Are there some kinds of disk corruption that Chkdsk cannot fix?

[smirk]

Hi, the other day I scheduled chkdsk on my boot drive ("chkdsk c: /r") and it reported that it fixed a couple minor problems. I scheduled it to run again and it reported that it fixed the same problems. Basically, every time I run chkdsk it finds and fixes the same exact problem. Here is a sample log entry:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is SYS.


A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 2 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.

  20972825 KB total disk space.
   8823080 KB in 29885 files.
    11780 KB in 4020 indexes.
        0 KB in bad sectors.
    148105 KB in use by the system.
    65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  11989860 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
   5243206 total allocation units on disk.
   2997465 allocation units available on disk.

I pulled the drive, installed it in my PC running XP, and scanned it with AVG and also Malwarebytes. Both scans came up negative. I also ran Chkdsk on both partitions on that drive but it didn't find anything wrong. However, that same disk error was found again when I reinstalled the drive into the original computer and ran Chkdsk.

What's going on here? Why would chkdsk find and fix the same error with every boot, yet no errors show up when the drive is installed into a different PC?

Thanks!

 

[Elixer]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/109524

n the above error message, "minor inconsistencies" refers to a state where redundant information stored in different places is "out of synch." This is a natural and expected condition whenever there are open files on the volume that have undergone modification. The redundant information is not brought into synchronization until the files are closed. Typically, this error message occurs when CHKDSK is run against the volume containing Windows NT system files (including active user profiles and the pagefile). If you also receive a message indicating that CHKDSK /f cannot run because the volume is in use by another process, that is a confirmation that there are open files on the volume.

Don't worry about it.

 

[Emulex]

i would test ram, check smart.

 

[taltamir]

Are there some kinds of disk corruption that Chkdsk cannot fix?

Yes, quite a few different kinds of problems. Especially in NTFS formatted partitions.

I find the best solution when I have one of those is to backup my data and then repartition the drive.

Why would chkdsk find and fix the same error with every boot, yet no errors show up when the drive is installed into a different PC?

Now that is an interesting question, and quite different to the one you asked in the title. If it was a genuine disk corruption then it should be detected when plugged into another computer and tested for. Your problem then is not one of disk data corruption

 

[Nothinman]

What Elixer said. Basically not everything in memory has been committed to disk yet so chkdsk gets an incomplete picture. You really need to flush all pages to disk and unmount a volume before running chkdsk if you want it to function reliably.

 

[smirk]

That's good to know. I've run chkdsk lots of times before on different systems and never seen a recurring error like that, but this is the first time I've run it on Windows Home Server, so maybe it opens some files when it boots up to run chkdsk.

Thanks for the help, guys!

 

[Nothinman]

I'd say you've probably just be lucky in the past and the machine just had no dirty pages when you ran chkdsk.

 

[Emulex]

1. test ram
2. test io = write random data and test to see if it comes back the same.
3. make sure you have updated drivers the system should have enough time during shutdown to flush the drive buffers.

thing is alot of people don't realize win7/vista have self healing ntfs (newer) that can deal with alot of issues behind the scene. like ext4/ufs+ you can do chkdsk on a live filesystem. big advantage over the xp ntfs.

Lastly: virus - you sure you are clean?

 

[smirk]

I'll test RAM tonight. I haven't explicitly updated any drivers in a year, which is when I originally built the PC and set everything up, but I'll check that out, too.

About viruses, well I pulled the drive out (this is the boot drive of a Windows Home Server box, which is basically Windows Server 2003) and put it into my XP box and ran AVG and also Malwarebytes on it and it came up clean.

There was one oddity that I didn't originally mention for fear of muddying the waters, but what originally led me to run chkdsk and antivirus was that when I logged into the server a notification popped up that said "Download updates for PX Engine. PX Engine has stopped working properly. To solve this problem, go to the Roxio Software website to download and install the update." What's odd is that I don't have any Roxio software installed on this system, unless this service came bundled with the OS.

 

[Emulex]

this is why i install every machine by hand now - its impossible to remove many apps completely. things that haunt you years down the road. alot of people underestimate windows 7 migration tool - it works great - maybe time to upgrade or use migration tool to migrate xp to xp with a fresh install of apps?

 

[smirk]

Well, that's not really an option. Like I said, this is a Windows Home Server installation... it's not an XP machine being used as a server; there is actually a product named "Windows Home Server" that is based on Windows Server 2003.

If anything more major crops up in the coming months I'll probably get a new boot drive and reinstall the OS.

Thanks!