You're not the first person to find that ScanDisk seemingly runs wild in Windows Me. This behaviour typically happens when you are running a computer with a second IDE controller card - for example, if you are working with a system with an ATA-100 or ATA-66 controller. But it sometimes happens to very ordinary systems as well.
As you've discovered, ScanDisk requires a substantial amount of time to check your disks for errors and to repair them. When this happens every time you boot up, you can quickly lose patience. To make matters worse, there's no obvious way to turn ScanDisk off, but there is a hidden way.
Open the Start menu, and click Run. In the resulting Run dialog box, type "msconfig" (without the quotation marks). The System Configuration Utility program opens. Click the Advanced button in the lower right-hand corner of the General tab. The Advanced Troubleshooting Settings dialog box opens. Place a check mark in the check box labelled "Disable ScanDisk after bad shutdown." Click OK to close the Advanced Troubleshooting Settings dialog box and exit the System Configuration Utility programme by clicking OK.
Now, when you start Windows Me, ScanDisk will never run. Remember, though, that ScanDisk performs some necessary disk maintenance functions, so you should run the utility periodically on your terms.
