Checkdisk error log location?

[Lou[NE]]

If running checkdisk requires that you restart your system, you can see the results in the Event Viewer.

But where is the checkdisk log file if you DON'T have to restart your system to run checkdisk? In this situation there is nothing in the Event Viewer.

OS is XP Pro.

Thanks,

Lou

[Wiz Feinberg]

Lou;
Good question with a bad answer. Basically, the only place to read the results of Chkdsk operations is in the Event Log. Here are some references for you to read about his subject.

XP Chkdsk - Where are the results?

Google search results

[Lou[NE]]

Thanks Wiz. I did some searching before I posted here and that's basically what I found. It seems absurd for Microsoft to assume that checkdisk will only be run at boot time.

[Wiz Feinberg]

It seems absurd for Microsoft to assume that checkdisk will only be run at boot time.

Lou;
Chkdsk cannot run unless it can "lock" the drive first. If files are in use the disk can't be locked, so Chkdsk is scheduled to run next time you reboot.

Note, that Chkdsk is not scandisk, even though it does a similar function.

[Lou[NE]]

Wiz, I understand that it needs to lock the drive. The thing is, I have hard drives that chkdsk can lock without having to reboot. Where is the logfile in that case (if there is one)? That's my problem.

Thanks,

Lou

[Wiz Feinberg]

The results, if anything needed fixing, will be displayed in the Event Viewer, under "Winlogon." Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools (or similar) > Event Viewer > "Application" and look for a recent entry named "Winlogon." Click on it to read the results of the last Chkdsk operation. Scroll down to find any previous reports from other chkdsk runs.

If you want to run chkdsk and always get a log report in a text file you should run it from bootup, using the Recovery Console. The moment Chkdsk finishes for each drive it checks it creates a temporary plain text file named bootex.log and places it in the root of your C: or boot drive. Before Windows starts the contents of C:\bootex.log are transferred to the Event Log and the file is deleted. However, it is possible to "copy" the bootex file to another location or file name, so you can read it using Notepad, from within Windows. The copy process could be like the following example.

When you boot into the Recovery Console you are usually at this prompt: C:\Windows>

To run Chkdsk on the C drive type this command: chkdsk /p and press enter.

To run Chkdsk on another hard drive letter type this command, using drive "d" as an example:

chkdsk d: /p

Note, that you can use the up/down arrow keys to recall previously typed commands. When the desired command appears just hit Enter to run it. This function used to be in a DOS file named DOSKEY. It is now built into the Recovery Console.

When chkdsk completes it will issue a basic report. If the report includes the words "Chkdsk found one or more errors on the volume" the results will reside in C:\bootex.log. At the command prompt type this:

copy c:\bootex.log c:\bootex.txt
(press Enter)

To view the contents in the Recovery Console, use this command:

type c:\bootex.txt
(Press Enter)

You can later open the copied bootex.txt file in Windows and read it with Notepad.

There are two switches you can use when you run Chkdsk from the Recovery Console. They are /p and /r. /p fixes file system errors. /r does that plus scans the entire disk for bad sectors, attempting to recover data from them, then marking them as unusable for further writing in Windows.

If you keep getting errors when you run chkdsk /p you should also run it with the /r switch: chkdsk /r, to try to recover data from bad sectors. If the bootex or Event Log report lots of bad sectors you should run, not walk, to the nearest supplier of hard drives and purchase a new one. Transfer your data to a new drive using Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. Select the option to only transfer sectors containing readable data, not "sector by sector," as the bad sectors would also be copied.