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Error Message

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by rx3549

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Has anyone ever seen the error message "can not open volume for direct access" when you try to schedule a chkdsk? If so what does it mean. thanks
Rusty

5 replies

by beermonster

Hi,
This nearly always means that there is a third party app accessing the volume before chkdsk can lock it. It's usually a virus scanner, check the services or apps running at startup and set any potential candidates to manual, then run chkdsk,then set the services back to auto. That should do the trick. Good luck.....

by deltree

To add to the first response, chkdsk is a rather low level disk scanning utility which reqiures exclusive access to the drive being scanned. This means the drive with the OS on it can not be scanned when the OS is loaded since it requires access tothe drive at all times. You can schedule it to run after reboot, though.

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