chkdsk launches at each reboot - desktop never appears

WinXP Pro - chkdsk runs EVERY time I boot this PC. Initially, it reported that the "voleme is dirty". I found some info about how to disable the "dirty" switch, but it still said the volume was dirty, and still runs chkdsk every boot and the desktop never appears. It generally either reboots after chkdsk finishes (and then goes right back to chkdsk), or it occasionally errors out to a blue screen error (0xc0000005 I think?) and some info about a corrupt registry hive (system32\config\system I think?). It seems that all the info I've found on how to fix this requires the PC to boot to a desktop, and that is simply not happening. The data on this PC is of utmost importance to the client, so that presents another level of problems....

 

Does Last Known Good Configuration work?

You may have to do some offline registry edits: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm

Go all the way to step 4 of the above link then edit these registry keys to have these values.


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager]
"AutoChkTimeOut"=dword:0000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager]
"BootExecute"=hex(7):61,00,75,00,74,00,6f,00,63,00,68,00,65,00,63,00,6b,00,20,\
00,61,00,75,00,74,00,6f,00,63,00,68,00,6b,00,20,00,2a,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"SFCScan"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\cleanuppath]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,63,00,6c,00,\
65,00,61,00,6e,00,6d,00,67,00,72,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,2f,00,44,\
00,20,00,25,00,63,00,00,00

 

Have you seen this page? Has a number of solutions and reasons for the problem. It seems autochk is always seeing the file system as dirty.


http://www.infocellar.com/winxp/chkdsk-and-autochk.htm

 

Thanks for the info.... it's been a rough weekend with the Halloween parties and such.... I'm back at work now so I'll take a look at the links... hopefully I can get this thing straightened out!

 

After trying everything in the links above, and lots of other stuff, I eventually went with a repair install. Now when I boot in Normal mode, I get the following error message: lsass.exe system error - An IO operation iniated by the registry failed unrecoverably. The registry could not read in, or write out, or flush, one of the files that contain the system's image of the registry. Then the system either crashes and reboots, or it launches CHKDSK as I mentioned in post #1 above then crashes and reboots, and on rare occasions, it loads the user list and then crashes and reboots after logging, or it launches CHKDSK then crashes and reboots after logging in - BUT - in Safe Mode, I don't get the "lsass.exe registry error", and I can log in and the PC seems to be working OK in Safe Mode..... WEIRD.

 

Have you checked the event viewer- if it loads in safemode,i t could be one of those incompatable updates, or, downloads freaking it out.
Might also be a time to try sfc /scannow to find and fix corrupt files.

 

lssas.exe errors can be due to the sassar worm but because you can use safe mode, I do not think it could be that. Still possible though?

Also because safe mode works (clean registry), maybe the registry is corrupted. Using a UBCD4 Windows disk, you can go to Registry tools and run the Registry Recovery Wizard taking it back to a recent date if possible seeing if that works.

 

I am not the best with virus, as I am too lazy- but I think that a repair install can miss the sasser virus, from my old recolections- I would try the easy way out while in safe mode using the microsoft fixit tool from here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890830

 

I thought of the Sasser worm myself, and ran scans both in Safe Mode and from the Kaspersky Rescue CD, and all scans came up clean... the registry is indeed corrupt, and all repair attempts were unsuccessful (including tgell's suggestion of using the UBCD4Win - it's one of my regular weapons in the PC repair wars). I also tried a System Restore using ERD (and again in Safe Mode) and was told that no restore points exist. So- in the interest of time and sanity, I backed up the clients data, and performed a clean install on a different drive. Then I connected the original drive as drive E: so that they'd have access to any data that I may have missed....

THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP!

 

Although we only tried the most obvious, it helped you make up your mind- Like I said I am lazy when a pc/ laptop plays up loke this, and gets into this state, if I need it working, so I would have done the same as you - another hard drive.
THEN I try eevery trick I can to see if I can get that hard drive back to a usable condition (part of being an obstinate old fool, I suppose).