winxp slow on startup bc of consistency check... please help

[badboyeee]

i had my winxp for a couple months now.. jus last week its starting to get really sloooww... especially during startup... and it keeps checking for consistency!! (is this scandisk??).. it takes for ever for it to check consistency (almost 3 hours for 8gigs).. how do i make it surpass it? i always have to sit for like 3 min then watch out for the skip consistency check which they give me 10 seconds to do

i tried to do a system restore a month back... it doesnt let me do it!
i tried , use last known good confirguration, that dont work too

 

[LongTimePCUser]

I had this problem a few months ago. Diskkeeper (defrag progarm) would never run on the C-Drive because if was always marked as dirty. Chkdsk on startup would never fix it. The only solution was to do a clean install of WinXP. You don't have to format the hard drive but you do have to reinstall all software. This is really a major problem win NTFS. Sometimes the hard drive becomes corrupted and chkdsk does not fix the problem.

 

[KnS]

Load the Recover Console and run a fixboot then try a scandisk. If that doesn't do it OS reinstall.

 

[badboyeee]

when i reinstall, i just install over it right? or does clean install mean delete my drive and install again

 

[Woodchuck2000]

If chkdsk /f doesn't do it, try a windows Thorough Scandisk. If neither of those work, re-installing over the top might be the only option. You won't lose any files or settings though.

 

[LongTimePCUser]

A "clean" install means that you delete the windows folder and then reinstall Windows. That means that the registry is deleted and that you have to re-install all the software that you use. You will still have all your application data files. Make sure that you save your Outlook mail files and Favorites first since they are stored inside the Windows folder.

Formatting the C-Drive is the best way to do a clean install but you lose all the data files you had. The advantage is that you start with a brand new file system on C and get rid of all the bad sectors. This is probably the best way but you really need to do a complete backup of all your data files.

Another way to back up all your Outlook & Favorites under WinXP is to go to Start --> Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. Then do the backup to a different hard drive. This is probably the best way to do it. Make sure that you also copy My Documents & other important stuff to the 2nd hard drive. Then format C, reinstall Windows and run the Files & Settings Transfer Wizard to restore all your settings, email etc.

Good luck. It took me most of a weekend to get all this done.

 

[psianime]

I agree on the clean install. The problem you have might be more than meets the eye.

-psianime