While running ScanDisk program, I received the following message: "ScanDisk has restarted 10 times because Windows or another program has been writing to this drive. Quitting some running programs may enable ScanDisk to finish sooner." What the heck does this mean and what do I need to do?

make a windows boot disk and boot to it, choose either w/ or w/o cdrom support, doesn't matter, and at the a: prompt type "scandisk c:" w/o the "", mine was doing the same thing, I think it is by design, I found the error on Microsoft's site and it said that. Running scandisk from dos eliminates ANYTHING from running and interfering w/ the scandisk.

Go to start/ run/ type in msconfig then click ok On the next screen, Choose Selective Startup and remove the checmark by Load Startup group items. Reboot and scandisc will run. When finished (Defrag too) just go back the same route and choose Normal Startup then reboot.

Don't worry too much about MSCONFIG. Sure it works but it takes too much time to uncheck everything. Here's an easier way: From a cold boot (not a restart) hold either the control or shift key while it is booting. This will take you to a menu. Choose Safe Mode. Once there, you can run scandisk and defrag. However, you will not be able to use your CD-ROM. When its finished, just restart. The reason this works so well is because Safe Mode doesn't load anything except the essential files and drivers for Windows, so there is nothing running in the background. Laters.