argh, I'm having disk problems with win xp home. When I run chkdsk or scandisk from the boot it hangs at 29% done and I have to reset the comp. Sounds ugly, and I don't want to reinstall xp! Anyone have any ideas? Should I break down and buy Norton Tools or something similar? Thx.billg

How old is this disk drive? Have you had any other errors, like files not saving correctly, programs not loading correctly, computer crashes, anything to indicate that the hard drive might be ready to fail? That is a very real possibility that you may want to consider. It might be that something with chkdsk is corrupt but without seeing it first hand I would tend to think it is the hard drive that is the problem. Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Hello billg,If you mean Norton System Works I don't think it'll do you any good. If you run Norton Disk Doctor I believe all it does in WinXP is run the built-in chkdsk. Your right, it sounds ugly. Perhaps someone else will come up with a suggestion, but to me it sounds like a reinstall is going to be required. I can only say I wish you good luck.Regards,JimP.S. Did anything happen that you are aware of that might have caused this problem to pop up? Or did it just happen out of the clear blue sky?

out of the clear blue sky. No indication at all of problems until I ran defrag overnight. Woke up this morning and it had hung part way through, so I ran chkdsk and that's when I noticed it was hanging. Argh.... :-( The drive is about a year old, and has been fine until now. Maybe time to upgrade my comp if I'm going to be messing around with a new drive. New fs9 install...., omg, the list goes on.billg

BillYou can run the WinXP install in Repair Mode, or something like that (I've only done it once so am not sure what it is called). Anyhow, if you try to install WinXP over an exhisting installation you will be given this option at some point. It allows you to reinstall XP while leaving your programs and settings intact. Hope this helps.David

Hi bill,Well, you can try what David said, or try a new install from scratch, or upgrade... naturally, whatever you decide. Your disk drive may be ok. It may just be that a chkdsk was needed to fix a filesystem error before defragging but you just didn't know it and so you didn't do it. Or, and it wasn't as if this hadn't occured to me, the drive may be bad like Philip suggests. I just didn't want to jump to any conclusions too early nor suggest something that might bum you out even more than having to reinstall WinXP. Whatever the case, if you feel like it, let us know what you decide and how it goes.About 2 months ago my computer died. Although I wasn't positive I really believed it was the motherboard. I got no beep(s) when I booted, silence. Nothing on my monitor, it didn't even power on. HDD light showed activity, but for a little longer than normal. So at first I thought it could possibly be the video card, but the no beeps really made me wonder. I stuck a video card from my old comupter in there, a GeForce3 Ti500. Still nothing from my monitor and no beeps from the motherboard. At this point I was hoping that my power supply hadn't gone bad in some way or another. Anyway, I ordered a new motherboard, cpu, ram, thermal paste(Artic Silver 5), cpu fan and heatsink(a pretty cool Zalman Pure Copper CNPS7000A, big heavy sucker!) from Newegg.com.I was just thankful I still had Old Faithful so that I was able to just hook it right up to my internet connection, go online and research what I wanted and order it. Old Faithful was the first system I ever put together myself. It has the GeForce3 in it. It's a PIII 800 MHz on an Asus P3V4X with 512 MB's of PC133 Ram.So after I received my new parts I took out my old motherboard and put in the new stuff, about 6 weeks ago. It was all hooked up right, hdd lights, power switch and everything else, and booted properly the first time. When I tried to install WinXP though I was getting errors. I fiddled around and took one of the 512 MB sticks of ram out. Still got errors. Took that stick out and put the other one in. No errors! I downloaded Memtest++ 1.6(if I remeber the name correctly, it runs off a floppy). I put the bad stick back in. Got errors when it came to a certain part of the test. Fortunately the company who makes the ram I purchased is based in the same city I live in, Denver, CO. So I called them up and they told me to come on down. They tested the bad stick and said sure enough, it's bad. They tested a new stick and said it tested good and sent me on my way with it. I've been a happy camper ever since. But man, it's not exactly a small deal to have to go through all that, then install WinXP, all my apps, then FS2004, then all my addons, ect, ect, ect.So anyway, I can feel for ya bill!Good luck,JimBad bad putty tat:3.06 GHz Intel P4 on Asus P4T533-C(533 MHz FSB), 1 GB PC1066 Samsung RDRAM, NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 22" Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Videocard w/ v4.2 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0b, Creative Audigy2 Soundcard, 120 GB w/8 MB Cache Western Digital HDTweety Bird:Intel 3.4C(C = Northwood) on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, 1 GB Muskin '222' Special PC3200 RAM, NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 22" Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Videocard with v4.2 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0b, Creative Audigy2 Soundcard, 250 GB w/8 MB Cache Western Digital HDD

I would try the disk diagnostics which can usually be gotten from the manufacturer.Allen

Think I got it. :-) Tried the repair mode, but was still getting errors so did a reinstall but it did't overwrite the fs9 directory, so I can reinstall fs9 then copy a bunch of directories back without having to reinstall everything. Some of the addons I'll have to reinstall but so be it. Everything is cool except System/hardware/drivers tells me the usb universal serial bus controller driver is not installed. Have a p4pe mb, would it be on the cd that came with the mb? Argh, it'll be fun trying to find that, hehe. Oh well...Thx for the help and encouragement!billg

Hi Bill,Probably too late to make this suggestion. And I'm not 100% certain it'd work because I've never done it. But you could rename your old 'Flight Simulator 9' folder(directory) to 'FS9'(for example). Then install Flight Simulator. Then delete the 'Flight Simultor 9' folder. Then rename 'FS9' to Flight Simulator 9'. Then your done. I would think to get the USB driver installed you could just install your 'chipset' driver. Maybe not. If not, then if you know what model of chip the USB Controller is then you could probably find the driver for it on the 'net.Regards,Jim

Jim, I tried that, and it works. Still checking which addons have to be reinstalled, so far just found as2004 and the rfp 747. Everything else only uses stuff in the fs9 directory. If I find anything else I'll post it, but looks good!billg

Hi Bill,Glad to hear things are working out ok. When I made my last post and said 'You're done' I should have realized that of course some addons install some things outside of FS9 and/or have entries in the registry, therefore they would require a reinstall. Anyway, I guess I wasn't too late with the suggestion of renaming your 'Flight Simulator 9' folder and then installing?I don't always do a chkdsk before running a defrag, but after seeing your experience here I'm thinking maybe I had better start! Not that it necessarily mean a 100% gaurantee of a trouble-free defrag.Jim