On Thu, 13 May 2004 20:48:03 +0000, Derek wrote:


1. On boot up, his PC (he is using Windows XP), starts giving "file
..
..
..
How does he stop his PC attempting to go through the above lengthy process
each time on boot up ? Does he have to let it go through the complete
procedure at least once ? After that should he no longer get the warning
?


Yes. The drive is marked as "dirty" until it's able to complete this
diagnostic and correct step. It will be marked "clean" once it completes.
After which, assuming nothing else funky is going on here, it should boot
without requiring this step.

I should also point out that if he does have file system problems,
continued use of the filesystem while it damage can greatly extend the
damage to the filesystem. It's very possible to much, much worse off if
he continues to ignore this problem.

If the system is identifying cross-linked files, it's telling you that you
have some form of filesystem corruption. It's important that you let the
system fix what it can. It's also important to realize that some files
may be damaged beyond repair. The repair process only works to get the
filesystem repaired and properly layed out. Once the filesystem is in a
known good state, it's still possible to have files which remained
damaged. Worse, the process of repairing the filesystem can actually
damage some files. The details and extent of any possible damage and the
degree at which that damage can be repaired greatly depends on the nature
of the filesystem damage and the types of file activity that has been done
post-damage.

If possible, he REALLY needs to convert his filesystem to NTFS. NTFS is
much, much better than FAT. FAT is used by anyone that is begging to
suffer from filesystem corruption. FAT also suffers from very, very long
consistency checks. NTFS is a journaled filesystem, which means it always
attempts to keep the filesystem in good order without requiring a fsck to
be done on it. At worst, in bad situations, NTFS may still be checked but
the speed is mucho, mucho faster than the checks required for FAT. Best
of all, if the drive is very large and he converts to NTFS, he should gain
a fair amount of additional drive space back for actual file use. FAT is
horribly wasteful of allocated file space.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!


References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...convertfat.asp