Hi, Chris.
First, WinXP does not include Scandisk. I think you mean Chkdsk.
When Chkdsk finds strings of clusters that are marked as "in use", but for
which no entry is found in any Directory, it groups each string and assigns
it a random name (starting with File0000.chk and incrementing from there).
These "lost" clusters might be any kind of file - or they might be just
random clusters that somehow got marked "in use" through some computer
error. Chkdsk doesn't cause the error; it simply reports the condition of
the hard drive and tries in this way to give you a chance to recover the
files. The real culprit is whatever wiped out the Directory entries that
used to point to these clusters.
In some cases, such as simple text files, you can look at their contents
(using Notepad or the Type command in a "DOS" window) and identify them. If
you like, you can change their filename and extension to .txt, or whatever
is appropriate, and use them again. If you recognize a Word file, you can
change .chk to .doc and try to load it into Word. If, by some miracle, the
entire file is still in a single string of clusters (and thus in a single
..chk file), you may be able to recover it, rename it, and use it again.
Ditto with .xls, .ppt, etc., files. If the original file was fragmented,
though, your chances of recovering all of it in the right sequence are
practically nil.
Unless the files were valuable enough to pay a professional recovery service
to recover them for you, your only real option is to delete the *.chk files
to recover the now-wasted disk space. I hope you had backups.
Sorry I don't have better news.
RC
