In an attempt to fix a word document, I tried System Restore. I know this may be a wrong way to fix such a problem, but I tried it anyway. This was on 16/10/2009.

I found a checkpoint on 15/10/2009, so I thought "Well, not too much will be lost."

What I didn't expect is the tragic sequelae that happened thereafter.

System Restore restarted the computer, but windows didn't start normally. Instead a blue screen appeared telling me that: "One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended that you continue."

And CHKDSK began, but never completed. The system hanged. I restarted using the restart power button, but the same thing happened again and again.

So, I booted from a live CD and explored my hard disks. I was surprised that the folder tree changed: some of my deleted folders appeared again, some folder names changed to old names, and new folders appeared like "raw", "raw(2)", ...etc.

I told my self "Don't worry. When CHKDSK completes successfully everything will get back to normal."

I restarted the computer again disperately, hoping that CHKDSK will finish its task and my disktop will appear again. Strangely, this time it finished, but not without issues: 2 error messages appeared that scared me.

The first one is something like "Deleting index entry modemcsa.inf in index $I30 of file 45."

Then, as much as I can remember, CHKDSK began checking another partition when the second scary error message appeared. It was something like: "CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table (MFT) bitmap. Windows has made corrections to the file system."

Then windows started with a message telling me that system restore was not completed successfully, and that my computer was not changed: "Your system has not been modified." or so.

I hoped that the last message is true, and that my system was intact, but alas! I found the same changes in my folder tree.

Moreover, when I tried CHKDSK from within windows, the system hanged. Restarting by the power button, the blue CHKDSK screen appeared again, and hanged again.




So I entered a long way of restarting and blue-screen-CHKDSKing with frequent hangs and different new scary messages appearing each time like:

• "Deleting corrupt file record segment 1021"
• "An unspecified error occured"
• many lines of "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25"
• something like "Recovering orphaned file vga256.dll (2012) into directory file 29. Insufficient disk space to recover lost data"
• "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25"
• "Deleting corrupt attribute record (-1969342456, "") from file record segment 22589."
• ...etc.

And in the few times that CHKDSK didn't hang and windows managed to start, a CHKDSK from within windows for certain partitions never completed successfully. It either hanged or "Windows was unable to complete the disk check" appeared.




Now I have some questions:

• Does System Restore undelete deleted files, delete existing files, or undo recent modifications in files? Isn't it supposed to restore system settings only?
• Does System Restore alter the directory tree?
• What caused my tragedy?
• Does the error messages of the blue screen CHKDSK indicate that some of my data is lost? If so, how can I identify changed, lost, and corrupt files to fix them?
• What can I do now?

Please help me!

Hello Something! Welcome back to the forum!

I have marked your thread as open to gain a techs opinion on the matter

Someone will be with you shortly!

Regards,

Smokeycheech

Sys restore just looks at the present system and the one it has a snap shot of takes one from the other and it then un does any changes that happened since the snapshot. Its only windows and program file sit doesnt touch word documents you pictures or anything like that so it wouldnt fix your first problem.

In your case sys restore hasnt done anything as it told you so what has happened is that there are errors on you disk which it has tried to correct some it has done but other it cant as it saying your disk is full.

From what you have given us the errors are only minor and dont show a fault with the hard drive they are just general errors that may happen if a program crashes.

The reason it took so long is once again the disk being full so it cant write to the disk to correct it.

What to do now
First get a back up of any data you want.
remove files from the disks so they are not full you dont give your specs so its hard to advise but probabley you need 2 gig of free disk space at the least.

Once you have done that it would be then worth running chksdk again so this time hopefully it would complete quicker and not hang

Thanks Samuria.
But the strange thing is that I already have more than 10 GBs of free space on each partition. One of my partition have even more than 50 GBs.
The next thing is that blue-screen-CHKDSK does not always hang. It may finish with error messages as the ones I posted. In case it finished, a confirmatory CHKDSK from within windows (right click on partition name in my computer > properties > tools > error-checking) nevers completes smoothly. It either tells me that "Windows was unable to complete the disk check" or hangs.
And why did the folder tree change that way? I am dead sure that new folders were created (not in the system partition), and some folder names changed!

Its strange as the error you qoute
Recovering orphaned file vga256.dll (2012) into directory file 29. Insufficient disk space to recover lost data"

says there is not enough space

Can you defrag the system and see if that does any good as it may find errors. It could be the mft table if faulty as that sometimes runs out of space even though the disk has room.

It may be worth trying Diskeeper
free for 30 days as this can re jig the mft table

The tree will be effected if its found errors as its tried to recover them by creating directories

And the directories with changed names? I think the names changed to old ones (old names that I had changed a long time ago) and not to completely new names from the invention of the system.
Thanks anyway. I'm gonna try your suggestions but after trying to backup as much files as I can to a new larger HDD. So, I'll be absent for a while till I'm done, then I'm gonna post my results.