What? Chkdsk on startup and freezes at stage 4

Hi everyone. Hopefully someone can help with a Dell Dimension 4700 desktop. I got the computer out of my son's room and trying to get it current to use for special projects. I got it online and instantly did updates and added Avast. Several weeks go by and now I want to finish this project.

Surprise is, when the computer started, it instantly did the chkdsk, so I let it run. Then it froze at stage 4, 42%, unresponsive to anything I did (short of CPR). I had to press the button to get it to shut off. Turned it back on and it continues to do the same. It's Windows XP, probably SP3 (from my last update).

I'd like to know how I can get a regular startup without it going into the chkdsk mode and freezing. Is there a way? I would like to do a backup of files before I have to re-format the C drive again (if needed). Can anyone help? I have the original disks - "somewhere"... Thanks much for any help on this. Cindy

 

Press F8 at startup, before windows loads and see if you can get into safe mode without chkdsk running. If you can get windows to load in safe mode, read this
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_c.htm#cd

You have a dirty flag and that's why it runs.
I'm not sure why it freezes at step 4.

You can prevent it from running at startup by going here
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
scrolling to line 82 in the left column and clicking disable. This will download a registry fix which will stop chkdsk running at startup.

You might be able to grab your files to archive then figure out how to fix the checkdisk problem.