Corrupt file file in C Drive on Windows XP

[riptide]

I have a sony laptop, about 5 years old. Today when I signed in with my password all I got was the desktop colouring with nothing else. I turned it off and started again and then it was okay. Since then I have had a warning from windows saying there is a corrupt file. I did a disk degragmentation and it came back with "Drive C: File system errors, consider running chkdsk. I then went to my search button and typed in "chkdsk" and it came back with "c/windows/I386 and "c/windows/system 32" under this title. Anyone any idea what is going on here. I am not a computer expert at all so if you could help please I would be grateful. Thanks

Riptide

[squarebear]

go into start-run and type cmd. This should bring up a command prompt, then type chkdsk /f
This should find and correct any basic disk errors.

[MarkRae]

> I am not a computer expert at all

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to fix this yourself unless you have everything you need backed up on an external device, and are prepared / able to reinstall everything yourself.

If you have corrupt files on a hard disk, the absolutely last thing you want to try to do is to defragment it! What on earth possessed you to do that...?