# Solved: Dirty Drive/Endless recovery loop



## QWERT1484 (Feb 13, 2007)

Hello, my asus rog laptop (model number g75vw) has recently had a poor shutdown due to reasons (video games crashing.) as a result, I have a dirty drive c. I've let the system churn through the "Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete" and the "Scanning and repairing drive C: 0% complete' for at least 12 hours each. Neither of these options seem to yield any success. Recently, I've discovered that drive C is dirty with some help from a friend. I can not get chkdsk to run without forcing a dismount of the drive prior to scanning and repairing, and that makes me scared. I seem to have all my files intact, I can get to command prompt via holding f9 upon boot, but not much else. Safe mode has been inaccessable thus far. 

I believe that if I Can get the dirty drive cleaned somehow, I will be able to move forwards. Unfortunately, I do not have anything else I can plug this drive into as it is my only sata capable machine in the house at the moment. I am rather strapped for cash so I would very much prefer to avoid spending money on parts if I can avoid it. I have USB drives laying about, but I may not have access to burnable media such as DVDs or CDs. 

I have some startup things disabled through MSConfig in an effort to quell bloatware, but I Do not recall disabling anything I could not google as safe to remove (and nothing published by microsoft, intel, asus, or nvidia) 

Any advice would be vastly appreciated. All I know for certain right now is that drive C is dirty, I have not messed with partitions since buying the PC, though it has seen a reformat or two before. Anytime I power up the machine, it states one of the two messages about "Scanning and repairing drive C, this may take over an hour to complete" and "Repairing drive C: 0% complete" The zero stays a zero, and never progresses to 1 or higher.

If I can provide any more information I will be happy to comply, and doing my best not to hold f5 while waiting for replies.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

If chkdsk can't repair the damage you probably need to budget for a new hard drive. However, the diagnostic (and repair) program provided by the drive manufacturer is best and may be able to repair it. Once I was given a hard drive that was completely dead as far as Windows was concerned, but the manufacturer's diagnostic brought it back to life and I was able to use it as an external drive for a year or so.


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

When you say you have discovered that the drive lettered C is dirty - I presume you have found that the dirty bit is set

If you cannot access advanced options - troubleshoot - reset your PC to then use the OEM recovery partition and HAVE NOT made a image of the drive and/or any recovery media to boot from - then your only option is to force the dismount - so that chkdsk can run as it cannot of course run on a drive that is being accessed.

Am I correct in thinking that the laptop has two hard drives, as if so and you can proceed - even after the chkdsk you need to consider this
http://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1008226/


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## QWERT1484 (Feb 13, 2007)

My model has one HDD weighing in at 1TB and 5400 rpms.

I do not know if chkdsk will complete or not as I am afraid to run it with the drive dismounted - so I have not tried that yet.

I can possibly get some sort of external drive bay for the laptops HDD in the meantime, i simply do not have a working DVD or CD burner, I have access to flash drives. I'm going to throw together a linux live-cd type thing on a thumbdrive and see what I can do with that. There are a few documents and images I would very much like to retain (obviously no data loss is good data loss but my options are limited).


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

Good luck with it


Of course as you know, but it is too late now - recovery on a usb drive would have solved it for you and it is so easy to make one on Windows 8


Does three consecutive restarts on the power button not take you automatically to the recovery environment


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## QWERT1484 (Feb 13, 2007)

Thank you, and I'm aware of the windows 8 recovery kajigger, but thank you for rubbing my nose in it! (not sarcasm) as hopefully I'll remember next time! 

Three consecutive restarts does nothing, I have to hold f9.

edit: in my defense, I like everyone else thought this was only the sort of thing that happened to people on tv.


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

I wish you the best of luck with it

You surprise me


> Experience: Tech Savvy -No Lesssons, CONSTANT user


as thinking this


> I like everyone else thought this was only the sort of thing that happened to people on tv.


is often proved wrong with experience.

HOWEVER as I said, best of luck with it


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## QWERT1484 (Feb 13, 2007)

I said that for humor's sake. I'm quite confident I have recovery medium about the house somewhere, but since I am still in the middle of unpacking from a move, I've no idea where it is, nor where my writeable disks are. And thank you for your well wishing. I Think as it stands just getting my documents and pictures with knoppix will suffice prior to a system restore and new backup media. I am hesitant to mark this as closed just yet, but I will if I get things sorted on my own or if someone else has new advice to impart.


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

When you manage to open a cmd prompt on F9 - key is that amongst other choices and what is the prompt at the cmd on this


eg on a cmd prompt in windows recovery environment it would be an X:\ prompt on a ramdrive created for the recovery environment


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## QWERT1484 (Feb 13, 2007)

The command prompt I get to from holding F9 at boot, clicking troubleshooting then advanced options, then command prompt begins with the letter X, which I typically opt to navigate to drive letter C before running chkdsk. If that is not the expected/normal protocol/use of that it is news to me. I don't have a lot of my computers or tech devices break very often, and when they do it's usually an easy enough fix for me, as are the problems brought to me by my peers, however this leaves me with little idea what to try. I have Ubuntu upon a flash drive that I can load into if needed now. I do not know if that is of any use for troubleshooting here however.


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

1. If you can get to the cmd prompt - can you also get - before the cmd prompt choice to System Restore
There is a slight chance that this may work - over- riding the loop of the chkdsk from the dirty bit

2. From the cmd prompt you MAY be able to access the drive to backup your data
Windows Recovery Environment allows you to run Notepad. How is Notepad going to help you copy files you may be thinking? Well, in the majority of Windows applications, the Open and Save as dialog boxes are essentially pared down versions of File Explorer. As such, you can use the Open dialog box just like File Explorer and will be able to easily copy all of your data files to a backup drive.

Once you have booted into the Recovery Environment connect a flash drive or external USB drive to your system. Now, access the Command Prompt window and type notepad.exe on the command line. Once you have Notepad up and running, just press [Ctrl]+O OR click File tab and then click OPEN to access the Open dialog box. - ensure notepad is the active window. Leave the File name box blank, select All Files (*.*) in the Files of type list, and just leave the Encoding setting as it is.

If you get that far treat it as you would if you were simply doing the same in File Explorer


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

Further to the last
If the cmd window heading 
X:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe


and the prompt is
X:\Sources>


simply type
notepad
at that prompt


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

I am about to sign off
any questions re the last on obtaining your data before I go
Perhaps the thing that requires clarification is that if notepad opens
the Open dialogue is then not from cmd prompt but from the File tab of notepad
*DO NOT double click at all on this procedure when you have the notepad open* it will freeze


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

Gone Goodnight


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## QWERT1484 (Feb 13, 2007)

I had discovered that yesterday prior to posting, but I'm still holding out in hopes someone might still be able to shed some light on how to clean a dirty drive from what I've got access too thus far. I'm paranoid there will be something I've forgotten to backup and I'll kick myself over it later. The only reason I've got a bootable flash drive is from when a friend wanted me to try a few things to test for HDD damage which doesn't appear to be the case, not so much for data recovery. Again thank you for your assistance.


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## QWERT1484 (Feb 13, 2007)

I'm going to reformat now that I've amassed nearly 200gb in thumbdrives worth of backups. I assume it's acceptable if I open a new thread (if not preferred) should new issues stem from this decision. Thank you all once more for yet again saving my proverbial bacon, and moral support.


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

I will leave it with you



> I had discovered that yesterday prior to posting


I presume you mean the data recovery using notepad from the cmd prompt


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