Off Topic "computer problems question"

Hi, I  have a problem, there was a power outage at my complex, my wall has 3 prong outlets but apparently its the old style wiring and it isnt grounded which made my surge protector worthless or shall I say not work. The problem is this has happened 3 times in the past.
my computer starts up,stays on the compaq screen for at least 8-9 minutes then takes another 1-2 minutes for windows to load. last time it happened I did a bunch of things/startuptests/defrag and eventually it started to boot up normal. It would go to the compaq screen for a second then bam start windows and be ready to play ball in about 2 minutes.
My problem is I dont know what I did to make it work right the last 3 times this happened. I did things in safe mode, spyware stuff startup repair. all kinds of things.
anyhow, does anyone know basically what happened and what exactly I need to do to get it running normal again? at least a starting point? such an inconvenience, I very happy it loads though even though it takes 10 minutes everytime I turn the power on or even evertime I restart. I know some of you guys know more about computers than I do. probably most of you. Any answers are appreciated and I would be so grateful. take care, Kevin

tried defrag it didnt fix it. the ccleaner is asking for $29.99 to fix the errors

sounds like a major hard drive crash - sounds like your MBR is corrupt and you probably have bad sectors maybe even corrupting the table.

thanks  for the comment Katchi,   Its not recognizing this command, says its incorrect

Wish I knew what to tell you.... it sounds like Greek to me too.

At this point I would (personally) be looking at buying a new hard drive and starting from scratch with a fresh drive and a new install of everything...... but that's just me....

Last time I noticed my drive starting to act a bit flakey, I bought a new drive and cloned it before it died on me...... but I understand that a crash just kinda reaches out and grabs ya...... when you least expect it, and,  might I add, at the most inopportune moment.

Try what Beagle is suggesting if it does not work rebooting your computer, then try to reboot in safe mode with command prompt then you type chksdk /f

hey guys, after tring all these things one by one, It is working almost back to normal, I really appreciate all your help. you guys/girl are amazing. Im not sure which exact comment helped or if all of them  helped but I am going to print this page incase it happens again.
rock on, thanks again,

defiantely good deal, how do I go about backing up my data? do I buy an external harddrive and somehow transfer the data? also Is there a way to save all my cakewalk music projects to a cd or dvd disc. If so ho do I do this, I tried burning to a data disc and when I opened it it had different tracks for each song. I would want to be able to throw the disc in and open up the whole project so I could save it to a new computer if I had to and continue working on it., thanks Reece

this is really cool, I will probably do this when I get some extra money. take care all.

also, my computer didnt come with any vista disc, I did make a recover disc from my computer. its actually 4 discs and also made a boot disc. not sure thes would help.

I went to windows update, clicked on update now, it says errors found, code 8024A000, windows updater encountered an unknown error