Windows XP: How to cancel a chkdsk or scandisk scheduled upon reboot
If you have a chkdsk or scandisk scheduled to run on a drive after your next reboot, normally you’d be able to cancel it by pressing any key 10 seconds before the scan starts. Unfortunately, my bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo didn’t seem to work at this stage of bootup, so I was unable to cancel any scan. After some research I found out that the scheduled scan is simply a registry entry and that if you remove it, the scan wouldn’t execute next time you reboot. Here’s how:
- Start > Run > regedt32
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Session Manager
- Open the BootExecute key
- Remove the line that says: autocheck autochk /r \??\E: where “E:” is your drive letter
- Exit Regedit and reboot, and no scan will execute