chkdsk is hangin up - maybe

My 2 month old Dell has been giving me the "unbootable_disk_volume" blue screen error for the past two days. I've restored once, which worked, I think (I was able to work). Booted to safe mode to make sure all was working, but couldn't fix Outlook this way; however, everything else checked out. Did system repair too many times to count, with obviously no success. Chkdsk was also run several times as well but never got hung at 58% like it is now. Yesterday morning when booted up Outlook indicated there was a file error in the inbox preventing the files from being viewed...I'll worry about this later. Now, I've used the OEM Vista disk to reinstall/repair, but repair didn't work. Tried reinstall and that's where I'm at waiting for it to finish with the chkdsk. How long does it normally take? Can it take over 3 hours? Which is what it's been. Am I being too impatient?

I have backed up most of my files (Outlook excluded), so I'm good there.

Didn't want to do a full reformat due to programs needed for my office, but if it has to be it has to be...

Any and all help greatly appreciated.

It depends on which chkdsk /? that you ran and also on the size of your hard drive. Let it run overnight if necessary. In most chkdsk screens there's a % indicator visible - has that moved at all in the last 3 hours?

This sort of problem suggests to me that there may be a physical problem with the hard drive. I'd suggest running the hard drive diagnostic that comes on the Dell utility tools, or a bootable diagnostic from the manufacturer of your hard drive.

I let it run for over 5 hours and nothing changed. Then I tried to reboot and got a Diskmgr missing error. I've run every diagnostic I could find and use with no luck...I'm reformatting now. Thank you for the help, guess I wasn't patient enough, but with work tomorrow I needed to get something done tonight.

If it continues to give you problems after the reformat, then I'd suggest running a bootable diagnostic utility. With problems like this in chkdsk the most likely issue would be a failing hard drive.