Maintaning your hard disc drives (HDDs) circa. Win98

First open My Computer, then select the drive you want to start with.
Presumably the C: drive.

Step 1:
Right click this drive and select properties:

Step 2:
Then select the Tools tab and in the first section "Error-checking status" click on "Check Now..."

Step 3:
Choose your options for the Scandisk. I usually scan the entire disk which takes longer
but I feel that only doing it once a week or so I can spare the time.
By all means select Standard, especially if you've already checked the entire disk once before
and feel that doing so again is unnecessary.
I -would- recommend at least doing the entire disk if this is the first check it's had since
coming into your possession.

Step 4:
If you do choose "Thorough" then you get another set of options, my usual choice is
System and Data areas.

Step 5:
Settings under advanced options. Although I ask that my log file be
constantly added to so that I may check back at any time on previous
Scans, I never do <smile>. But text takes up little space on today's computers.

Once your computer has completed this task you can go back to Step 2
and select the 3rd option: "Defragment Now..." under Defragmentation Status.

G'luck.