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Check external drive for errors

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by jason.kaplan

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Hi,

I recently reinstalled my operating system, Windows XP Home. During a reboot a screen appeared and warned me that my external hard drive my have errors on it. It appeared that the system was scanning the drive, however after 20-25 minutes status was still at 0%. I turned off the PC and that screen has yet to come up.

I right click the drive in My Computer and choose Properties, Tools, and Check Now to check for errors; I select both options. It gets almost to the end of Phase 1 and gives me a warning that it can't scan because it needs exclusive rights to the system with nothing running in background. I can't remember the exact verbage, but it was something along those lines. Within the text of the message it states would you like to perform this when Windows restarts, of course I choose yes, but nothing happens after a reboot. Nothing is running in the background as far as I can tell so I'm confused as to what is going on.

Can anyone please advise?

Thanks,

Jason

5 replies

by california dead head

The warning about exclusive rights means that the operating system itself is using a part of the drive because the operating system is installed on that drive. When you check that box about check on reboot what happens it the Checkdisk utility runs itself when the system reboots before passing control of the hard drive to the operating system. A black screen should come up at reboot with the message Check disk will now start the scan of your hard drives..... and start the check.

by jason.kaplan

I'm not sure how the operating system can be installed on my external hard drive when the drive wasn't even plugged in during the re-install. This can't be the answer can it? It seems like something else must be wrong.

Thanks.

by myths

Unfortunately, there is probably no way to check an external hard drive on reboot, since the USB drivers aren't installed until Windows loads and the drive is effectively invisible until then. A program like Norton Systemworks might be able to check the external drive, since it wouldn't need the reboot. Sorry. Hope this helps.

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