I'm running an HP pavilion with XP media center edition.  Zone alarm security suite, spyware blaster...my daughter thought the computer froze (it has been slow lately--I think ZA might be bogging it) and did a hard SHUTDOWN.  Now with every reboot, chkdsk runs on C.  When it gets to stage 3, it always lists an unspecified error, then finishes booting. 

Microsoft said tocheck system tools for scheduled tasks, but neither chkdsk not autochk were there.  They then said to regedit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\currentcontrolset\control\session manager\bootExecute, modify to autocheck autochk *.  I did that.  No difference.

I then found a posting on this site (as well as a COUPLE of others) that said to run cmd, chkntfs /d return, chkntfs /c C; return, chkntfs /x C: return, reboot, then run cmd chkdsk /f /r C: yes to next reboot.  I did that; however, it did not seem to do the 5 stages.  When it got to stage 3, again, it said unspecified error, never seemed to do stage 4 or 5, then finished booting.  Other than being slow, everything seems to work fine.  However, I'd like to resolve this issue if I could.

I am NOT super computer saavy, however, I do follow directions well.  I don't have the XP disc nor a recovery disk, but I do know that this computer is SET up with D as recovery.  Can you explain how to use it to fix this error?  (I also know how to use F8 if that's needed).   Thank you for any help you can give...What OS are you running?XP Media Center Edition 2005Boot to the recovery console and run: chkdsk /rNot good.  Booted to recovery console OK, SELECTED C and ran chkdsk /r.  It said "checkdisk is checking the volume, then chkdsk is performing additional checking or recovery--it listed this sentence 3 times.  Got to 50% complete, then said "The volume appears to contain 1 or more unrecoverable problems."  It then listed the data on disk space.  For grunts and giggles I ran chkdsk /r again, but got the same results.  So I'm guessing this is not a good sign...can you tell me the possible/probably reasons, and my OPTIONS?  Thanks...Chkdsk /r runs 5 tests, so you should see the same messages 5 times (not the error message)

The fact that it is reporting unrecoverable errors indicates a problem with the hd. You can do the following to confirm:

Hard Drive Diagnostics:

Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), to make the CD bootable.
For Toshiba hard drives, see here: http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=ServicesSupport/FujitsuDrivesUSandCanada/SoftwareUtilities#diagnostic

Note : If you do not know how to set your computer to boot from CD follow the steps HERE