How to get back normal "disk check" behaviour on Windows XP startup? (seems broken, or there's something strange in the disk)

August 29, 2009 4:14 AM

During Windows XP startup process, it keeps asking to press a key if I want to skip the disk check progress for the C drive. But if I let it check, it finds no errors at all. I do clean shutdown. Strange behaviour - how to restore normal one?

When I load Windows XP, during the startup process, it keeps showing the light blue screen with white text asking to press a key if I want to skip the disk check progress, for the C drive (I have two partitions, C and D). But if I let it check, it finds no errors at all.

What should I try to restore the normal Windows functionality, so that Windows will trigger that only when something has gone wrong (e.g. bad shutdown, etc.)?

I don't know which action has "broken" the process. If it's useful to know, I've loaded a Ubuntu live CD and browsed the C drive. Moreover, one day the D drive was very short of space (around zero), so one day the hdd scratched for memory swap a lot.

posted by lion to computers & internet (2 comments total)

Try this. Basically you have a "dirty" flag set on that drive.
posted by hardcode at 5:03 AM on August 29

>If it's useful to know, I've loaded a Ubuntu live CD and browsed the C drive.

NTFS support in linux is good, but not perfect. It may be tripping the dirty bit. Or you may be having drive problems. Is your computer shutting down properly or are you holding down the on/off button to shut it down?
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:53 AM on August 29