Can't run chkdsk /r

[tomlitch]

For years, as part of my normal maintenance on my systems I have run chkdsk /r. Not sure how it started but I've done it for quite awhile.

The first time I tried it on my new Lenovo T61 I get the error message, upon reboot, that it cannot open the volume and it skips the process. Now every time I reboot I get the same error.

The system does boot, it just goes to run the chkdsk, can't open the volume and then moves on to POST and a regular boot.

Any ideas?
A) how to get it to run and/or
B) how to clear the process out of every boot cycle.

Also, I cannot seem to boot in to Safe Mode now. The hard drive light is active so maybe it is running this chkdsk in the background; I waited twenty minutes and then quit and restarted. Think this chkdsk process has anything to do with it?

Thanks in advance.

[p3jason]

I had this same problem recently. I finally got chkdsk to work by running msconfig. First, schedule chkdsk as usual. Then run msconfig. On the boot.ini tab, select /SAFEBOOT under boot options. Select OK and restart. After chkdsk runs and the computer reboots, open msconfig again and set it to normal startup again.

[tomlitch]

That got it, Thanks!

[Sleep Machine]

I have the same problem on my X61S running XP SP2. I can run Checkdisk in Safe Mode as stated above, but when in normal mode, the system tries to run Checkdisk every boot with the same error message as stated above. I have tried to research this on the net to no avail. I am running out of airspeed and ideas.

[tomlitch]

Once I did what 'p3jason' suggested and chkdsk ran to completion I stopped getting it wanting to run every time I boot.

[pae77]

I have seen this issue addressed on various Vista support sites and the problem of the system continuing to try to run chkdsk at boot can be fixed with a simple registry edit, however, that doesn't really fix the problem in that it will not enable chkdsk to successfully run, it will just stop it from trying to run.

On my system, I found that I could successfully run chkdsk by booting from a Vista install disk. Also after I uninstalled rescue and recovery it started to run just fine when scheduled to run at boot up. I use Acronis TIH anyway, so I didn't mind removing R&R (which I never trusted anyway) from my system.

[tomlitch]

This is/was happening to me with XP Pro

[PSchueller]

It sounds like what pae77 suggests (removing R&R) may help solve this issue. It appears that many others besides myself are having it. I have downgraded from Vista, for various reasons, and just had a few questions before removing R&R. Should I need to reinstall XP, R&R will still run from the bootable CD, correct? If I want to switch back to Vista, I can still do it with my backup media if System Migration is in place, correct? So in removing R&R, is system backup the main loss, and is that what Acronis is for? I have been researching this problem for weeks, and this thread has been invaluable.
Thanks,

[pae77]

Even with a totally blank empty unformatted hard drive, the system recovery media consisting of several optical disks (assuming you have created this media) would enable you to restore a drive to the condition it was in (softwarewise) when it left the factory.

I'm not quite sure about the interaction (if any) of the recovery environment in the service partition and R&R installed as a program in Windows. This has not been a concern to me because I primarily rely on complete clones of my primary hard drive (made with Acronis TIH) for back up and system recovery (if system restore can't fix my problem).