I'm getting a bunch of locations on my windows XP system (HP) that claim to be damaged and I'm supposed to run the chkdsk utility. Unfortunately, I am getting "Unable to open volume for direct access." This started happening just after I installed IE8 (The culprit?) It tries to run CHKDSK upon boot, I get the error, then it continues to boot only to give me the errors in settings... I'm fed up with this! HOW can I fix these errors if the CHKDSK UTILITY doesn't work? I tried to run in safe mode -- if I'm lucky enough to get it to give me that option, it will not boot all the way-- it stops at MUP.SYS (Or is it .exe?)

Since this a Windows 7 forum, your post may be moved to one of the XP ones. CHKDSK will run in Windows, but will not correct any errors since the volume is locked by the operating system. You will have to reboot in order for corrections to be made. Open a Command Prompt and type in CHKDSK /R and press enter. When you get the message, type in Y and press enter. Close the Command Prompt window and reboot. Does CHKDSK run? If not, what is the exact error that you are getting? Don't press any keys when the CHKDSK screen first comes up or it will skip it and try to boot into Windows. When starting in Safe Mode, it seems that mup.sys takes an inordinately long time to load. On some systems, I have seen it take up to five minutes to load before continuing on. SC Tom -There's no such thing as TMI when asking for tech support.

"Cannot Open Volume for Direct Access" error message when Chkdsk runs at startup Please see the above article. Have you installed the latest service pack?Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.