What's with this XP bootup message?

[Phait]

I had to hard reset my PC since I was going to restart it normally, and closed a few programs - 1 of them hung... so upon reboot, the blue login-like XP screen game up (but wasn't the login screen, just the blue background (not a BSOD) and said: "Please wait............................................", then it went ahead to the login screen like normal.

Why?

[NutWrench]

Maybe your PC needed to do a disk check (because of the unexpected shutdown) or rebuild the swap file. (Just totally guessing, here)

[Superczar]

Sounds like CHKDSK ran as Nut said... especially since you had to shut it off without shutting Windows down...

[unforgiven]

Maybe You installed Applications Like Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Director or you applied some updates , Please wait............................................ not related to Drive Error

if you're not sure do a System Restore

[Superczar]

applied some updates

That too, yeah...

[Phait]

I never update XP.

It probably was CHKDSK.