The trick is to prevent the improper shutdown - what makes you think that
this is a problem with the HD??? - it's more likely to be an overheating CPU
or PSU.

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"budgie" wrote in message
...
I have a 40G Maxtor C: drive which *very* occasionally seems to power down
and
restart spontaneously. This is maybe once a month. A flag is obviously
set, as
Scandisk (98SE) is invoked at the next boot and not only does the quick
scan but
wants to do the full surface scan.

Every time I have let it do the full scan (200+ minutes BTW) it has come
up
clean as a whistle. Absolutely nothing found. If I exit the surface
scan, the
flag remains set until I eventually relent. The problem is the three and
a
half hours of delay.

Without wanting a lecture on why "Windows knows best" and "one day, ..."
can
someone tell me if there is a way to prevent Windows wanting to do a
surface
scan on these - or other - occasions?