Can't boot - "autochk program not found - skipping autocheck" after XP SP3

A

Al_Q

Member
Both Boot camp and Parallels had been running well for ages. Upgraded Parallels to 5600 and boot camp to 2.1 in preparation for installing XP SP3. All still fine. Then installed Windows XP SP3 in Boot Camp with no problems.

When I tried to start Parallels I got the dreaded message "autochk program not found - skipping autocheck". Parallels was stuck in an endless loop, restarting after a few seconds and getting this same message again. Paused parallels and did some internet searching.

Discovered a thread in this forum which suggested going to the Advanced option in the Parallels drive configuration screen and removing all Parallels information from the Boot Camp partition. That could not be done with Parallels running so I ignored the dire warnings and forced the Parallels virtual machine to stop. Removed the Parallels info and YES it started up just fine, thinking that this was the first run of a new Parallels installation. Didn't even have to reinstall Parallels Tools in Windows.

BUT I got a Microsoft message that because of a significant hardware change my copy of Windows needed to be activated, followed by nasty warnings from the Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy software. The good news is that when I chose online activation, it went smoothly taking only a few seconds, with no need to phone.

If anyone else is about to upgrade Boot Camp to XP SP3 while running Boot Camp, I suggest removing the Parallels information BEFORE you first start the upgraded system in Parallels.
 
I have the same problem bu the other way round.

I installed SP3 whilst in Parallels and now my boot camp wont work.

I am attempting to remove parallels tools and rollback SP3 to see if that fixes it.

I hope it does.

I cant game under Parallels
 
Do a search in these forums or look at my profile for my posts, you'll find your answers there.
 
Any Answers?

I just installed XP SP3 and have the same problems. I first installed it through bootcamp and then received the same error when trying to use parallels. I then rolled back the updates and reinstalled through parallels. Now I have the same error when trying to use bootcamp.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to correct this error?
 
I repeat:

Do a search in these forums or look at my profile for my posts, you'll find your answers there.
 
I did a search before I posted.

I found the post about you talking about the formatted partition. I have my boot camp partition formatted in FAT32. Does that post still apply.

Sorry, I am ususally brighter than this but I am not feeling well today.
 
There is no need to reformat or uninstall SP3. All you need to do is remove the Parallels information from your Boot Camp partition. Here is how:

1. Select XP Boot Camp VM. Don't start it.
2. Click "Hard Disk 1" to open Configuration Editor.
3. Click "Advanced" tag on the right panel.
4. Click "Clear..." button to remove Parallels information.

After removal is done, start VM as usual. XP will tell you that hardware has been changed and will ask you to reactivate. Don't activate just yet, wait until start up is complete, than manually run Accessories/System Tools/Activate Windows.
 
It worked

Yes that did work and thanks.

But it only worked for me if I installed SP3 form within BootCamp and then did the Parallels removal before starting Parallels.

Thanks again.
 
Spoke Too Soon

Now I can not log in using BootCamp.

I installed SP3 via BootCamp. Restarted to be sure that it works. It did. I then went in to the Mac OS and did the Parallels removal as described. After everything reloaded in Parallels the VM worked fine. I restarted to be sure it still would work. It did. Now when I try to log in to BootCamp I get the same error message with the continuous reboots.

Is this a common problem that people are having? Can it be resolved by me or does there need to be another Parallels update?

Thanks
 
Nothing Seems to be Working

I tried all solutions and I'm going to end up not using Parallels and just using BootCamp. I switched to Apple because of the ease of use. I believe it should just work and it doesn't. I can't get both applications working. I get the error either in BootCamp or Parallels depending on which one I fix.

Thanks for your help.
 
See my note at the top of this thread. If you installed SP3 in boot camp and then went to Parallels, and got the endless restart loop, you should STOP the parallels virtual machine (using the action menu) then with it stopped follow the detailed instructions above in the thread to remove the parallels info from your boot camp partition. Then when you restart, it should be fine. You will have to reactivate Windows but that should be easy; again see above in this thread for details. I suggest restarting Windows at least once in Parallels (via the Start menu) to be sure that it is in a stable state. Then turn off the virtual machine using the Start menu in Windows, so that Parallels cleans up properly. At that point you should be good to go back to boot camp. At least it worked for me. I have been back and forth several times.

By the way, my boot camp drive is FAT32, so it does not have to be NTFS to work.
 
This worked for me - thank you so much!!

I had updated XP to SP3 in boot camp and then tried to open in parallels 5584 - I then updated to 5600 to no avail until I removed the parallels information as described above.

One general comment - I would imagine this is a pretty common error and should be addressed better by the parallels team - did I miss some tech note on this when updating?

Also, why did we have to re-activate windows? Are there any repercussions to this act? Seems as if we should not have to go through this when doing an update to these products (these were not supposed to be major "upgrades").

Thanks again.
 
The problem is that it should be clear that you have to upgrade Parallels to 5600 and Boot Camp (if you use it) to 2.1 BEFORE installing SP3 on XP.

As for reactivation, there's no problem with reactivating, that's just how the overzealous Genuine 'Advantage' thing works, it thinks the hardware is new whenever the Parallels Boot Camp information is cleared from the disk, GA panics because it thinks you cloned your installation to new hardware and you're using the same license on two computers.

I personally had to reactivate the same XP installation almost a dozen times for various reasons.
 
My Bootcamp won't boot either

I'm having a similar problem as above: Fixed the repeating reboot in Parallels, now BootCamp is stuck in the endless reboot mode. :-(
 
You'll have to do a 'Repair Install' to get Boot Camp working again. Preferably with a Windows CD with the same SP slipstreamed into it that you have on your system.
 
Sorry John, but autochk is a Windows software thing not a Symantec software, unless its the Symantec software that changed the autochk registry settings.
 
Yep, my fail, I meant it can be modified by Symantec
Please try this solution
It appeared that the drive partition was accidentally hidden, most likely by the uninstall of Norton or the way in which the Norton GoBack utility was "protecting" the drive. Now the question became, how do you unhide the partition so the system will boot normally again.

Luckily, PowerQuest (now owned by Symantec) has a small DOS utility that fixes the problem rather easily. The program is called PTEDIT. If you are experiencing a similar issue, follow the steps below to download the utility to a boot disk and unhide the partition. On a working computer, do the following:

1) Click the link below and save PTEDIT.ZIP to your desktop

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/ptedit.zip

2) Create a bootable MS-DOS disk for Windows

In Windows XP

* Place a blank floppy disk in Drive A
* Open My Computer
* Right-click on Drive A (floppy drive)
* Click on Format
* Check the box for "Create an MS-DOS Startup Disk"
* Click Start
* Click OK to the warning about formattting the disk will erase all data
* Click Ok to Format Complete
* Close the Format Disk window

For boot disks for other operating systems, you may want to visit Bootdisk.com

3) Copy PTEDIT to the floppy disk

* Double-click on the PTEDIT.ZIP file you downloaded to the desktop
* Right-click on PTEDIT.EXE and click on Copy
* Open My Computer
* Double-click on Drive A
* Click on Edit
* Click on Paste

4) Remove the disk from the floppy drive and place it in the floppy drive of the problem computer

5) Turn on the power to the problem computer and allow it to boot to from the floppy drive. Make sure the BIOS in your computer is set to boot from the floppy drive first.

6) At the A:\> prompt, type the following

PTEDIT and press Enter

7) You'll be presented with "Power Quest Partition Table Editor" screen. The key is to look in the first column of the table under Type. The number here should generally be 07 (hex), meaning the partition is an "Installable File System", in other words a bootable drive. If its anything else its not bootable.

Using your tab key, tab down to the Type box and hold down ALT + T to open the Set Type menu, then with your keyboard arrow, select 07, tab down to Ok and press Enter

8) Hold down ALT + S to Save Changes to the partition table and then Press CTRL +C to exit out of the program.

9) Reboot your computer and it should now boot normally into Windows.

Of course, all these steps should be followed correctly, and if you are not comfortable changing this information you should consult a friend or computer tech that can help you with the problem.

You can create floppy image, or need software that can create floppy image
 
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