XP Home booting question 2

[Ribol]

Can some kind soul tell me what is going on here?
My PC(XP Home) used to crank up normally until yesterday. I have not played about with it in any way so whatever is wrong here is not my doing. When it now boots up it has got it into it’s head for some reason to go into what I would call checking the disk mode. When it finishes checking whatever it checks it all seems to work as it should. Any ideas what would have caused this and how I can stop it doing this?
The screen messages that come up are as follows:


Ps please keep it simple please and many thanks

[Plotloss]

Where it says press any key to exit, just before it starts, press a key.

There is a switch in one of the windows system files to perform consistency checking.

I cant remember which one though.

I would perhaps perform a thorough scandisk when in windows just to be sure.

[BliarOut]

Usually because it wasn't shut down cleanly. If it keeps happening the other thing that could cause it is the early stages of a HDD problem. As a precaution, make sure you have a backup of anything you want to keep.

Once you have a backup, go into my computer, right click your HDD and select properties, then tools. Select error checking and tick both boxes. You'll need to restart your PC and it will take a while to check it, but that will hopefully map out any bad bits.

[Ribol]

BliarOut said:

Usually because it wasn't shut down cleanly. If it keeps happening the other thing that could cause it is the early stages of a HDD problem. As a precaution, make sure you have a backup of anything you want to keep.

Thinking about it, last night the mains power flickered in the house, I was not at the PC but it was on. When I went back to it all was well so I forgot about it, could that have something to do with it?

BliarOut said:

Once you have a backup, go into my computer, right click your HDD and select properties, then tools. Select error checking and tick both boxes. You'll need to restart your PC and it will take a while to check it, but that will hopefully map out any bad bits.

Will give that a go

[Ribol]

BliarOut said:

go into my computer, right click your HDD and select properties, then tools. Select error checking and tick both boxes. You'll need to restart your PC and it will take a while to check it, but that will hopefully map out any bad bits.

You are indeed a top fella

All sorted, I now know how it feels to be a proper IT bod now

(but sadly without the money, fast cars, women and multi millionaire lifestyle)