Persistent Scandisk

Question: My laptop always opens with scandisk. Why? How can I stop this from happening?

The IT Guy says:
Several things could be causing this. First, check to make sure scandisk is not set to run automatically at startup. You can check this by going to START - RUN and typing "msconfig." In the window that comes up ("System Configuration Utility,") click the STARTUP tab and make sure Scandisk is not included in the list of startup items. If it is, disable it.

Another possibility if you are running Windows 98 or ME is that the contents of the "virtual cache" are not being written to the hard drive as they should be. Microsoft has suggested fixes on http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q273017. As these fixes involve registry changes, however, proceed with utmost caution and consider having someone else do this for you if you are unfamiliar with registry changes.

A last option, depending on which version of Windows you are running, is to run "msconfig" as previously described but choose to "disable scandisk after bad shut down." The problem with doing this is that you will not automatically get scandisk to run after you do have a bad shutdown. Sometimes scandisk is needed to fix drive errors caused by a forced restart.

Next Tip: Mysterious Floppy Drive Activity