Computer Woes- Can't run Check Disk

[Tim Grams]

I have a Dell XPS, about 3 years old. The BIOS is up to date, I run AVG anti virus and Registry Mechanic. My C drive is 80 gb and I want to replace it. I have a 300 gb drive installed as the E drive. I have all of the original disks that came with the computer.

Several weeks ago I deleted some unused programs. Not long after that I began getting messages about corrupted files and instructions to run the Check Disk utility.

I have tried repeatedly to run the Check Disk utility but in the second step I get this message "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25." That message will fill the screen and stop the program. I have to turn off the computer and abort the Check Disk utility. When running the Check Disk utility I've used mutiple combinations of the options offered and get the same message every time.

Since I always got corrupt file messages with Outlook, I deleted that program but now can not re-install it. I am unable load other software such as Adobe Reader that has also been corrupted and no longer works.

I have purged the recycle bin so restoring the deleted files that apparently started this problem is not an option.

I tried installing the trial version of Acronis True Image to mirror my C drive, but got error messages during the install. I had hoped to mirror the C drive on the E Drive and use that as the boot disk then replace the C drive with a larger drive.

I also tried manually copying my C drive files to another drive however I got messages on corrupted files when moving the Drivers and some of the Program files.

My attempts to resolves this problem(s) are proving fruitless and the computer seems to be in a downward spiral with more problems every day.

Questions:

1. Is my C drive failing or is this a software problem?

2. What should I try next?

Thanks for any advice!

[E.J. Peiker]

No I don't think this is a drive failure problem. This is almost certainly an OS corruption problem. You didn't say which OS you are using. If you were regularly cloning your C: drive, it would simply be a swap out to a clone you made right before this was happening but it sounds like you no longer have that option. Cloning your existing drive to a new one will just clone the problem onto a new drive so that could not work. Moving programs and drivers never works. They must be installed in order to properly update the registry and put dynamic link libraries in the right places.

So the first thing I would try is to do a repair install on the OS. Boot from your original Windows disk (you may have to modify the boot order in the BIOS to do this) and after a few screens it will give you the option to do a full reinstall which wipes out the drive or to do a repair install. Select the repair install and let it do its thing.

There is probably a 33% chance that this will fix it. If it doesn't, you will have to do a full reinstall but rather than doing it on the 80GB drive, I would do that on the new 300GB drive and start fresh. Just remove the 80GB drive and install the 300GB drive in its place. You will also have to fully reinstall any software that you used to have on the 80GB drive plus drivers, etc. The 80GB drive can be stuck in another drive bay or in an external housing and any stuff that you need off of it, like download files or any data can then be copied over to your new drive since that stuff is probably fine.

[Baywing]

Have you tried a system restore? Pick a point well before the trouble started.

[E.J. Peiker]

Have you tried a system restore? Pick a point well before the trouble started.

It's worth a try but highly unlikely to work - this is a corruption problem. A restore point can't fix something that has been corrupted unless the corrupted file was installed after the restore point was made - almost no chance of recovery with that. But it is definitely worth a try

[Tim Grams]

Thanks for the speedy responses!

I tried the system restore for multiple dates with no success.

I'm running XP pro. But now I can't find the pro disk so all I have on hand is the home version of XP.

I'll try a reinstall of XP using the home edition.

[E.J. Peiker]

I don't think you can do that. It has to be the same edition and the disk that the original install was from - at least it does in newer versions of Windows. I haven't messed with XP at the OS level in quite a while now.

[GeneO]

Thanks for the speedy responses!

I tried the system restore for multiple dates with no success.

I'm running XP pro. But now I can't find the pro disk so all I have on hand is the home version of XP.

I'll try a reinstall of XP using the home edition.

Before you do that you may want to check your disk for bad blocks. chkdsk /f /r c:

That will run a (very long time) scan of all blocks on the disk looking for bad sectors at *boot*. No since reinstalling an OS if the underlying disk is bad.

Gene

[Tim Grams]

I tried to install XP home- no luck. I get a message during the install process that my drive is too full. Which is accurate since I have only about 2 gb of space left.

That should be easy- delete some files..... Now I'm unable to delete files because my C drive is too full. No kidding! I get a message that the file is either read only or the drive is too full. In fact all of my files are now read only for some unknown reason and my attempts to change the setting is fruitless. I tried to cut and paste files but they are still left on the C drive even though they showed up on the drive that I pasted them to.

GeneO- that is part of the problem- I can't run the Disk Check utility to look for problems. The computer freezes on the second part of the message with this filling the screen: "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25."

[E.J. Peiker]

OK, now things are falling into place - that would have been useful info at the beginning First, get rid of your old system restore points. Go into Disk Cleanup and select the More Options tab and then under system restore, hit clean-up. If you have never done this, it may get you back several Gigabytes of storage. That will free up enough disk space to at least get stuff off of your drive. Windows simply does not work well when there is less than about 3-4GB of free disk space.

Also if you have something like ccleaner on your system (free download) that will likely get rid of another 100MB or more.

If it's still not enough, you can also kill your virtual memory temporarily which reserves a significant amount of disk space.

[GeneO]

I tried to install XP home- no luck. I get a message during the install process that my drive is too full. Which is accurate since I have only about 2 gb of space left.

That should be easy- delete some files..... Now I'm unable to delete files because my C drive is too full. No kidding! I get a message that the file is either read only or the drive is too full. In fact all of my files are now read only for some unknown reason and my attempts to change the setting is fruitless. I tried to cut and paste files but they are still left on the C drive even though they showed up on the drive that I pasted them to.

GeneO- that is part of the problem- I can't run the Disk Check utility to look for problems. The computer freezes on the second part of the message with this filling the screen: "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25."

Did you try and do the chkdsk at boot like I suggested, or after windows has booted an you logged in? It might work at boot.

You may need to reformat the drive (after saving any data files to other storage as they will be wiped out), then run the install. It is best to do an install with a freshly formatted disk. If you you have data files you cannot save to other storage, then don;t format, but before installing XP home, remove all you can of the pro installation - windows, program files, etc. before the install. If you have trouble deleting files, boot to the XP home CD and after it boots up windows, choose to the recovery option. This may ask you for your password if you used one, but will put you to the command prompt on the C: drive. You should be able to delete files from the recovery command prompt.

Gene

Gene

[E.J. Peiker]

Reformat the drive (after saving any data files to other storage), then run the install.

Why bother if he has a brand new 300GB drive that he was going to replace the 80GB one with anyway? Just start fresh on the new drive - see my initial post.

[Royce Howland]

Good debugging tips from all these folks Tim, but despite being relatively experienced IT guy up to a point, I'm also a weird combo of goal-oriented and paranoid. LOL. If it was me I would have stopped messing with the main drive and done what E.J. first suggested -- put in a new system disk and done a clean install of the OS. Then worked at transferring over info I may need from the old hosed disk.

Massive corruption, failed chkdsk, disk full, aborted installs of multiple OS releases... this is a recipe for a total meltdown and a ton of wasted time. Continuing down the attempted troubleshooting route in this situation feels like a bit of target fixation to me. My advice is cut your losses and bail... do a clean install on a new disk and recover your apps & data from there as necessary. A clean install will probably benefit you for other reasons anyway, giving you a nice fresh base again.

[GeneO]

I missed that he has a new 300GB drive, I picked up on the thread after that. Then he might as well do a fresh install to the 300GB drive and copy any data files over from the 80 GB drive, then do diagnostics on the 80GB drive - agree.

Gene

[Tim Grams]

I'm doing the complete re-install.

I've replaced the 80 gb with the 300 gb in the C drive. The second bay now has a 1 tb drive, E drive. I formatted the 300 gb and 1 tb drives before I put them in the computer. I have the 80 gb drive, which has all of my program files, in an external enclosure and it is attached via USB. I found the XP pro CD but since its the upgrade version, I apparently have to use the home version for the install since it is the full version.

I booted the computer and hit F12 to install XP home from the CD. The set up runs normally and I selected the option to install XP. I'm now getting a message that the start up program can not gain access to the partition that I selected. I selected (C: Partition1 [NTFS] 76285 MB { 6839 MB free}). The other option is (Unpartioned space 8 MB).

I have not changed the SCSI adaptor nor do I have any secondary hard disk controller.

The 300 bg disk came installed when I bought the computer and certainly works in it.

I looked in Set Up and both drives (C and E) are turned on.

What do I have to do to resolve this?

[E.J. Peiker]

Not much difference between Home and Pro for the individual user. Actually if I were you I would abort the XP install and just install Win 7.

As for the partition, I'm sure you forgot to actually activate the partition. After creating it you have to make it an active partition. You do this via Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management then right click on the drive and make the partition active.

[Tim Grams]

I installed the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor and it identified a number of problems. Considering the problems I'm having getting a known OS working, I decided to stick with XP.

How do I activate the partion when my OS is not installed? Can I do it in Set Up? When I try to boot via USB to access the 80 gb drive with XP on it, the computer tells me that drive 1 is not found. My only option seems to be the Set Up menu.

[E.J. Peiker]

The disk probably came with a bootable CD with some utilities. You could use that to set-up the drive. There are probably other methods I can't think of right now.

Another would be to take the drive out, put it in a housing, hook it to a different computer, format the drive and make sure the partition is activated.

[Tim Grams]

OK, I took the drive out, activated the partion and re-installed the drive. You were right EJ- the partion was not active.

I'm still getting the same message: Your computer's startup program cannot gain access to the disk.....

In the boot menu, I deleted the partion and then create a new one with the same sizes but that did not help either.

[E.J. Peiker]

Is it set-up as a C: drive? If it is set-up for any other drive letter, Windows wont install.

[Tim Grams]

It is in the port for the C drive with the cables connected appropriately and it is identified when the partition info is shown on the screen: (C: Partition1 [NTFS] 76285 MB { 6839 MB free}). Its actually a 250 gb drive, not 300, but that will not make any difference with this problem.