IBM ThinkPad R51 can't run CHKDSK

[Zxian]

Hey everyone,

I've got a friend with an IBM ThinkPad R51 laptop running Windows XP Pro and he's having some troubles with running several hard drive utilities.

He bought a copy of PartitionMagic, and when he ran it it gave him the error that drive C could not be locked. This was even during the boot-time partioning. I told him to try running CHKDSK and to have it fix all errors that it finds. When the system rebooted, it didn't even run CHKDSK at all.

Does anyone know why this might be happening? I've tried digging through the PartitionMagic forums and MS forums as well, but I haven't been able to find anything.

Thanks in advance.

[bbeard67]

Microsofts suggestion
Run Chkdsk /f to determine if the file system is corrupt. If Windows XP Professional can't run Chkdsk, move the drive to another computer running Windows XP Professional, and run the Chkdsk command on the drive from that computer.

Is your friend aware that his laptop has a Recovery Partition
If he wiped out the recovery partition have him contact IBM about obtaining recovery CD's

[Zxian]

I've looked over the hard drive stats in PM, and there's a small (<50MB) FAT32 partition at th every beginning of the drive. I think this has to do with some type of IBM reckognition thing.

What I mean by this is that some manufacturers create a partition on the hard drive to make sure that it's one of their hard drives in there. I tried swapping out my HD on my Dell desktop, and the thing wouldn't even get past BIOS. I put my old hard drive back and it worked just fine. Maybe the IBM has the same type of thing.

I did tell him to run chkdsk with the fix all errors command. He got the recovery CDs anyways, but he hasn't done anything with the partitions on his hard drive since PM won't even run.

[bbeard67]

Utility applications PC-Doctor;PC Doctor diagnostics;Norton AntiVirus 2004;IBM Rescue and Recovery with Rapid Restore
(from thesoftware section in the link below)
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/st...catalogId=-840


Some disk utilities, such as Partition Magic, are not be compatible because Rapid Restore PC locks the IBM service partition, making the partition inaccessible to applications, including Partition Magic.
(from the link below)
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview...psg1MIGR-42216

[Zxian]

Thanks for the info. I'll pass it on.