recently I started my computer and I found a new screen
saying that it was going to check the consistancy of my C
drive. the odd thing was I have a wide screen computer
which is Japanese but the message was in english and it
didn't use up the entire screen (the sides were black)
like it usually would. I also noticed that the Windows XP
logo had no colour in it. Is this a virus or was it
supposed to happen?
Dan Shier
Dan, I can only take a stab at guessing what happened:
At startup, an inconsistency in the file system was noted and chkdsk
showed up to check the drive. This is a rare occurence but is by design
and not a cause for alarm unless it starts appearing at *every* startup.
If this starts showing up at every startup, it may be a stuck "dirty
bit" that needs to be reset or there is a problem with the hard drive.
The dialog may have been in English because... maybe MS never wrote the
text used in this screen in Japanese? You can try running chkdsk
manually to see if you get English screens again.
To run chkdsk: Right click on any drive icon and choose Properties. On
the Tools menu, click the Check Now button in the Error-correcting
section. Check any of the two boxes in the next screen (first one
checked does a 3 stage check, both boxes checked does a 5 stage check).
When told that chkdsk "cannot run at this time..." respond with a Yes to
schedule the tool to run at the next restart. OK your way out of the
screens. Restart the computer.
Addressing the display while the tool was running: At this early point
of loading, your normal display drivers are not active. The system was
still working off of basic VGA and was not capable of filling in the
entire wide screen display. If your normal display quality returned once
you were in "normal" Windows, you can safely ignore this event.
Sharon F
MS MVP
[Windows XP - Shell/User]
