Never tried un-installing Firefox and re-installing without restoring the profile .
With regard to your chkdsk issue Jim, if you know the volume is good:
chkntfs /?
Displays or modifies the checking of disk at boot time.
CHKNTFS volume [...]
CHKNTFS /D
CHKNTFS /T[:time]
CHKNTFS /X volume [...]
CHKNTFS /C volume [...]
volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
/D Restores the machine to the default behavior; all drives are
checked at boot time and chkdsk is run on those that are
dirty.
/T:time Changes the AUTOCHK initiation countdown time to the
specified amount of time in seconds. If time is not
specified, displays the current setting.
/X Excludes a drive from the default boot-time check. Excluded
drives are not accumulated between command invocations.
/C Schedules a drive to be checked at boot time; chkdsk will run
if the drive is dirty.
If no switches are specified, CHKNTFS will display if the specified drive is
dirty or scheduled to be checked on next reboot.
So if your external drive is on G::
CHKNTFS /X g:
will stop the chkdsk happening.
CHKNTFS /D g:
will re-enable it.
to be used with caution
Another handy utility is fsutil (I think XP Home has it too).
To check if dirty bit is set on 'C' drive:
fsutil dirty query c:
.
Seems appropriate on these boards, a 'dirty query' And yes Dazza, it does sound gay .
Edit: 15 edits later the spelling was right and finally got all the tags right.
Perhaps I should try this when drunk