I have a laptop here running Windows Vista, and it's complaining about corrupt files. There are folders which I can't access. When I try and run chkdisk, it tells me I need to do this at the next reboot since the drive is in use. I go ahead and schedule it to run; however, when I reboot chkdisk never runs.
I have used the system file restore tool (sfc I believe), and it did find a lot of files which it replaced; however, the tool complained that not all files could be repaired, when I look at the CBS log file I see nothing but successes so I'm not sure what files wouldn't restore.
I even found a site out there which had a copy of chkdsk on it to download and try incase my chkdsk became corrupt.
Are there any other options out there? Can I boot off a usb or cd and run chkdsk?
Edit
Just out of curiosity but does anyone know what would cause the Checkdisk not to run at startup?
You should have gotten a recovery disk with your laptop. Boot from it, go to command line, and you should be able to run chkdsk manually. I had to do that on my Dell some time ago.
I would try to use SpinRite, from www.grc.com, to see if it can fix something physically bad or weak on the machine. Sounds like a typical spinrite case to me.
You can take out the drive, attach it to another PC (you'll need an adaptor if its a 2.5" IDE drive), and then boot that PC and run chkdsk on the drive.
You could download, burn, and try to boot from the official Vista Recovery Disc.