I got the blue screen with this message, so I booted from the xp disc per microsoft support and typed chkdsk /r. I started last night @ 10:00 but this morning it was only at 62% completed. the screen said "performing additional checking or recovery... 62% completed". I know it isn't froze up because I saw it move to 62% from 61. Is it normal to take this long?

That's really excessive but don't cancel it! I suspect when it has finished you're going to see lots of lost/corrupted clusters.

Usually doesn't take that long, but then again how large and how full is your hard drive? Don't interrupt the chkdsk, let it run it's course . ======================== Given the above, this is the fix I've used for that problem in the past: When booting up to Windows XP you may get an error that reads: "Unmountable Boot Volume". This is probably because your boot.ini file is corrupt. Here is a possible remedy: You can boot to the XP cd and when you see the "Welcome to setup" message, press the letter R. You will then get a DOS-like prompt. Then type: chkdsk /p [enter] When that is done type: fixboot [enter] Type: Y at the next prompt [enter] Then type: exit [enter] The system will now reboot into Windows. If for some reason that didn't work, you can boot to the recovery console (example above). Type: "chkdsk /r" [enter] When done type: exit [enter]. This takes a bit longer, but the system should boot back into Windows. sLLs

Rldur, Usually it takes around 1.5 hours for me to do that chkdsk /r utility on today's computers. I always do the chkdsk /p /r but that might be the same. Around 60-75% it goes pretty slow. It seems to go backwards too from 70 to 50-55% during the middle of the scan. From there it goes to the end and finishes. You might have to reboot and start the scan again. If it freezes up again at the same point it'll point to a bigger problem. 1.5 hours is the normal time for it to complete the whole thing.

Follow LL's advice. Yes the boot sector might be corrupted too. So I would do the fixboot command as well.

Thanks everyone for the replies. It took about 16 hours to finish, but it works ok, slow but ok(which brings me to my next question).