cannot open volume for direct access (chkdsk)

[tidyboy21]

I ran a defrag program on my daughters laptop (xp home sp2) and it states that a certain file or area has an error or is corrupt, it does not give any details on the file/ area. It recommends that I run Chkdsk. I used this command to run it: Chkdsk C: /f. When it comes to start chkdisk the following is displayed:

Checking File System on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot open the volume for direct access.

Any help much appreciated.

 

[patrickv]

when are you running checkdisk ? are you running it when windows is running ?
you should try do it in safe mode , if not boot up with your XP cd and run it from there

 

[addle_brains]

If your computer only has one drive, those kind of windows utilities can't be run while windows is on. Try running it from a floppy or cd (you can create bootable disk, making sure that you have AUTOEXEC.BAT which contains the line:
chkdsk C: /f)