I have a major problem with Win Xp Pro SP1. The drive is still formatted to FAT32, But every time the computer is re started it initially goes into a screen for checking the hard disc. This can take several hours. the message is that it is checking file structure. If the PC is left on there are no running problems, So could this be an XP problem or hard disc problem, I am at a loss to find a solution, any help would be appreciated

Thanks

Two things here.

First you should be able to cancel this by hitting a button before it starts.

Secondly I think there is a patch out that fixed this problem. I see though that you are running SP1 so it you should have it installed already. Try updating windows to make sure though.

How do you have WinXP Pro on a FAT32 partition?

If you're running WinXP Pro...you really should be using NTFS.
Every install of WinXP Pro that I've seen defaults to NTFS.

Agree with jmike ... convert to NTFS unless you need to stay with FAT32 (ie to dual boot win98).

One problem is that if chkdsk doesn't complete it's scan it will start again at the next boot (read the message during the 10 second countdown for example).


This should get rid of it though (provided you don't have a real hard disk problem)

Run Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager. Now double-click on BootExecute. When the dialog box opens, change the value to autocheck autochk * and click on OK. Close Regedit. When you restart, chkdisk will not run.

If you want to make a .reg file to import it instead, just copy the info below and paste it into a text file and rename the extension from .txt to .reg, then double click the file to import into the registry.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager]
"BootExecute"=hex(7):61,00,75,00,74,00,6f,00,63,00,68,00,65,00,63,00,6b,00,20,\
00,61,00,75,00,74,00,6f,00,63,00,68,00,6b,00,20,00,2a,00,00,00,00,00

Thanks for advice, i converted to ntfs and checked value in registry and all appears fine, The machine runs very slow for a pentium 4 so i think i will check startup to see what is loading but things are looking better

Thanks again