Scandisk reported a problem with overlong filenames & then reported; “A Disk Utility Has Locked the Disk…remove any background app’s”. Rain [CPU cooling software] WAS running in background. So I removed all background app’s except Explorer & Systray ,but I'm not sure if I removed Rain. Anyway,I still got the same error ms,so I restarted ,but I couldn’t boot --not even into Safe Mode. Using Scandisk & Norton Disk Doctor I repaired the Directory & File structure: A LOT of Files were Crosslinked & there were some Invalid/Overlong Filenames. Using SYS C: to restore Boot Files, I Booted successfully to find that Rain didn’t load at Startup & it’s shortcut was missing--which was odd --Rain had never failed to load in 5 years! Could Rain be the cause of my failure to boot & other problems-- Could it be the Disk Utility that Locked the Disk? -------------------- PS: All Data & Directory structure are intact,but Scandisk renamed just the directories one level below C:\

Seems like part of your story is missing. If you've used RAIN for 5 yrs & never had any probs, why would errors related to RAIN surface now? Since scandisk reported all these errors, I assume this wasn't a manual running of scandisk, it ran after you had a crash & then rebooted. What were you doing at the time? ...there is no spoon...

Hi,jam I'll answer your questions,but I'm really just trying to find out: Has anyone has had troubles w Rain--?? --------- No "crash" --I just tried to reboot after Scandisk failed to finish a scheduled run. Yes-it was a manual run of DOS Scandisk from an emergency floppy. My only clues to Rain as culprit is that it appears to have a powerful control over the CPU & that it didn't load at Startup--which is unique. Also this boot problem was unique for me & the most difficult. I tried to shorten an already long story.

Sorry, sounded like a crash to me. I experimented with RAIN a long time ago, but found it to be unnecessary. You might find this interesting: http://www-student.informatik.uni-bonn.de/~canavan/wateridle0.html

Thank you,jam! That's the first I've seen about the risks of crashing due to the halting process,CPU power consumption,& cheap MOBO's--altho it may not be all that likely. Yes,I agree my symptoms are like a crash or an improper/bad shutdown. But I think I did shut down properly. In fact I remember seeing a "Recovered" doc offered by Word for me to save & I'm pretty sure it was crosslinked. It had some lines from another doc mixed in.So I guess something had gone wrong before I shut down--this all happened early in the morning when I first woke up!