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I have a Windows 2003 Web Server that was rebooted and is apparently now running ChkDsk. I need to have the server back up in a few hours for the work day - is it possible to stop a ChkDsk is progress and force boot back into the OS?

user66827
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  • Update: I stopped the CHkDsk and the server is back online. There's clearly some hardware issues going on with the harddrive so now I'm off to work on transferring the content to a new box. Thanks again guys. – user66827 Oct 13 '11 at 19:58

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Please note that it is not recommended to stop or interrupt the chkdsk running on the computer until it completes by itself.

If you feel the need to stop it the only option would be to do a hard restart by turning off the power of the computer. If you turn off the computer and restart it you will have to delete the files that it’s scanning first and later try to run the chkdsk again.

Hope this helps. Let us know the results.

Untraceable
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    This should only be done as the very last resort. Hard-resetting the system when it is running autocheck might cause metadata corruption preventing your system from even booting up. – the-wabbit Oct 13 '11 at 06:18
  • Wow... Crappy situation. Any other advice about what you would do? We're going to be in trouble if this goes on for another 5 or 6 hours. Also, the server is in a remote datacenter so I can't see what it's doing. – user66827 Oct 13 '11 at 07:06
  • in 90% cases system metadata does not get corrupted. Therefore you can use the above stated step with some risk.... if you would not have any other solution. – Untraceable Oct 13 '11 at 07:15
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Any other advice about what you would do? - well unless I was absolutely confident that I had good, recent backups and that I could definitely restore them within the time needed and that nothing further was going to go wrong then I would let it run.

I appreciate that you have a problem with the box being unavailable, but sometimes you don't have a choice between good and bad alternatives, just "which one will suck the least".

Rob Moir
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  • Yep, I definitely understand what you're saying. I do have daily backups of the data with IBM Tivoli - It's just a matter of getting everything configured with a new replacement server if this one won't come back up. My boss is most concerned with downtime, so I may have to resort to rebooting. Sounds like ChkDsk could be running for days if I leave it alone. If it corrupts, then I spend days restoring data to a new box... (With compensation, of course.) We've been wanting to do this for awhile anyway. Either way It would be a lot of downtime. – user66827 Oct 13 '11 at 08:06
  • If chkdsk is going to run for days, you probably have a lot of problems anyway which should be fixed. Better to let it run its course. – Keith Stokes Oct 13 '11 at 11:20
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The docs say:

If a volume is being checked during the startup process, the computer is not available until the Chkdsk process is complete. Chkdsk does not include parameters that let you cancel the Chkdsk process;

the-wabbit
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Though hard reset in not recommended, you can try at last. Power off and on the system. Press F8 key until you get advanced menu. Select "Last Known Good Configuration" option and press Enter. This will load login window of your server computer without starting check disk utility.

Yasomal
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