Tweaking.com Support Forums
Main Forum => Tweaking.com Support & Help => Topic started by: Steel430 on March 22, 2017, 01:05:49 pm
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Hi Folks,
Decided to give Tweaking.com's Windows Repair after seeing it recommended by MajorGeeks.com. Ran through the initial power down steps, etc., did a CHKDISK scan & it said there were errors. Before I went into the CHKDISK repair proper, I selected "yes" when it asked if I wanted to go into Safe Mode before continuing.
Rebooted my laptop and CHKDISK started its runthrough. The program says its "Scanning and Repairing Drive "C:": 28% Complete". However it's stayed at 28% for an hour and fifteen minutes.
Is it actually supposed to take this long for checking one section? I've got an ASUS Q500 laptop running Windows 8. Thanks!
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Was this a proper chkdsk with either a /f or /r parameter which could only be run on the next reboot before Windows was loaded ?
Running a chkdsk from within the program only runs it in read-only mode.
Open a Command Prompt (Admin) in normal mode then enter chkdsk /f
You'll be prompted to enter y for it to run on the next restart.
Enter shutdown /r /t 00 and wait for it to do its thing after the reboot.
You can read its log in Event Viewer by going Start - type eventvwr and press enter.
When it has read the data, expand Windows Logs - click on Action/Find then type chkdsk or wininit into the Find box and press enter.
Cancel the Find box then read the log in the scrollable window.
Let us know how that proceeds, but why did you feel the need to run the Windows Repair program ?
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Your patience with the newbie is much appreciated.
I'm guessing to do what you mentioned, I'll have to turn off the laptop and turn it back on? It's still at 28%.
To answer your comments: "Was this a proper chkdsk with either a /f or /r parameter which could only be run on the next reboot before Windows was loaded?" "Let us know how that proceeds, but why did you feel the need to run the Windows Repair program?"
I ran the repair program because I started with a scan and it said the disk had errors, recommendingI run the repair program after giving me the option to go into Safe mode. I don't remember an /f or /r parameter being given.
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CTRL+c may stop the chkdsk - otherwise just use the red cross to close the window and restart to get back into normal mode.
This is a known problem with chkdsk in read-only mode.
When it checks the drive and it happens to be checking a file that is currently being written to then it will repair an error when there isnt one.
This could be why it has stuck on 28%.
If you later did a chkdsk /f or /r and got no errors then you are good to go.
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Sorry, should've been more clear on which screen I was on (I was about to ask what "red cross" you were talking about).
This disk check isn't happening when I'm still logged in, it's happening after the system rebooted but before the login screen appears.
I've attached a photo for a better example.
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Sorry - I just meant the cross in the top right corner to close the command window - it usually turns to red when you place your cursor on it.
That looks like it is doing a proper chkdsk at least with a /f parameter if you were prompted to enter y for it to run on the next reboot.
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Ok, should I just be sitting tight then till this is done or is there anything else I can do if it's still at 28% tomorrow?
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Leave it running for now, but what did you enter for the chkdsk to run on the next boot ?
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I don't remember other than the program prompting to restart and going into Safe Mode while doing a repair for the issues it found.
EDIT: Apparently patience is indeed a virtue. Just checked my laptop and the log on screen was on. After I logged in, it started in Safe Mode with no issues and and I was able to restart and got it out of Safe Mode.
Again, thanks for your patience!
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Just to ensure everything is okay, open a Command Prompt (Admin) and enter chkdsk /r
You will be prompted to enter y for it to run on the next restart.
Enter shutdown /r /t 00 then let it do its thing after the reboot then follow the steps in my earlier post for how to read the log in Event Viewer.
Hopefully it will report no further action and 0 KB in bad sectors.
Now - did you have a problem that required running Windows Repair or was it just out of curiosity ?
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Well, I downloaded the program out of curiousity and started going through the steps (power reset, pre-scan) just to see how it'd do and what it'd tweak. When I got to the Check Disk section, I went through Step 1 to see if a Check Disk was needed, and it told me there were errors on the disk and "Check Disk" was needed. I just ran it again (precheck only and did a screenshot.
I checked the log and it starts off with:
"The type of the file system is NTFS. The volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk might report errors when no corruption is present.
WARNING! F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only mode."
You'll see the rest of the message in the second screenshot. After reading through some of the info on the Tweaking.com site, I figure it was a false positive.
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When you have other programs open and run a chkdsk in read-only mode, this has a greater chance of reporting an error.
I think it's best to read through the steps and then run a proper chdsk /f or /r, although you can still run a chkdsk in read-only mode on its own as I have done previously where it won't falsely report an error.
Have you run a chkdsk /f or /r as I've suggested ?
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Yup, just finished with a chkdsk /f, did the shutdown command and it rebooted.
I've got the event viewer open but when I expand Windows Logs, I don't see anything which says "Action/Find". I did type wininit into the Find box and hit enter. Though I do see a file name wininit which comes up, nothing appears when I click on the file directly or hit enter.
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My error for posting in a hurry.
When you expand Windows Logs, click on Application then on Action/Find and type chkdsk or wininit into the Find box and press enter.
Cancel the Find box then read the report in the scrollable pane below - you don't have to click on Wininit in the upper pane.
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Gotcha.
The Wininit screen says I'm fine (though a couple bad sectors). The ChkDisk screen says there's errors and can't continue. Screenshots below.
I'll go with the false positive for Check Disk.
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The reason it cannot continue in read-only mode is because it has found corruption due to the 360 KBs in bad sectors - that isn't a false positive.
Open another Command Prompt (Admin) and enter chkdsk /r but you need to create a system image onto external media for when the HDD finally fails.
The chkdsk /r will repair what files it can while preventing any more data being written to those bad sectors.
Read its log after to see what it reports.
I once had a chkdsk /f report 8 KB of bad sectors but after restoring with a system image for another reason, a subsequent chkdsk /f came back clean.
I never understood that because hardware always trumps software,
A scan with the 30 day trial of HD Sentinel confirmed that the HDD was healthy.
You can download the trial version of it from http://www.hdsentinel.com/ by hitting the green download button then uninstall it after to stop the clock on it.
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Thanks, I'll check out the HDSentinel when I can.
Ran a Chkdisk /r and I'm right back to it holding at 28% so I'll leave it running overnight.
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Ok, ran a report and there were a few instances of "Read failure..." followed by "Windows replaced bad clusters in file..." and ended with "adding 4 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters file", Windows had made corrections to the file system and no further action was required.
I also downloaded HD Sentinel and found out I've got 410 days for my hard drive's estimated remaining lifetime, and while it had a 100% performance, it's health was at 52%, so that's good to know.
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Once a HDD starts to fail, it can accelerate so I wouldn't take those ~13 months as gospel.
I'd pre-empt by creating a system image onto external media then get a new HDD.
You will need to change your boot order to be able to boot up with install media to get to the restore with an image option to put the image back onto the new HDD.
There's one good thing came out of running the pre-steps of WR and that is that you have been forewarned of a HDD failure rather than it coming out of the blue and losing all of your data.
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I'd agree, and I do appreciate your time in this post and tips, especially with HD Sentinel.
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Will you be changing the HDD yourself ?
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If I've got a year or less, then that's certainly long enough to learn how to image the drive and it's just a matter of switching out the HHD's. Or I might check and see what the latest laptops are like and upgrade. Not sure yet.
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Scroll down to Method 2 in this article for how to create a system image onto external media -
https://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8956-system-image-create-windows-8-a.html
This is how I create my system images onto an external HDD.
You will also need to create system repair disk to boot up with to get to the recovery environment to select restore with an image I created earlier, or however Win 8 words it -
https://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2855-system-repair-disc-create-windows-8-a.html
Before your HDD fails, you will need to change the boot order in the BIOS so that it checks the DVD drive before the HDD in order to boot up with the repair disk.
If you get to the stage where the laptop won't boot up, there's a pin hole in the DVD drawer that you can waggle a needle or straightened paper clip which will pop open the drawer.
Insert the repair disk then switch on where you'll be momentarily prompted to press any key to boot from CD/DVD.
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Thanks for the info. I think it's coming to the point where I need to take my laptop out to the back and shoot it.
I'd left my computer on when I stepped out and it'd shut down automatically at some point. Turned it back on and the login screen came on but I couldn't type the password for whatever reason and when I tried to restart by clicking on the option in the lower right corner, nothing happened. So I turned the power off & back on and the ASUS screen shows up, then the screen went black. After 5 minutes and nothing happening, I restart the laptop. The ASUS screen comes back with some type on the bottom stating it's going into "Diagnosing the PC", then switches to "Automatic Repair" to fix the disk.
Then I get a screen of options since Automatic Repair didn't fix the issue. Since one was the Command Prompt option, I clicked on that to try Chkdisk /r, which didn't work since it had a system32 prompt, not the admin,. Tried a system restore but there's supposedly no restore points even though I'd created one. I'm trying Automatic Repair one last time before doing a system refresh. I hate to reload all my programs but might have to.
So basically this laptop seems to be farked. :)
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When you are in the cmd prompt in that mode you have to direct the chkdsk to the volume.
While it is normally C: - Windows may see it as being in D: so you would first need to enter this cmd -
bcdedit |find "osdevice"
That is a Pipe symbol before find which is the uppercase of \
Assuming that it is C: you would enter chkdsk c: /r
From whatever you get when you have the machine switched on, does CTRL+ALT+DEL get you the option to choose Task Manager ?
If it does, then click on File/Run new task and enter eventvwr - check the box to run the task as an admin - OK
When the Event Viewer opens, ensure Event Viewer (Local) is highlighted in the left pane and when the sections come up, check to see if Critical gives you anything other than an Event ID 41 - that just tells you what you already know and is useless.
If that's all it gives then see what events Errors gives you.
Using Task Manager you can also use it to open a cmd prompt admin by typing cmd.exe in the Run new task box and also checking the box to run new task as an admin.
I don't know if you would be able to enter this cmd from the recovery cmd prompt, but see if you can boot it up into Safe Mode with Networking with these cmds.
At the cmd prompt enter bcdedit
You are looking for the Identifier which can either be {default} or {current}
Then enter bcdedit /set {your identifier} safeboot network
Enter exit to close the cmd window then restart.
Hopefully that will boot you to Safe Mode with Networking but you will need to wire up to get Internet connectivity.
If you can get that far then I want you to download BlueScreenView which will analyze your Memory Dump files to see if it can ID what caused the shutdown.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html
If you can get into that mode and a simple Restart doesn't get you back to normal mode, then from a cmd prompt admin enter -
bcdedit /deletevalue {your identifier} safeboot
exit
Then restart, but if the machine will only work in Safe Mode for the moment then, you will need to work in that mode.
If the HDD has further deteriorated then it could have damaged drivers, which BlueScreenView should highlight.
BTW - What are you using to post on ?
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I've got an old HP laptop (running XP) I use if the ASUS gives me trouble, so I either post from that or my phone.
If I can get back to the command screen, I'll give what you wrote a shot. Now it's taking me to the login screen, but either I can't log in because:
1. The login isn't accepting anything I type in that it stays blank some of the time. The mouse arrow moves around but when I click in the login box, it changes to the typing icon but that's it.
2. It accepts the password (sometimes it takes a couple minutes for each of the password dots to show up as the password gets typed out), looks like it's about to take me to the main screen but kicks me back to the Windows 8 prelogin screen with the graphic of Seattle. Normally it includes the time and an option to restart/shutdown/etc., but none of these options are showing up now, it's just the Seattle graphic.
One other thing I noticed - if I keep the laptop plugged, that's when it will make its way to the login screen, even if I restart it by taking out the battery. If I unplug it and take out the battery & turn it on, that's when it goes into the "diagnosing the PC" mode, so I might be able to give your advice a shot.
BTW, if this post has exceeded the scope of the original topic, I can start up a new one in the other forum. Didn't want to derail the original thread if this doesn't apply.
UPDATE: Success in that I was able to open the Command Prompt, typed in what you said and the current status is: "Verifying files: Stage 1 of 5). 1 percent complete. (50177 of 411904 file records processed).
Looks like this'll take a bit so I'll post again with the results.
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That's okay - you can continue in this thread for continuity.
You can also get to the Event Viewer from the cmd prompt by entering eventvwr to see if any drivers are having problems.
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Ok. I'll try it if it can get to that point. It's been holding at Stage 2 of 5 for the past 5 hours saying 11 percent complete, 411913 of 539966 index entries processed. The cursor is still blinking and I can move it around so it hasn't frozen up.
Any advice if it stays at that number? Not sure if I should close the command prompt and try again.
Stage 1 was completed with all files verified and 0 bad file records processed.
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I think I once read that someone waited about 3 days for a chkdsk /r to complete.
It's obvious that your HDD has taken a nose dive since running HDSentinel so chkdsk will have that much more work to do.
Do you have much personal stuff on that computer ?
Given the state of the HDD's degradation, I'm not sure if you will be able to use Linux to recover some of those files.
https://www.winhelp.us/recover-files-using-puppy-linux.html
When the HDD fails completely you would have to reinstall the OS onto a new HDD and while you can create Win 8/8.1 install disks, you would be dependent upon Microsoft activating it for you, or you could contact ASUS for a set of recovery disks which would take your computer back to out of the box.
Did you not upgrade to Win 8.1 from 8.0 ?
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Yeah, at this point I'd agree on the 3 days part. But it did move on to Stage 4 of 5 and there's 9 messages about Windows replacing bad clusters. It's at 290592 of 411888.
And yes, there's a bunch of personal stuff on there. I have backups but not of a few new folders, so hopefully this'll be enough of a fix I can do that.
I didn't upgrade to Windows 8.1 since at the time I was hearing enough about how it wasn't exactly a "fix" and 8 was running fine enough for me so didn't see the need to.
I'll look into Puppy Linux a bit more. I was hoping to just be able to put the drive in a external shell and copy some of the files over with a USB line.
UPDATE:
It's done with the check. It says 243 bad clusters were added to the Bad Clusters File. Windows has made corrections to the file system. No further action is required. Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50.
I was able to enter the commands like you said and it booted to Safe Mode so I can grab my files. Also downloaded the Bluescreen file onto a USB and will transfer it over to my laptop to see what it says.
FURTHER UPDATE:
I ran the Bluescreen program and it came back to two readings. I'd post the screenshots but figure it was moot since I ran HDSentinel right after and it said the HD health was at 0% and to backup immediately.
At least I was able to grab the newer folders I hadn't backed up yet.
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Sounds like you've managed a decent salvage of your files - hope they haven't been corrupted.
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I can open some of them fine on the laptop so doesn't look like it. Thanks again for all your help!
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Good luck with getting a replacement HDD and getting it back up and running.