Q:

A "CHKDSK" program decided to scan my harddrive during boot up. Routine maintenance or sign of the computational apocalypse?

I've had my gateway computer for roughly seven years. I've never seen this CHKDSK program run before. It seemed to be a windows protocal based on how it was running and the names I saw.
It wanted to check my harddrive for consistency. I would've said no but the time expired before I could press a key so it ran. Luckily it wasn't ransomware. Still not convinced it wasn't a virus but if it isn't I would like to know why this program ran and what it is for.
It did three main steps:

Verify files (can't quite remember exactly)
Check file indexes
Authenticate security? (it checked SD/SIDs)

During step 2 it kept correcting some index $I30 in various files. Then it moved a bunch of weird names files that were apparently "orphaned". The names were of the form _____-_____-_____-_____ and looked like alphanumeric IDs.
Is my harddrive about to go out or something or is this just maintenance windows does when it has a glitch? It seemed to be garbage collecting the file structure based on the names but im just not sure.

A:

When your OS prompts you to do a disk-check on startup its normally a good idea to do it.   These are normally required when the computer was not shut down properly (eg power outage), or if the computer believes the filesystem might be corrupt.
If this happens regularly (and you are shutting down the computer properly), it is a very good idea to get your hard disk checked out, as it means that it is failing. 

