URGENT HELP !!!...FS2004/Radeon 9700 Probs......

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the advice.

Since I posted my plea for help, he HAS managed to install the latest
drivers for his Radeon Graphics card (or at least he THINKS they are the
latest !). This seems to have helped him restart and run FS2004 much better.
But his system is still far from what it was before he took it in to the
shop. Many things are still missing, like his drivers for his Slide Scanner,
Printer etc etc.

He is now taking the machine back to the shop on Monday, with a reluctant
view to haveing them format his new hard drive. It is my opinion that
something is wrong in his registry and this wont be cured until a format
takes place.

For your info, he had two separate drives to start off with, and they just
took his old "master" drive out, put a new bigger one in its place, and
"copied" everything from his old one to his new one. His other "slave" drive
wasnt touched.

Thanks for all your help mate.

Cheers

Derek

"Carl Frisk" wrote in message
.. .
Sounds like the chipset drivers aren't installed correctly anymore. Also
BEWARE the event log warnings about an
imminent drive failure are probably true. I just had a drive go out 2
hours after the first warnings appeared. You
could run the drive manufactures diagnostics tool to test the drive. I
wouldn't trust it at this point. It could be a
bad cable. It could be a lot of things. Just copying the data from one
drive to other if it is the boot OS is going to
cause problems. If the disk was imaged you may be OK. What happened to
the old drive? Does he now have two installed?

I'd take it back to the shop.

--
...Carl Frisk
Anger is a brief madness.
- Horace, 20 B.C.
http://www.carlfrisk.com


"Derek" wrote in message
...
Hi Alan,

Thanks very much for the interesting reply.

He has decided VERY reluctantly to bite the bullet, and take his PC back
on
Monday, and have his new Hard Drive, formatted ! This I presume, wipes
the
REGISTRY clean aswell hopefully. This SHOULD eliminate any problems with
FS2002 and FS2004 in his registry that he has had over the years.

But I still dont know why the straightforward installation of FS0024
complete, would mean that it doesnt even RECOGNISE that he has such a
card
as the Radeon 9700 PRo even installed ! He cant adjust sliders on things
like "Bi Linear Filtering", "Enhanced Water Detail", or even use the
"alt
and enter" command to make his flightsim desktop go full screen. He
could do
ALL of the above with his old FS2002 Pro, but not with FS2004.

Thanks for your help matey. I dont know where to go from here.

Derek (20 miles west of the English Lake District)

"Alan White" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 May 2004 12:46:09 +0000 (UTC), "Derek"
wrote:

What were your symptoms ??

The problem is only mildly related to yours.

For the past six months, the Windows XP Event Viewer has been
predicting the imminent demise of my C drive.

I purchased a replacement, installed it as a second drive and on to it
backed up my original drive. The backup drive then replaced the
original and became the new C drive. The backup isn't an analogue of
the original in terms of functionality, e.g. the desktop settings are
different and applications that worked on the original don't work on
the backup. I haven't carried out a rigourous examination. I'll
probably do that when the current C drive dies!

This just demonstrates that simply copying files from one drive to
another isn't simplistic.

BTW, FlightSim wasn't affected as it's on another drive.

My advice is still 'take it back to the shop'.

--
Alan White
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow.
Overlooking Loch Goil and Loch Long in Argyll, Scotland.
http://tinyurl.com/55v3

Well anything on his second drive that was copied and uses the registry was instantly munged unless he was partitioned
before. i.e. the registry stores locations like D:\.... (assuming D: was his second drive). Putting in one big drive
and partitioning it as C: killed all those previous registry references. Also partitioning everything to one drive
could have moved the location of his CD/DVD drive. I wouldn't say the registry is corrupt, rather it is invalid for the
most part at this point. Prior to reinstalling the OS make sure he backs up anything he wants to keep.

--
....Carl Frisk
Anger is a brief madness.
- Horace, 20 B.C.
http://www.carlfrisk.com


"Derek" wrote in message ...
Hi Carl,

Thanks for the advice.

Since I posted my plea for help, he HAS managed to install the latest
drivers for his Radeon Graphics card (or at least he THINKS they are the
latest !). This seems to have helped him restart and run FS2004 much better.
But his system is still far from what it was before he took it in to the
shop. Many things are still missing, like his drivers for his Slide Scanner,
Printer etc etc.

He is now taking the machine back to the shop on Monday, with a reluctant
view to haveing them format his new hard drive. It is my opinion that
something is wrong in his registry and this wont be cured until a format
takes place.

For your info, he had two separate drives to start off with, and they just
took his old "master" drive out, put a new bigger one in its place, and
"copied" everything from his old one to his new one. His other "slave" drive
wasnt touched.

Thanks for all your help mate.

Cheers

Derek

"Carl Frisk" wrote in message
.. .
Sounds like the chipset drivers aren't installed correctly anymore. Also
BEWARE the event log warnings about an
imminent drive failure are probably true. I just had a drive go out 2
hours after the first warnings appeared. You
could run the drive manufactures diagnostics tool to test the drive. I
wouldn't trust it at this point. It could be a
bad cable. It could be a lot of things. Just copying the data from one
drive to other if it is the boot OS is going to
cause problems. If the disk was imaged you may be OK. What happened to
the old drive? Does he now have two installed?

I'd take it back to the shop.

--
...Carl Frisk
Anger is a brief madness.
- Horace, 20 B.C.
http://www.carlfrisk.com


"Derek" wrote in message
...
Hi Alan,

Thanks very much for the interesting reply.

He has decided VERY reluctantly to bite the bullet, and take his PC back
on
Monday, and have his new Hard Drive, formatted ! This I presume, wipes
the
REGISTRY clean aswell hopefully. This SHOULD eliminate any problems with
FS2002 and FS2004 in his registry that he has had over the years.

But I still dont know why the straightforward installation of FS0024
complete, would mean that it doesnt even RECOGNISE that he has such a
card
as the Radeon 9700 PRo even installed ! He cant adjust sliders on things
like "Bi Linear Filtering", "Enhanced Water Detail", or even use the
"alt
and enter" command to make his flightsim desktop go full screen. He
could do
ALL of the above with his old FS2002 Pro, but not with FS2004.

Thanks for your help matey. I dont know where to go from here.

Derek (20 miles west of the English Lake District)

"Alan White" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 May 2004 12:46:09 +0000 (UTC), "Derek"
wrote:

What were your symptoms ??

The problem is only mildly related to yours.

For the past six months, the Windows XP Event Viewer has been
predicting the imminent demise of my C drive.

I purchased a replacement, installed it as a second drive and on to it
backed up my original drive. The backup drive then replaced the
original and became the new C drive. The backup isn't an analogue of
the original in terms of functionality, e.g. the desktop settings are
different and applications that worked on the original don't work on
the backup. I haven't carried out a rigourous examination. I'll
probably do that when the current C drive dies!

This just demonstrates that simply copying files from one drive to
another isn't simplistic.

BTW, FlightSim wasn't affected as it's on another drive.

My advice is still 'take it back to the shop'.

--
Alan White
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow.
Overlooking Loch Goil and Loch Long in Argyll, Scotland.
http://tinyurl.com/55v3

On Thu, 13 May 2004 20:48:03 +0000, Derek wrote:


1. On boot up, his PC (he is using Windows XP), starts giving "file
..
..
..
How does he stop his PC attempting to go through the above lengthy process
each time on boot up ? Does he have to let it go through the complete
procedure at least once ? After that should he no longer get the warning
?


Yes. The drive is marked as "dirty" until it's able to complete this
diagnostic and correct step. It will be marked "clean" once it completes.
After which, assuming nothing else funky is going on here, it should boot
without requiring this step.

I should also point out that if he does have file system problems,
continued use of the filesystem while it damage can greatly extend the
damage to the filesystem. It's very possible to much, much worse off if
he continues to ignore this problem.

If the system is identifying cross-linked files, it's telling you that you
have some form of filesystem corruption. It's important that you let the
system fix what it can. It's also important to realize that some files
may be damaged beyond repair. The repair process only works to get the
filesystem repaired and properly layed out. Once the filesystem is in a
known good state, it's still possible to have files which remained
damaged. Worse, the process of repairing the filesystem can actually
damage some files. The details and extent of any possible damage and the
degree at which that damage can be repaired greatly depends on the nature
of the filesystem damage and the types of file activity that has been done
post-damage.

If possible, he REALLY needs to convert his filesystem to NTFS. NTFS is
much, much better than FAT. FAT is used by anyone that is begging to
suffer from filesystem corruption. FAT also suffers from very, very long
consistency checks. NTFS is a journaled filesystem, which means it always
attempts to keep the filesystem in good order without requiring a fsck to
be done on it. At worst, in bad situations, NTFS may still be checked but
the speed is mucho, mucho faster than the checks required for FAT. Best
of all, if the drive is very large and he converts to NTFS, he should gain
a fair amount of additional drive space back for actual file use. FAT is
horribly wasteful of allocated file space.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!


References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...convertfat.asp

On Fri, 14 May 2004 00:56:59 +0000, Derek wrote:

Hi,

Are you suggesting that the shop HAS made a mistake when copying over the
files from his OLD hard drive, to the NEW one then ?

Have you had personal experience of the same prob ?


Yes, it is possible that the shop messed something up. It's also, just as
possible, assuming FAT is being used, that someone simply failed to
shutdown the system properly, and this is the result.

A system should ALWAYS been cleanly shutdown after use. Do not power off
your computer until it says it's safe to do so. Powering off a computer
before it says it's safe to do so is begging for filesystem corruption and
possibly even file damage. Converting to NTFS is a positive, proactive
step, which will greatly help mitigate the risks. Just the same, even
after a conversion to NTFS, proper shudowns should always be performed.

Cheers!

NTFS is not the cure all your proclaiming it to be. Though I would never go back to FAT. He may also be having hard
drive problems, or cable problems, or power problems. Is he caching hard drive writes?

NTFS does keep a somewhat hidden transaction log that consumes more space on your hard drive than FAT.

So I agree use NTFS. Far superior to FAT. Check your Event Log periodically for drive errors.

--
....Carl Frisk
Anger is a brief madness.
- Horace, 20 B.C.
http://www.carlfrisk.com


"Greg Copeland" wrote in message news
On Thu, 13 May 2004 20:48:03 +0000, Derek wrote:


1. On boot up, his PC (he is using Windows XP), starts giving "file
.
.
.
How does he stop his PC attempting to go through the above lengthy process
each time on boot up ? Does he have to let it go through the complete
procedure at least once ? After that should he no longer get the warning
?


Yes. The drive is marked as "dirty" until it's able to complete this
diagnostic and correct step. It will be marked "clean" once it completes.
After which, assuming nothing else funky is going on here, it should boot
without requiring this step.

I should also point out that if he does have file system problems,
continued use of the filesystem while it damage can greatly extend the
damage to the filesystem. It's very possible to much, much worse off if
he continues to ignore this problem.

If the system is identifying cross-linked files, it's telling you that you
have some form of filesystem corruption. It's important that you let the
system fix what it can. It's also important to realize that some files
may be damaged beyond repair. The repair process only works to get the
filesystem repaired and properly layed out. Once the filesystem is in a
known good state, it's still possible to have files which remained
damaged. Worse, the process of repairing the filesystem can actually
damage some files. The details and extent of any possible damage and the
degree at which that damage can be repaired greatly depends on the nature
of the filesystem damage and the types of file activity that has been done
post-damage.

If possible, he REALLY needs to convert his filesystem to NTFS. NTFS is
much, much better than FAT. FAT is used by anyone that is begging to
suffer from filesystem corruption. FAT also suffers from very, very long
consistency checks. NTFS is a journaled filesystem, which means it always
attempts to keep the filesystem in good order without requiring a fsck to
be done on it. At worst, in bad situations, NTFS may still be checked but
the speed is mucho, mucho faster than the checks required for FAT. Best
of all, if the drive is very large and he converts to NTFS, he should gain
a fair amount of additional drive space back for actual file use. FAT is
horribly wasteful of allocated file space.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!


References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...convertfat.asp

On Tue, 18 May 2004 18:24:09 +0000, Carl Frisk wrote:

Well, I don't believe I offered it as cure all. In fact, I said, "NTFS is
much, much better than FAT", which it is. Just the same, FAT is stone
age technology which was been grafted with what, three of four major
technology improvements just to keep it running on modern hardware.
Accordingly, NTFS represents a modern filesystem which has many, many
advantages (journal, better disk space management, security, better
caching, faster searches, faster recovery, fragmentation & corruption
resistance, etc, etc) and little to no disadvantges (more memory used and
requires that you make recovery disks). Even with hard drive writes, NTFS
is a better solution. The reason being, the journal will allow the FS to
return to a known good state. That's the whole point. Of course, that's
not saying you won't or can't lose data and/or files!

Which does remind me! If you convert your boot drive to NTFS, MAKE SURE
YOU CREATE YOUR RECOVERY DISKS!!!!!

NTFS is not the cure all your proclaiming it to be. Though I would never go back to FAT. He may also be having hard
drive problems, or cable problems, or power problems. Is he caching hard drive writes?

NTFS does keep a somewhat hidden transaction log that consumes more space on your hard drive than FAT.

So I agree use NTFS. Far superior to FAT. Check your Event Log periodically for drive errors.

True Greg, I was just adding emphasis to the 'it's not a cure all' while confirming that I agree it is the only choice I
would make for a Win file system. The one time I ever saw a problem with NTFS was in transferring large files around
800GB to another drive on another machine. It turned out to be the PERC2 controller! As soon as the NTFS developer
talked to the Dell engineer and sent the Debug info Dell sent a prototype card next day and we were back up and running.
The lock up froze both machines until you rebooted one or the other. That was fixed around a year ago. We had both
engineers onsite on Friday and it was fixed by Monday on both NTFS and the PERC2.

--
....Carl Frisk
Anger is a brief madness.
- Horace, 20 B.C.
http://www.carlfrisk.com


"Greg Copeland" wrote in message news
On Tue, 18 May 2004 18:24:09 +0000, Carl Frisk wrote:

Well, I don't believe I offered it as cure all. In fact, I said, "NTFS is
much, much better than FAT", which it is. Just the same, FAT is stone
age technology which was been grafted with what, three of four major
technology improvements just to keep it running on modern hardware.
Accordingly, NTFS represents a modern filesystem which has many, many
advantages (journal, better disk space management, security, better
caching, faster searches, faster recovery, fragmentation & corruption
resistance, etc, etc) and little to no disadvantges (more memory used and
requires that you make recovery disks). Even with hard drive writes, NTFS
is a better solution. The reason being, the journal will allow the FS to
return to a known good state. That's the whole point. Of course, that's
not saying you won't or can't lose data and/or files!

Which does remind me! If you convert your boot drive to NTFS, MAKE SURE
YOU CREATE YOUR RECOVERY DISKS!!!!!

NTFS is not the cure all your proclaiming it to be. Though I would never go back to FAT. He may also be having hard
drive problems, or cable problems, or power problems. Is he caching hard drive writes?

NTFS does keep a somewhat hidden transaction log that consumes more space on your hard drive than FAT.

So I agree use NTFS. Far superior to FAT. Check your Event Log periodically for drive errors.

Hi Greg,

Many thanks for your detailed help.

My friend has done as you say, and let the file checker do its stuff which
it did succesfully, and he can now boot up normally.

He has also solved some of his probs with FS2004 but has a gut feeling it
still wasnt running as it should.

So he has now taken his PC back to the shop, and they are formatting the
hard drive they only just installed the other day. Amongst other things,
even when he had his OLD hard drive we think there was something wrong in
his registry, that was blocking certain volumes of the "Just Flight VFR
Scenery" package series for FS2002/4 being installed.

His PC was due back from the shop today, but he hasnt phoned me so I presume
there has been a delay.

Thanks for all your help my friend

Derek
"Greg Copeland" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 13 May 2004 20:48:03 +0000, Derek wrote:


1. On boot up, his PC (he is using Windows XP), starts giving "file
.
.
.
How does he stop his PC attempting to go through the above lengthy
process
each time on boot up ? Does he have to let it go through the complete
procedure at least once ? After that should he no longer get the warning
?


Yes. The drive is marked as "dirty" until it's able to complete this
diagnostic and correct step. It will be marked "clean" once it completes.
After which, assuming nothing else funky is going on here, it should boot
without requiring this step.

I should also point out that if he does have file system problems,
continued use of the filesystem while it damage can greatly extend the
damage to the filesystem. It's very possible to much, much worse off if
he continues to ignore this problem.

If the system is identifying cross-linked files, it's telling you that you
have some form of filesystem corruption. It's important that you let the
system fix what it can. It's also important to realize that some files
may be damaged beyond repair. The repair process only works to get the
filesystem repaired and properly layed out. Once the filesystem is in a
known good state, it's still possible to have files which remained
damaged. Worse, the process of repairing the filesystem can actually
damage some files. The details and extent of any possible damage and the
degree at which that damage can be repaired greatly depends on the nature
of the filesystem damage and the types of file activity that has been done
post-damage.

If possible, he REALLY needs to convert his filesystem to NTFS. NTFS is
much, much better than FAT. FAT is used by anyone that is begging to
suffer from filesystem corruption. FAT also suffers from very, very long
consistency checks. NTFS is a journaled filesystem, which means it always
attempts to keep the filesystem in good order without requiring a fsck to
be done on it. At worst, in bad situations, NTFS may still be checked but
the speed is mucho, mucho faster than the checks required for FAT. Best
of all, if the drive is very large and he converts to NTFS, he should gain
a fair amount of additional drive space back for actual file use. FAT is
horribly wasteful of allocated file space.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!


References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...convertfat.asp

Ah, the registry. The registry is only of Microsoft's biggests curses
placed on their own platform. The registry only, ever grows in size and
can not be shrunk once it grows. Installing new software often requires
the registry to grow in size. Removing software (and associated registry
entries) may allow the removed entries to be reused, however, this can
result in registry data being physically scattered all over the registry
and the hard drive. This translates to poor performance and an ever
growing registry. Typically, most desktop users experience a breaking
point every 18 to 36 months. This means, poor system performance,
registry and/or filesystem corruption, and system stabiity issues. Many
shops will simply "ghost" a copy onto systems every 12 - 18 months just to
avoid the headaches. This often fixes many random and odd problems,
which older systems tend to experience. The exact window generally
relates to the number of applications which have been installed and/or
removed and the associated order in which such actions occurred. Not to
mention the effort which has been placed on the system to maintain a
current patch level and frequency at which service packs have been
installed and maintained.

If your friend's original installation is older than 18 to 35 months,
especially if he's experienced filesystem corruption in the past, a fresh
installation of the OS on up, should be considered. While time consuming
and a headache to backup and restore old data and applications, users are
often rewarded with stability and speed over the next 18 to 36 months. At
which time, you're usually good for another rinse and repeat cycle.

If you friend was experiencing some of these problems in the past, simply
migrating these problems to a new drive can be very frustrating. As such,
replacing an old drive with a new drive often makes for an excellent
window to start afresh again.

While I certainly would not say that any of this is required, I would
recommend that it should be considered.

Cheers and good luck! Sorry to hear that your friend is having so many
problems.

Greg

On Thu, 20 May 2004 23:41:50 +0000, Derek wrote:

Hi Greg,

Many thanks for your detailed help.

My friend has done as you say, and let the file checker do its stuff which
it did succesfully, and he can now boot up normally.

He has also solved some of his probs with FS2004 but has a gut feeling it
still wasnt running as it should.

So he has now taken his PC back to the shop, and they are formatting the
hard drive they only just installed the other day. Amongst other things,
even when he had his OLD hard drive we think there was something wrong in
his registry, that was blocking certain volumes of the "Just Flight VFR
Scenery" package series for FS2002/4 being installed.

His PC was due back from the shop today, but he hasnt phoned me so I presume
there has been a delay.

Thanks for all your help my friend

Derek
"Greg Copeland" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 13 May 2004 20:48:03 +0000, Derek wrote:


1. On boot up, his PC (he is using Windows XP), starts giving "file
.
.
.
How does he stop his PC attempting to go through the above lengthy
process
each time on boot up ? Does he have to let it go through the complete
procedure at least once ? After that should he no longer get the warning
?


Yes. The drive is marked as "dirty" until it's able to complete this
diagnostic and correct step. It will be marked "clean" once it completes.
After which, assuming nothing else funky is going on here, it should boot
without requiring this step.

I should also point out that if he does have file system problems,
continued use of the filesystem while it damage can greatly extend the
damage to the filesystem. It's very possible to much, much worse off if
he continues to ignore this problem.

If the system is identifying cross-linked files, it's telling you that you
have some form of filesystem corruption. It's important that you let the
system fix what it can. It's also important to realize that some files
may be damaged beyond repair. The repair process only works to get the
filesystem repaired and properly layed out. Once the filesystem is in a
known good state, it's still possible to have files which remained
damaged. Worse, the process of repairing the filesystem can actually
damage some files. The details and extent of any possible damage and the
degree at which that damage can be repaired greatly depends on the nature
of the filesystem damage and the types of file activity that has been done
post-damage.

If possible, he REALLY needs to convert his filesystem to NTFS. NTFS is
much, much better than FAT. FAT is used by anyone that is begging to
suffer from filesystem corruption. FAT also suffers from very, very long
consistency checks. NTFS is a journaled filesystem, which means it always
attempts to keep the filesystem in good order without requiring a fsck to
be done on it. At worst, in bad situations, NTFS may still be checked but
the speed is mucho, mucho faster than the checks required for FAT. Best
of all, if the drive is very large and he converts to NTFS, he should gain
a fair amount of additional drive space back for actual file use. FAT is
horribly wasteful of allocated file space.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!


References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...convertfat.asp

There is actually quite a bit of software out there that will shrink the registry by removing deleted and broken
registry links. If anyone can't find it I'll dig out URL's and post them.

--
....Carl Frisk
Anger is a brief madness.
- Horace, 20 B.C.
http://www.carlfrisk.com


"Greg Copeland" wrote in message news
Ah, the registry. The registry is only of Microsoft's biggests curses
placed on their own platform. The registry only, ever grows in size and
can not be shrunk once it grows. Installing new software often requires
the registry to grow in size. Removing software (and associated registry
entries) may allow the removed entries to be reused, however, this can
result in registry data being physically scattered all over the registry
and the hard drive. This translates to poor performance and an ever
growing registry. Typically, most desktop users experience a breaking
point every 18 to 36 months. This means, poor system performance,
registry and/or filesystem corruption, and system stabiity issues. Many
shops will simply "ghost" a copy onto systems every 12 - 18 months just to
avoid the headaches. This often fixes many random and odd problems,
which older systems tend to experience. The exact window generally
relates to the number of applications which have been installed and/or
removed and the associated order in which such actions occurred. Not to
mention the effort which has been placed on the system to maintain a
current patch level and frequency at which service packs have been
installed and maintained.

If your friend's original installation is older than 18 to 35 months,
especially if he's experienced filesystem corruption in the past, a fresh
installation of the OS on up, should be considered. While time consuming
and a headache to backup and restore old data and applications, users are
often rewarded with stability and speed over the next 18 to 36 months. At
which time, you're usually good for another rinse and repeat cycle.

If you friend was experiencing some of these problems in the past, simply
migrating these problems to a new drive can be very frustrating. As such,
replacing an old drive with a new drive often makes for an excellent
window to start afresh again.

While I certainly would not say that any of this is required, I would
recommend that it should be considered.

Cheers and good luck! Sorry to hear that your friend is having so many
problems.

Greg

On Thu, 20 May 2004 23:41:50 +0000, Derek wrote:

Hi Greg,

Many thanks for your detailed help.

My friend has done as you say, and let the file checker do its stuff which
it did succesfully, and he can now boot up normally.

He has also solved some of his probs with FS2004 but has a gut feeling it
still wasnt running as it should.

So he has now taken his PC back to the shop, and they are formatting the
hard drive they only just installed the other day. Amongst other things,
even when he had his OLD hard drive we think there was something wrong in
his registry, that was blocking certain volumes of the "Just Flight VFR
Scenery" package series for FS2002/4 being installed.

His PC was due back from the shop today, but he hasnt phoned me so I presume
there has been a delay.

Thanks for all your help my friend

Derek
"Greg Copeland" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 13 May 2004 20:48:03 +0000, Derek wrote:


1. On boot up, his PC (he is using Windows XP), starts giving "file
.
.
.
How does he stop his PC attempting to go through the above lengthy
process
each time on boot up ? Does he have to let it go through the complete
procedure at least once ? After that should he no longer get the warning
?


Yes. The drive is marked as "dirty" until it's able to complete this
diagnostic and correct step. It will be marked "clean" once it completes.
After which, assuming nothing else funky is going on here, it should boot
without requiring this step.

I should also point out that if he does have file system problems,
continued use of the filesystem while it damage can greatly extend the
damage to the filesystem. It's very possible to much, much worse off if
he continues to ignore this problem.

If the system is identifying cross-linked files, it's telling you that you
have some form of filesystem corruption. It's important that you let the
system fix what it can. It's also important to realize that some files
may be damaged beyond repair. The repair process only works to get the
filesystem repaired and properly layed out. Once the filesystem is in a
known good state, it's still possible to have files which remained
damaged. Worse, the process of repairing the filesystem can actually
damage some files. The details and extent of any possible damage and the
degree at which that damage can be repaired greatly depends on the nature
of the filesystem damage and the types of file activity that has been done
post-damage.

If possible, he REALLY needs to convert his filesystem to NTFS. NTFS is
much, much better than FAT. FAT is used by anyone that is begging to
suffer from filesystem corruption. FAT also suffers from very, very long
consistency checks. NTFS is a journaled filesystem, which means it always
attempts to keep the filesystem in good order without requiring a fsck to
be done on it. At worst, in bad situations, NTFS may still be checked but
the speed is mucho, mucho faster than the checks required for FAT. Best
of all, if the drive is very large and he converts to NTFS, he should gain
a fair amount of additional drive space back for actual file use. FAT is
horribly wasteful of allocated file space.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!


References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...convertfat.asp