I frequently get freezes with the mouse, so I always try control+alt+delete and
control+alt+backspace, then I shutoff. Luckily, either the Hiren's tools or Mint
Linux LXDE autochecks the hard drive once in awhile. Why do I mention
Hiren's...because this HP laptop doesn't support booting from USB external hard
drive.
The Puppy Live CD based off Ubuntu used to fix unclean shutoffs, but I haven't
tried it on any Linux expect Ubuntu 10.04. I had the power go out while updating
once.