Troubleshooting Help:

Hello!

I was browsing the internet with no issues at all when I clicked on a post on Twitter and my computer suddenly froze (could click on other apps but could not bring up task manager) so I performed a hard shut down. Turned the computer back on and left it for a few mins to boot up, and found my screen on “Fixing (C:) stage 1: 15% (141790 of 941056); Total 5% ETA 11:03:38. The 141000 number continuously goes up by one every ~5 seconds and the ETA continues to climb higher and higher. I’ve googled this and everyone is giving mixed opinions. Is my hard drive shot? Should I force restart or let it run? Currently my C: drive is an HDD with my Windows installed on it as well as a large amount of files. I also have 2 SSD with gaming files attached to them. I’m worried my HDD is dust and I’ll lose everything I have on it. Luckily I still have my Windows install disk, but I’m not sure if I’m able to install it again onto my SSD if it boils down to my HDD being toast.

Thanks for any and all help!