I have two hard drives in a dual-configuration = Win ME on C and Windows 2000 on D. When in ME and try to scan disk (using Norton, McAfee and the Windows Scan Disk utility) I am unable to complete it. With Norton Disk Doctor I see that there is an error in the boot files (a similiar message with McAfee) and the windows Scan Disk gives me the message that there is data being written to the disk being scanned and when pressing the retry (without receiving any more of those messages) just sits there and churns. When trying to defrag using all three utilities, it just churns giving no messages. Once I started it up, went to bed and seven hours later, still churning with 0% complete in the window. I suspect a boot virus, but using the latest Emergency Virus Boot disk from both Norton and McAfee, am unable to find it. I know to cold boot to get the virus out of RAM and start with the boot up. As for the 2000 partition, well, let's just say there are no problems there and the scanning is turning up no results! I hope this isn't "stump the chump" but this guy is out of ideas. Any help would be appreciated! ---John---

What versions of Norton and MaCaffeeeee are you running there?? Most of the Nort&McAf. software is incompatable with ME. If you run scandisk and the defragmenter while in Win2k on both of your partitions and it is able to run and complete I would say that your utilities are the problem!! Reinstall Win-ME and don't install any scaning utilities just Norton AV 2001. Why not just stick with Win2K and forget about ME?? You don't have a virus! Odds are that you have a running application in ME that needs to be turned off so the scandisk can be completed. Some things to try are- Disable screen savers, disable power management, boot into safe mode(Win-ME safe mode) and see if the scandisk stops responding, Turn off auto update, disable the virus scaner!!

Thanks for your response. To answer your questions about versions to the utilities I used - They are the latest. Norton System Works (with Utilities) 2001 and McAfee Office 3.0 (2001). They are ME and Win2K compatible! Your suggestion about shutting down everything operating in the background has been tried. I go to Start-->Run-->Msconfig and uncheck everything but Explorer then reboot. With absolutely nothing else running I am still not able to use the Norton or McAfee utilities without the boot file error message popping up and the Windows Scan Disk just sits and waits to find the file allocation tables. Here is another item that may sound wierd. When the screen saver activiates, the moving images on the screen jump and jerk along as if the hard drive is trying to access something. This is true when nothing else is on in the background (via msconfig). The last time I had that to happen the problem was due to a boot virus which was cleared out in the regular way by cold booting using virus emergency boot disks and running the definitions, etc. This time it cannot find any virus and maybe you are right that I do not have one but it looks so strangely familiar to me. The reason for a dual boot scenerio is due to the fact that ME is a good gaming environment and I write software with Visual for Win 9x systems. I use Win2k for networking and power. I do agree, for most things Win2K is the way, but forget it for DOS and gaming.

I am running Windows Millenennium Edition Me PC 600MHz Intel Celeron Processor etower 600ix with 64MB(SyncDRAM 256 Max.),128KB(L2 Cache 66MHz System Bus),15GB(Hard Drive Ultra DMA),40X(CD-ROM(40x max),3D AGP(Graphics IntelDirect AGP),56k(Fax Modem ITU V.90 K56 Flex),USB and Game Ports emachines. I can only get about 65% of the way thru Scan Disk and it stops there will,not go any further(either on Standard or Thorough). On defragment process I,can only register on the meter 3% defragment and it will not go any further. I have not enough memory at this time either so to play some games on iwin.com (such as turkey hunt,freecell,etc.). What can I do to correct this problem being,that I am a some what new person to the PC world and configuration?

win 98 I'm not able to use scan disk or defragment,it just goes on for ever and never completes

I am experiencing the same ScanDisk/Defrag interruption. My HDD is being written to even tho' I have terminated all programs running beforehand. In fact, while the computer is idle, you can actually hear (and see the red light blink) the drive "tick" as something is writing to it. Can't figure what this is. This is also preventing my HDD from going to sleep mode. I have it set to "turn off" after 20 min. of non-use. This never happens because of this phantom writing (tick) that is continuous! I leave my machine on all the time and it's bothersome to know that the HDD never stops spinning...it's not being allowed to go into sleep mode. Any thoughts?

read and try this: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q273/0/17.asp