CHKDSK is Taking Forever!

[Steady Teddy]

I'm not sure if I have a hardware or a software problem so I don't know if I'm in the right sub forum.

The HD in my desktop (specs in sig) is 120 GB and running CHKDSK (From the Tools tab/Error Checking) usually takes around 1 hour max to complete. But I started CHKDSK before I went out this morning and when I came back over 3 hours later, it was still at 50% of stage 5 and increasing ever so slowly.

The screen at that point did not show any "bad clusters" but since it was taking so long I thought CHKDSK was hanging so I did a hard reboot to run it again. It's still taking much longer than usual the second time and now stage 4 is showing bad clusters in "\hiberfil.sys", "\SYSTEM~1\_REST~1\RP24\A0004391.dll", & "\PROGRA~1\Ahead\NEROVI~1".

Over two hours into the second CHKDSK today and it was stuck at 16% for at least a half hour. It just jumped to 22% a few minutes ago.

I have a clean install of Windows with about 100GB of free space. I just reformatted a couple of weeks ago after turinng on my pc one morning only to encounter the "WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM" error.

MY HD is around 5 years old. Is that fact that CHKDSK is taking forever now and I had to reformat recently because of the "WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM" a sign that my HD is going bad or am I perhaps having bad luck with Windows files being corrupted?

I don't even have that many programs installed to begin with.

If I need a new HD, will SATA drives install on older PCs? What do I need to check in the BIOS?

Thanks in advance.

[YukonMaster]

It will if your motherboard has sata conectors and it is sata capable. The motherboard in your sig doesn't look like it is compatible. You would have to get an IDE drive which there are alot available. It does look like your hard drive is at its near end, I would recommend backing up everything before it gets worse, as you may lose access to the drive if it gets to bad. Have you heard recently or at all, any clicking sounds or unusual sounds from you HDD?

Also have you tried any other disk checking programs? Ive used Emsa DiskCheck 1.0.57 and it might be able to find whats wrong or at least complete thte scan in a decent amount of time.

YukonMaster

[Steady Teddy]

Originally Posted by YukonMaster It will if your motherboard has sata conectors and it is sata capable. The motherboard in your sig doesn't look like it is compatible. You would have to get an IDE drive which there are alot available. It does look like your hard drive is at its near end, I would recommend backing up everything before it gets worse, as you may lose access to the drive if it gets to bad. Have you heard recently or at all, any clicking sounds or unusual sounds from you HDD? Also have you tried any other disk checking programs? Ive used Emsa DiskCheck 1.0.57 and it might be able to find whats wrong or at least complete thte scan in a decent amount of time.

No clicking noises. But for this to be happening now with a clean install of XP...perhaps the HD is dying. I was planning on getting a new desktop since I'm WAY overdue and keeping this as a backup pc. Maybe just a quality IDE 160 GB HD would suffice. The MoBo is 5 years and I just found out I would most likely need a SATA controller as well if I wanted a SATA HD.

Just over an hour since my first post but CHKDSK is only at 79%...

I've never heard of Emsa DiskCheck 1.0.57 but I'll see if I can use to check what's going on.


Thanks

[glc]

The hard drive is bad. Confirm by downloading Hitachi Drive Fitness Test from www.hgst.com.

To do a fresh XP install on any drive larger than 137gb will require SP1 or SP2 already incorporated on the CD.

BEST IDE out there for the money:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148143

[Steady Teddy]

Originally Posted by glc To do a fresh XP install on any drive larger than 137gb will require SP1 or SP2 already incorporated on the CD.

Huh?? I wasn't aware of this. That means I'll have to get another 120 GB HD because my copy of XP Pro is very old. It doesn't even have SP1 on it.

I guess a Seagate 120 GB would be a good buy as well?

Thx again

[mojo]

It would be a fine drive, just not very cost effective in terms of $/GB.

You can fairly easily slipstream service packs into and older XP cd and burn yourself a new install cd, instructions are here.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...slipstream.asp

And a nice little utility to automate the process and instructions for its use are here.

http://www.simplyguides.net/guides/u...streamer.shtml

[Steady Teddy]

Originally Posted by mojo It would be a fine drive, just not very cost effective in terms of $/GB. You can fairly easily slipstream service packs into and older XP cd and burn yourself a new install cd, instructions are here. http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...slipstream.asp And a nice little utility to automate the process and instructions for its use are here. http://www.simplyguides.net/guides/u...streamer.shtml

Probably a dumb question but I don't see any info on the Microsoft SP2 download page about SP1. Is SP1 included as part of the slipstream download of SP2?

Thanks again

[HAL9000]

SP2 has all the SP1 updates incorporated.