Hi
Last week, I switched on my laptop (XP) and got a blue screen when I booted it which said;

Checking file system on C. The type of file system is NTFS. Volume label is HDD. One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency.

I let it run for its consistency check, which took about a minute and it then re-booted itself and when it re-started, I had the option of launching in regular XP home edition or in recovery mode.

The second time I booted up, I skipped the consistency check and it again gave me the option of home edition or recovery mode. On both occasions, if I skip consistency and click on 'home edition', I can get into my compuer fine.

I have backed everything up to be on the safe side...and not being very technically capable, wonder if anyone can give me a clue what might be going on and how I might be able to fix it? Someone told me it's a sign of my hard drive saying bye bye and I should be prepared for it to go to meet its maker any time soon....but I was kinda hoping to get a bit more life out of this machine yet (it's 3 years old).

Can anyone advise?

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Quick update! I ran HD Tune and it's shown up no errors....so on first inspection, looks like theactual hard disk is fine. I have realised though that I have not yet downloaded servic epack 3 on XP...and I wonder if this is causing a problem? I am downloading it now...and vaguely hoping this might help?!!

Thanks so much!

This post has been edited by DizzyLizzy: Nov 4 2008, 07:19 PM

HD Tune is a 'generic' disk checker (ie works on all makes of disk) and as such is not as reliable as the brand-specific diagnostic tools developed and supplied by each of the disk manufacturers. These are free to download but you'll need to know what brand your hard disk is (eg Seagate, Maxtor, WesternDigital etc.). They all have their own websites with a download area.

One symptom of a failing disk is often the inability of Windows to complete a format on it (it will stop at a certain point and go no further, or it will keep finding lots of errors if you format from a command prompt without Windows running ). Of course you should backup your documents beforehand if you intend to see how the format performs.

This post has been edited by phillip22: Nov 5 2008, 02:52 AM