Checkdisk Keeps Starting?

[dandino]

Hi there

I have a very strange problem that I can't seem to get to the bottom of: on about every 4th or 5th start (cold boot) of my pc Checkdisk starts to run advising me that at least one of my disks needs checking for errors! It starts and after a short while I get the following message:-

"Deleting currupt attribute record 128 from file record segment 52100"
"Deleting currupt attribute record 128 from file record segment 52102"

This continues for about 50 lines or so and then I get:-

"Corecting error in index" for about 10-15 lines, then:-

"Recovering orphaned file xxxxxxxx.xxx into directory 21222"

This goes on for ages, something like 10-15 minutes! There are thousands of files! I have noticed that all these files are internet related eg. GIFs JPEGs HTML ASP etc.

I really don't know what the hell is going on here. Windows has always been shut down correctly before a restart, so as far as I can see Checkdisk shouldn't start.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?
I am running Windows XP Pro on a P4 3 Ghz system
1 gig RAM
2 x Segate 120 gig hard disks

Any help greatly appreciated
Dan Hawkes

[ski]

Update your AV program with the latest files and do a virus search, and also remove all spyware.

If no luck, then what happens when you run ScanDisk with the O/S loaded?

[dandino]

Hi ski

I have updated my av definitions and have done a scan of all drives and no viruses were found - completely clean.

I just ran checkdisk from windows (it has to reboot to start) and everything was ok.

I'm still very puzzled :confused:

Now wondering if this a software or hardware problem?

[ski]

It's possible that the HD overheated. Two 120GB HD's can generate a lot of heat.
If they're mounted next to each other, then see if one can be mounted in a different bay so there's a space between them.
And also consider installing a HD cooling fan.

[dandino]

Thanks ski you could be right, think I will try that.

Just one more thing that I would like to eliminate from the equation before you go.

About 3 weeks ago I changed my motherboard from a P4 Abit IC7 (the NB fan kept cutting out) to a P4 Gigabyte GA-8KNXP board. Incidently, I never had the checkdisk problem before I changed boards. Anyway when I ran setup to reinstall windows I deleted the original C partition, created a new one and then formatted it. Do you think that there is any possibility that some of the old system files could be leaking through from the old C partition and causing problems? I doubt this could happen, but would value your opinion.

A few other strange things have happened since I swapped motherboards: I'v had incorrect colours on some program menu bars and I have twice lost all of my emails from my inbox, sent items, and deleted items - they just suddenly vanished! The strange thing is although I am experiencing these wiered happenings, windows appears to be running fine - no major problems like crashes etc.

What do you think ski, do you think changing the boards may have something to do with it, or does it still sound to you that the disk may have over heated?

Thanks
Dan Hawkes

[mjc]

Check that your hard drives are correctly identified in BIOS.....my motherboard did not intially correctly ID my drive when I had it set to Auto.

I was having strange problems like you are describing......scandisk/check disk always running, etc.

[dandino]

Thanks mjc, I will check the BIOS

[dandino]

BIOS appears ok. I have 4 IDE channels 0,1,2 and 3.
0 and 1 are ATA 100s while 2 and 3 are ATA 133s.

I have my DVD rom and writer on IDE 0 and 1, and my hard drives as master and slave on IDE 2, IDE 3 is empty.

Incidently IDE 2 and 3 can be used as RAID or normal ATA. I have them set to normal ATA.

[sleddog]

I'd want to set my mind at ease that there wasn't some physical disk problem.... Seagate will have a disk utility on their website. Dowload it, put it on a bootable floppy, boot to it, run a complete scan of the harddrive that the errors refer too. If it comes up clean you can at least eliminate that from the equation. But the harddrive might be failing, and the change of motherboards is a red herring.

[dandino]

Ok sleddog, I have a good disk testing prog that i can run from my diags boot CD, I will leave it on over night.

I was going to do that anyway but then I thought "no can't be the disk because it would affect a whole cross section of files and not just web related ones", but in hindsight it could be just a sector or 2 that happen to contain my temp internet files. I shouldn't have been so sloppy!

Thanks for reminding me.
Will post results tomorrow :)

[sleddog]

If you really think it's related to your browser cache, try as a test moving your Temporary Internet Files to a different location -- say on the other harddrive. See if the problem follows along :)

[dandino]

Ran my disk test utitlity for a full 11 hours last night and not a single disk error logged - think I can safely say it is nothing to do with my disk.

When I rebooted last night and windows loadded I got a message relating to my graphics card, can't remember the exact wording but windows indicated a problem with my overclocked board and asked me if I wanted to keep the setting or go back to the default. I chose the default. I had forgotten that I had overclocked it (very slightly) using a little prog that came with the board ,3d tweaker.

I wondered if having the board overcloked may have been causing these problems but i think this message only poped up because I had reinstalled the drivers a few hours before - Although funnily at the first reboot after reinstalling the graphics drivers this mesage didn't display.

Any further help or ideas appreciated

Dan hawkes

[sleddog]

If you overclocked the frontside bus it could indeed affect you harddrives. Undo the overclock. You know of course that overclocking a machine of that calibre will bring no real-world benefit -- unless you spend all your time running benchmark tests :)

You can also look in Adminstrative Tools -> Event Log for any harddrive errors.

[dandino]

Hello again sleddog

No I don't think I overclocked the fsb, I was just playing around with a utility prog that came with my ATI card. It claimed to overclock the graphics card and chip - i don't know if this proggy also overclocked my motherboard's fsb.

Anyway thanks for all your help so far. So far checkdisk hasn't run but I've only rebooted a few times. Please look in occasionally if you don't mind - checkdisk just may show up again on my next reboot, or the next, or the next, or t..... :(

Dan Hawkes