I am using WindowsME. I have been having the well documented problem of not being able to run a thorough scan on my C drive using Scandisk. I run Scandisk on my C drive & it just keeps restarting over & over, eventually telling me that it won't finish because some phantom program is writing to the drive. I have tried several methods to correct this problem but I'm still stumped. I already went through the process of trimming my startup menu through msconfig & disabled most everything I thought was slowing down my system. **** Here is a list of what is currently active at startup, I'm sure much of this can be disabled, if anyone more knowledgeable than myself has suggestions on what else to take off please lmk: ScanRegistry, TaskMonitor, PCHealth, SystemTray, LoadPowerProfile, RxMon, MadExe, Norton Auto-Protect, MacLicense, LoadQM, Adaptec Direct CD, *StateMgr, Machine Debug Manager, Resolution Assistant, Microsoft Office Startup, MacName, EPSON Status Monitor, PowerReg SchedulerV2 ***** Anyway, no help there. I checked these forums & I found 2 possible solutions. 1) Run Scandisk from a boot disk, 2) run Scandisk from safe mode. 1) I have downloaded several supposed bootdisks from bootdisk.com. First, a program called bootme.exe, simply opens an MSDOS prompt window that doesn't do anything; just closes when I try to type in it. Then, WINME.exe that allowed me to create a bootdisk, but when I explore this disk, and double-click on the scandisk icon, it runs scandisk & has the same problem; just keeps looping. I don't understand what these bootdisks are supposed to do & all the samples from bootdisk.com seem to work differently. 2) Some say to enter Safe Mode & run scandisk from there by pressing F8 (or CTRL according to one document), during startup. Neither of these keys has any effect on my computer when pressed/tapped/punched during startup. Where is this mythical Safe Mode? 3) Some say to disable screen saver. Mine has no off switch, so I set it to its most lengthy interval, 60min, but no effect. Scandisk takes only 2-3 minutes to loop. I am totally out of ideas. I'm fairly certain my C drive has some flaws on it & I'd simply like to clean it up. If anyone would care to be Da Bomb & help me out of this conundrum, it would be truly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

P.S. The original title of this post was supposed to be scandisk/bootdisks/safe modes, oh my! But I was in such a rush I didn't title it adequately. Thanks.

you can force the startup menu to come up click start-run-type in msconfig-click ok- click advanced-put a checkmark next to "enable startup menu" click ok, click ok again then reboot. then do same and uncheck to disable the startup menu, when not needed.

another way that kttd said to use was put a non system disk, in the a: drive reboot, it will bring up the startup menu.

As for the screen saver, if you right click anywhere on the Desktop, Properties, Screen Saver tab, do you not have the option "None" in the drop-down menu? As for your start-up items, I would remove all but Systray and Norton Auto-Protect. This will disable certain functions like letting the PC "hibernate" after a period of time and also (I guess) Windows Me System Restore and a couple of Windows diagnostic utilities. I personally don't care for any of these features, but you could always reinstate them later if you need.

hello as for useing a bootdisk opening it up in windows and clicking its functions will not work was never ment to work like that. put the bootdisk in floppy drive and at the a: dos prompt type scandisk c: click enter it will look like this a:scandisk c: than when scan disk come up read carefully follow instructions. as for sae mode keys it varys depending on make here are the comon ones to be used the instant your computer trys to power on. on some computer you must be quick. f1 or f2 or f3 or f5 or f8 or f10 you can check at your computer makers sight to be sure. and for what should or should not be running in start up try these links http://www.aumha.org/a/shtdwnmez.htm http://www.aumha.org/kbefe.php http://www.aumha.org/a/shutdown.htm . have a nice day

hordeprime, You need to close most of the programs running in the backgrown and the best way to do this is to get *enditall 2* at google. Enditall 2 will close only the programs that are not needed and protect the ones that are needed. It will even let you close your screen saver and power management. First I close the programs in the system tray, the icons by the clock, then I use enditall 2,then do a disk clean, then scan disk and then defrag. On a 34 gb drive it only takes 15 or 20 min. if you do this about every 2 or 3 days. I also have Norton but I don't use it, it has given me more problems than it has fixed. I use AVG antivirus You can do a google search for this too. Both AVG and enditall 2 are freeware. You can get PowerDefrag free at: E-Technik Website Development. This will do the job fast and eazy. thebest2uDon