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A Windows 10 computer sometimes automatically initiates a scan and repair process upon booting. I think this normally happens when Windows was not properly shut down before.

One of our computers now insisted on switching into this mode on startup. I found this forum thread and thus knew "process will take in excess of 2 hours" - no kidding, it took 11 hours, and booted normally after that.

As is described here, "The only way to see chkdsk results if it was started automatically during the boot sequence is Windows Event Viewer." According to the respective (very few) entries in Windows Event Viewer, no errors were found.

Shortly after, there was another occasion whereupon Windows was shut down unexpectedly. Scan & Repair was initiated again upon the next startup, and it has been running for at least 30 hours now (and at least twice in a row, given that at one point when I looked, the indicated percentage (6%) was lower again than it used to be already (48%).

Another forced boot yielded the message "Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete.", which has been shown for over 12 hours now.

Evidently, it is not useful to have that machine work endlessly without seeing what is happening, whether anything is happening at all, whether something is broken at all (and if so, whether it is worth the effort to fix it or whether it is data that could be removed, anyway). (In that context, and based upon the behaviour described above, the suggestion to "let it finish" appears nonsensical.) Therefore, my question is: How can I abort, skip, or otherwise speed up that scanning & repairing process and boot the system to a point where I can interact with it again?

As I do not get anywhere where I can interact, I cannot disable the drive check, as described in this question, in this question, or in this question.

I am aware that in theory data might get corrupted without repairing. (On the other hand, the practical difference between files that I cannot access because they are corrupted and files that I cannot access because Windows does not let me interact with the computer is zero.) But then, previous Windows versions would ask whether or not to scan for issues, and I routinely skipped the check on all of my machines in the case of an unexpected shutdown and never had any problems with it.

Furthermore, any important (user-created) data is backed up. I am primarily interested in finding a way to make that system usable again - at the risk of finding out that one or two applications might have to be reinstalled due to corrupted files - without completely resetting the entire system and having to reinstall everything from scratch.

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O. R. Mapper
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2 Answers2

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Try turning off write caching if your machine is likely to shutdown unexpectedly, i.e. abnormally (though it would be better to resolve the issue, e.g. using a UPS or educate the user, rather than put a "BandAid" on it by preventing caching). In the days of cooperative multitasking, e.g. Windows 95 OS, it was often necessary to prevent write caching, since an application crash could also bring down the OS. Since NT, though, it is rarely needed.

  • Press Windows and then type Device Manager.
  • Expand Disk drives.
  • Right-click on the promary drive and select Properties.
  • Select the Policies tab and deselect Enable write caching on the device.

Normally, chkdsk on Windows 10 completes in a matter of a minute or two, even on volumes of several TB, unless there is damage to the NTFS journal or to the disk. Such a long wait indicates problems that might not have shown in the Event Log.

DrMoishe Pippik
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  • "though it would be better to resolve the issue, e.g. using a UPS or educate the user" - the issues include little children that, with a single touch of the keyboard before they can be stopped, manage to make all screens go black (don't ask me how) and thus prevent any regular shutdown, [Windows 10's start menu sometimes being unavailable due to a Windows bug](http://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-10-start-menu-critical-error-shows-up-again-after-november-update-497717.shtml), and being minutes from leaving for a multi-day absence (during which I generally avoid leaving any electronic ... – O. R. Mapper Oct 23 '16 at 20:54
  • ... devices on) while the computer does not react due to some software issue. And while application crashes or bugs rarely "bring down" the OS nowadays in the literal sense, they often enough manage to prevent any interaction by getting stuck while in full-screen and/or occupying too many resources. So, rather than a band-aid, I'm inclined to call the described fix as "making the PC ready for real-life use" ;) Thanks for the suggestion in any case, will try - could you add a hint of how to find out more about the problems that do not show up in the Checkdisk Event Log? – O. R. Mapper Oct 23 '16 at 20:54
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I have meanwhile found a dissatisfactory (because of being very limited) solution:

Before the drive scan starts upon booting, Windows shows a message like "About to scan and repair disk, press any key to skip". The user then has 10 seconds to do something and avoid a waiting time of multiple hours.

If you miss that message and the scan starts, though, that little feature does not help. (Realistically, it also doesn't help in the case of an infinite loop of these checks: Scanning progress is non-linear and can remain on the same percentage for hours, then suddenly jump to a higher percentage (e.g. 2%, 6%, 18%, 28%, 49%), so it is unforeseeable when exactly the 10-second-window will turn up.

O. R. Mapper
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