CHKDSK vs. CHKDSK

[Zirynx]

EDITED, to add the following, in the interest of brevity!

The short version.... a scheduled 'CHKDSK /F' at startup does not (appear) to fix errors reported by CHKDSK within the XP Command Prompt window.

The long (original) version....

First off, I'm predominantly a user of 'other' OS's, so my knowledge of Windows OS's is less than intimate. When I meet an obstacle I search and read, but I apologise if I'm missing the obvious!

Recently, I recovered a T41 to factory state and subsequently proceeded to install SpywareBlaster (preventative), Spybot and AdAware (both corrective), all relevant Windows updates, latest IBM drivers (paying due consideration to uninstall requirements), NAV2004 upgrade, SP2, followed by Office 2003 and all it's updates.

Due to the sheer volume of install/uninstall data being written/deleted and re-written to the hard drive during this process, I decided that, along the way I would keep track of the state of the hard drive and file system by occasionally running CHKDSK in the Command Prompt window which, for the first 99% of this exercise reported no errors. I did not check the Registry along the way, but that is another thread!

After many hours of fairly tedious work, I noted (albeit subjectively) that the machine booted and responded less briskly than prior to all the updates. I figured that, at this point, a defrag wouldn't go amiss. But before that, I ran CHKDSK one last time and....... dhoh!! After completing it's 3-stage read-only check, the following message appeared:

Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK again with the /F (fix) option to correct these.

This I duly did and (following the necessary reboot) Windows checks the drive but does not report any errors, before continuing to boot into XP. Running CHKDSK again at the command prompt returns the above message about errors, but a restart-scheduled CHKDSK does not ever find or fix any errors. This is a recurring situation. Eventually after going around this circle a few times, the machine wouldn't even boot properly, with a couple of GUI messages about things not initialising (unfortunately, not recorded) and eventually, nothing more than blue screen.

Confused, frustrated and with less hair than a few days ago, I do not know where to go with this. I was tempted to buy Systemworks 2005 but I found enough reports on the web about problems and conflicts with SP2 (real or not) that I have hesitated. I have a copy of SystemWorks 2002, but I am cautious about installing a relatively old application with the intention of repairing a current file system.

In any case, my understanding is that utilities like SystemWorks aren't really necessary (especially for drive maintenance) in that the same should be achievable with judicious use of some carefully selected utilities, like CHKDSK. At the moment I am, for peace of mind, reluctantly contemplating starting again, with a factory restore, however, if I am going to rely on CHKDSK in the future, I really need to understand and resolve what is happening now.

Can anyone shed any light on why CHKDSK at startup does not report or fix the problems that are reported by CHKDSK within the XP Command Prompt?

Thanks all in advance.