chkdsk "An unspecified error occurred (696e647863686b2e e19)"

System is Win7x64 Pro on Core i7-920, 12GB

I'm experiencing some system flakiness and am trying to pin down the cause.

SMART shows zero bad sectors, zero pending reallocations on all drives

Memory tests show no problems.

Chkdsk fails in various different ways:

When run from a normal command line (no /f option) it gets to 63% and then hangs
When run on boot (autocheck) it hangs immediately on starting. Actually, the countdown timer (Press any key to skip chkdsk) gets to 1 second and the system hangs.
When run from the F8 "Repair System" option (the Win7 "recovery console"), with /f, it runs to about 63% (end of stage 2) and then fails as follows:

Volume label is OS.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
  5068288 file records processed.
File verification completed.
  308 large file records processed.
  0 bad file records processed.
  2 EA records processed.
  77 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
63 percent complete. (6078872 of 7562028 index entries processed)
An unspecified error occurred (696e647863686b2e e19).
Unable to obtain a handle to the event log.

Googling and searching on Technet for the error code and "Unable to obtain a handle to the event log" both turn up nothing useful.

Anybody have any info on what the problem is?

Ex Umbris

Posted 2011-01-04T18:43:49.683

Reputation: 928

Was this drive originally partitioned with Windows 7 or with a previous OS? Is this a basic or dynamic disk? Have you tried deleting the partition and recreating under Win7? Or are you trying to avoid this? Do you have another machine you could move the disk to and try chkdsk anymore? – IrqJD – 2011-01-04T22:35:12.023

Answers

number 2, see this

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975778/en-us

A countdown timer is displayed and you are prompted to press any key if you want to skip the disk check. However, after you press a key, the countdown timer continues. Eventually, the system may stop responding at the count of 1, or start without performing the disk check.

Moab

Posted 2011-01-04T18:43:49.683

Reputation: 54 203

Good link, thanks. I'll get the hotfix from MS and see if it fixes my main problem as well. – Ex Umbris – 2011-01-04T23:16:09.120

I would back your data just in case the hard drive is failing. – Moab – 2011-01-05T00:52:32.070

Already doing that -- incrementals three times a day. – Ex Umbris – 2011-01-05T16:08:24.837

I had the same problem with a Seagate 1 TB 2.5" HDD in an external USB 3 enclosure connected to an USB hub with Windows 7 x86. When I left the disk alone for a few minutes and then tried again, all worked fine. It MAY, SOMETIMES, be an intermittent HW problem, due to faulty contacts in the USB chain or nearly faulty USB enclosure. If you have a disk in an external USB enclosure and experience problems, check the following points:

verify that there are no SMART errors (Crystal Disk Info is the best tool I've ever found)
let the drive rest for some time, so that it does not heat excessively (the best temperature for HDD is around 35 °C)
simply disconnect and reconnect the enclosure
use another USB cable
try another enclosure

External USB enclosures always give problems in the long run, especially if you connect and disconnect them frequently and, mostly, if you have poor USB cables with poor connectors: they are designed (the good ones!) to work for about 1K insertions and the springs in the female connectors weaken over time, so they do not always make a good contact.

Gatoo

Posted 2011-01-04T18:43:49.683

Reputation: 11