /fs:fat32, then on re-boot, let the o.s. xp, start loading. My recovery cd's will auto. choose ntfs as the format to format my hdd. I have NO option of which format when the recovery cd's either format and recovery, or, do a recovery. ***Another point I would like to make, when installing all the updates from microsoft, do a SMALL amount at a time. Defragment. Run chkdsk. Install more updates, so on, so on.It was suggested from a microsoft rep. to install the updates, a few at a time..After I install i.e. 6.x s.p.1a, then I had problems trying to fix the errors, chkdsk found. Like to add, try this, chkdsk c: /v /f, or, chkdsk c: /f ,I used to type chkdsk c:/f (that is wrong). If you would like a little more help, contact me at:js8jim@msn.com =>P.S. I have obsessive/compulsive habits, despite that, I have a habit of doing chkdsk as often as I feel is necessary. Best wishes, JIM ================================


On Tuesday, September 23, 2003 at 10:27 am, Jim wrote:
>All these problems seem all too familiar. Had built my machine in March....ran great with XP home (NTFS). About a month ago my hard drive (120 GB Maxtor) crashed after a reboot. Just a simple reboot. Received message "disk read error" (or something like that). I had no problems till then. The only thing I had done was 2 weeks prior to this crash was installl extra memory. And 1 week prior install a sencond hard drive (120 GB Maxtor) to my RAID promise controler. I took the hard drive out and slaved it off another XP machine. Upon trying to gain excess to this drive I recieved the error "file or directory is corrupted and unreadable". Cost me $500.00 to have a recovery place retrieve all my lost pictures and imoprtant files (like a fool did not back-up on CD). Anyway, I purchased a new hard drive, another 120 GB maxtor hard drive, formated with NTFS WINXP, and loaded some of my programs, email, etc. Suddenly a few days later started getting file corruptions again. Messages told me to run check disk. When I went to run check disk (under tools and check now) nothing would happen. Almost like a dead function. I click the button and nothing would happen. I used the command window and typed in "CHKDSK" and I would recieve the messsage "file or directory is corrupted and unreadable". I could not even used the check disk to fix the disk. The diagnostics of winXP was corrupted. I rebooted with a continuous reboot happening over and over again. WinXP would not boot up. I slaved the drive off my working XP machine and gained access to the files in there, with a bunch missing (like outlook PST files). I used this second XP machine to do a CHKDSK on this screwed up drive......found problems and fixed them. But, it would still not function in my main computer, just keep rebooting by itself. Now my second machine running XP has been a dream. Not one problem. Both using an NTFS format. Only difference is my main machine uses a RAID controller with two 120 GB maxtor hard drives (one being the boot drive).
>
>I redid the hard drive with a fresh NTFS load and winXP, using the win XP disk for this. Ran great for a few days, then a file corruption came up. Quickly ran CHKDSK. Found problems, fixed them, and kept running fine. So whats the real sollution here? Run CHKDSK every chance you get?? Kill the power suddenly instead of letting winXP shut it down.....does that include a reboot??? Try some of the suggestions from above??
>
>I have to use NTFS for my file system because I connect my DV camera to the computer and save my video to the hard drive for converting over to a DVD format to burn to a DVD. Most of these files are over 4 GB which a FAT32 does not support.
>
>So any more ideas would be great help. Thanks.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Not too sure about your fix. Your deleting the partition where the errors are coming from. Formating with a FAT32, then loading XP with a NTFS format? I thought the idea was to load XP on a FAT32 then convert to an NTFS? There was a post in here explaining this. Like I mentioned before, I do need to run NTFS because of the file sizes I work with. So really where is the problem? With NTFS? With XP itself? or with XP and NTFS used togther? Because there should be some fix out there for XP to be more compatible with the NTFS. Even though XP does not give you the ability to format with a FAT32 (have to use a third hand SW). I am comenting on a post about a MS update. Q331958 - do a search at MS knowledge base on this update. Still wondering if I should install this update. It mentions about hard drives larger then 137 GB. I have two 120 GB hard drives connected to a third IDE channel controlled by a RAID promise controller. I seem to have file corruptions with both hard drives. One of these 120 GB drives is my boot drive, the other for storage and back up. Both using an NTFS format. So my question is this, after reading about this update (Q331958) I am wondering if XP looks at these drives together for a total of 240 GB? Would it even hurt to add this update if it still does not apply to a certain problem? Currently, I am just defragin' and check diskin' as often as I can. Mostly after a few program installs or MS updates. Been almost a week with no real problem. From what I read in this thread. Some fixes that have seemed to cure these file corruption problem are: 1. Using a FAT32 for your XP install. 2. Use defrag and check disk more often then you use the restrooms. 3. Apply the MS update (Q331958) 4. Go buy a Mac. Have I missed any real helpful tips on this problem?


On Tuesday, September 23, 2003 at 9:34 pm, James wrote:
>Hello; I think I may have found a way to fix my problem and yours, too. If I delete
>the partition the error messages are coming from when doing chkdsk, then format the
>HDD in fat32, c: /fs:fat32, then on re-boot, let the o.s. xp, start loading. My recovery
>cd's will auto. choose ntfs as the format to format my hdd. I have NO option of which
>format when the recovery cd's either format and recovery, or, do a recovery.
>***Another point I would like to make, when installing all the updates from microsoft,
>do a SMALL amount at a time. Defragment. Run chkdsk. Install more updates, so on,
>so on.It was suggested from a microsoft rep. to install the updates, a few at a time..After
>I install i.e. 6.x s.p.1a, then I had problems trying to fix the errors, chkdsk found.
>Like to add, try this, chkdsk c: /v /f, or, chkdsk c: /f ,I used to type chkdsk
>c:/f (that is wrong). If you would like a little more help, contact me at:js8jim@msn.com
>=>P.S. I have obsessive/compulsive habits, despite that, I have a habit of doing
>chkdsk as often as I feel is necessary. Best wishes, JIM
>================================

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hello; Have you tried posting this question to the following newsgroup, WinXPHelp@yahoogroups.com? There are other newsgroups from yahoo on computers. Have you tried posting that question to those, as well? I recently just found out about these yahoo newsgroups. There is, pc_computersolutions@yahoogroups.com, computersupport_2@yahoogroups.com There might be more, not sure of the names. Best wishes, JIM ==========


On Wednesday, September 24, 2003 at 7:37 am, Jim wrote:
>Not too sure about your fix. Your deleting the partition where the errors are coming from. Formating with a FAT32, then loading XP with a NTFS format? I thought the idea was to load XP on a FAT32 then convert to an NTFS? There was a post in here explaining this. Like I mentioned before, I do need to run NTFS because of the file sizes I work with.
>So really where is the problem? With NTFS? With XP itself? or with XP and NTFS used togther? Because there should be some fix out there for XP to be more compatible with the NTFS. Even though XP does not give you the ability to format with a FAT32 (have to use a third hand SW).
>
>I am comenting on a post about a MS update.
>Q331958 - do a search at MS knowledge base on this update. Still wondering if I should install this update. It mentions about hard drives larger then 137 GB. I have two 120 GB hard drives connected to a third IDE channel controlled by a RAID promise controller. I seem to have file corruptions with both hard drives. One of these 120 GB drives is my boot drive, the other for storage and back up. Both using an NTFS format.
>So my question is this, after reading about this update (Q331958) I am wondering if XP looks at these drives together for a total of 240 GB? Would it even hurt to add this update if it still does not apply to a certain problem?
>
>Currently, I am just defragin' and check diskin' as often as I can. Mostly after a few program installs or MS updates. Been almost a week with no real problem.
>
>From what I read in this thread. Some fixes that have seemed to cure these file corruption problem are:
> 1. Using a FAT32 for your XP install.
> 2. Use defrag and check disk more often then you use the restrooms.
> 3. Apply the MS update (Q331958)
> 4. Go buy a Mac.
>
>Have I missed any real helpful tips on this problem? =============================

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This was the first place to come up in my search. Still looking around....although my system seems fairly stable. I'll check it out. Thanks!!


On Wednesday, September 24, 2003 at 10:06 am, James wrote:
>Hello; Have you tried posting this question to the following newsgroup,
>WinXPHelp@yahoogroups.com?
>There are other newsgroups from yahoo on computers. Have you tried posting that question
>to those, as well? I recently just found out about these yahoo newsgroups. There
>is, pc_computersolutions@yahoogroups.com, computersupport_2@yahoogroups.com
>There might be more, not sure of the names.
>Best wishes, JIM
>==========

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