T43p XP SP2 chkdsk on every boot, no errors found

[cwilson]

Beginning three days ago, every boot of XP SP2 on my T43p finds an error on the partition containing the page file. Every chkdsk execution has found no errors on the partition. What causes this behavior? How can this error message and the bootup delay for an (apparently) unneeded chkdsk test be avoided? Thanks for any help.

[richk]

I suggest you run drive fitness test or the diagnostics in the service partition first, but assuming the drive is good, try this:
1. click on your start menu and open the run dialog.
2. type "cmd" and return (note: don't enter quotes)
3. Next type "fsutil dirty query e:"
4. If the return message indicates that the volume is dirty go to step 5
5. Next type "chkdsk e: /f /x"
6. After that finshes repeat step 3.
7. If it is no longer dirty then reboot and you should notice no more
ckdisk.

[cwilson]

Thank you very much for your help. This reply is tardy because I lost internet connection for a while. I ran the fsutil command which indicated that the drive was DIRTY. I ran chkdsk again and, as always before, because the trouble partition contained the page file, chkdsk could not be run immediately but only be scheduled to run at bootup. After rebooting, the same error message displayed and chkdsk returned the same analysis as before. No change.

Then I moved the page file to a different partition so that I could directly access the problem partition. Running fsutil returned the NOT dirty message and then I ran chkdsk, which took a while. The system now boots without the error message. I moved the page file back to its original partition and everything seems to have returned to normal.

My guess is that the problem was actually with the page file. Deleting and reinstalling it are probably what cleared up the error messages.

Again, thanks for your help.