You should make this a hard-and-fast rule: On an NT workstation, run the CHKDSK utility at least once a month. Assuming you are not running something like Norton's Utilites which does equivalent checking . CHKDSK checks for and fixes inconsistencies in the file system. To run the Windows NT Check Utility, right click on the drive letter (partition to be checked) in Windows NT Explorer, and choose Properties \ Tools \ Check Now button. There will be two option boxes that appear. Check both, and CHKDSK will run or it will display a message telling you that you can schedule it to run as part of the next reboot sequence. These two options test for and repair directory errors, NTFS errors, compressed-drive errors, FAT errors, long filename errors and file system errors.