I've have my laptop for almost a year now and have Windows 7 as the operating system.
For just over two weeks now every time I turn on the computer it wants to run a disk check, the problem is pushing a key won't make it go away and when I try to let it run it freezes on "1 second." I've left it for about 30 minutes like this and no disk check runs. At this point and usually have to hold down the power button and try again. If I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del at the right time I can get it to boot after the countdown stops, but what used to take two restarts is now taking five or six.
My friend from Best Buy says it's indicative of the hard drive failing, but once as I get past the nuisance of a disk check, it runs flawlessly. Games, internet, file transfer are all just as speedy as ever. Lately I've taken to just leaving it in sleep mode at night or when I'm gone so I don't have to boot.
I did some command prompt voodoo magic just now that I found on a help site and it didn't show the disk check screen at all on reboot. I'd hate to go on with a false sense that everything's okay though if this isn't a common glitch. Most of the things I found on Google talked about the disk check prompting every time, but mentioned nothing about it freezing up and not running.
Update:Also, I figure the drive may be dying soon. I've still got two years left on my warranty, but I just started summer school and am taking an information design course so I'm not in a position to ship my computer away for a week or two.
So I should go ahead and shut it off when I'm not using it?
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
For now I would want you to run the Check disk in Safe mode and let us know if it completes without issues.
Access the link below to boot the computer in Safe Mode.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Start-...
Open up an administrator mode command prompt, and then type in the following command to do an exhaustive check of your drive. Substitute C: for whatever drive you want to check.
chkdsk /f /r C:
If the drive is a system drive or has files in use, you’ll be asked to schedule the check for the next reboot:
image
The above command is the recommended way to perform a disk check, but if you want to do a less exhaustive check, you could remove the /R option from the command.
Let us know if you could perform the Check disk without freeze and we will proceed with further troubleshooting.
For More Information and help related to windows 7 issues http://windows7.iyogi.net/
1) It'll keep asking until you let it run to completion. (Your hard drive is marked "dirty". Checkdist will mark it "clean" on successful completion.)
2) Checkdisk can take days (the longest I've ever seen was a little over 7 days - on a 30GB drive - but I've heard of it taking longer.) It can look "frozen" for hours at a time. That's normal on a dying drive.
3) You unmarked the dirty bit. The drive is still dirty, Windows just doesn't know it. Your friend is right. One day the drive will just hard crash and you'll have to replace it. I hope all your important files are backed up.
4) Sleeping just works the drive harder (all of RAM has to be saved to sleep, then reread to wake up). It just isn't accessing the system area of the drive, which is probably where the problem is. Let Checkdisk complete and, if it's a minor problem, it'll be fixed. (I'd still clone the drive, "government format" it, toss it and replace it.
You're playing catch with a ball filled with nitro. Miss one catch and blooey.
Chkdsk Freezes
Hi,
First off, Hard drive failure is the term Best Buy Geeks know. Not true in this case.
There are a few things that could cause this. However your best bet would be to do a fresh reinstall of windows 7. Clear the hard drive and reload. It will go away.
You prolly have a few bad sectors and its best to reinstall before it gets worse.
CHKDSK paremetrs: filename FAT only. Specifies the file or set of files to check for fragmentation. Wildcard characters (* and ?) are allowed. path FAT only. Specifies the location of a file or set of files within the folder structure of the volume. size NTFS only. Changes the log file size to the specified number of kilobytes. Must be used with the /l switch. volume FAT and NTFS (NTFS support is unofficially supported but works normally). Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), mount point, or volume name. /c NTFS only. Skips checking of cycles within the folder structure. /f Fixes errors on the volume. The volume must be locked. If CHKDSK cannot lock the volume, it offers to check it the next time the computer starts. /i NTFS only. Performs a less vigorous check of index entries. /l[:size] NTFS only. Displays current size of the log file. If size is specified, changes the log file to that size (in kilobytes). /p Checks disk even if it is not flagged as "dirty" (only available in the Recovery Console). /r Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information (implies /f and /p). If CHKDSK cannot lock the volume, it offers to check it the next time the computer starts. /v On FAT: Displays the full path and name of every file on the volume. On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages, if any. /x NTFS only. Forces the volume to dismount first, if necessary. All opened handles to the volume are then invalid (implies /f ). /b NTFS only, since Vista. Clears the list of bad clusters on the volume and rescans all clusters for errors (implies /r). /? Displays the list of available CHKDSK switches.
better you switch off & try it again ,..............or re-boot it .,,....even it does the same