Running Windows Chkdsk or Checkdisk

Using Windows Chkdsk or checkdisk should be the first line of defence when analysing or troubleshooting Windows disk errors and it is always useful to run this as a preventative measure to help safe guard against possible disk errors.

Using Windows Checkdisk is a simple fix that can in many cases revive or fix many common windows disk errors.

There are 2 distinct ways to run check disk the first involves running from the Windows Dos shell interface.

The other way, which is extremely useful if your computer will not boot into Windows is to run it from the Windows CD/DVD

To begin the first make sure Windows has fully booted up then go to the Start, Run menu, now type CHKDSK /F and hit return, you will be advised that it cannot run at present, but will run the next time the computer is restarted, it will take longer to boot up as it will check the hard drive and attempt to fix any disk errors and will run a 5 point check that can take as long as 30 minutes.

Stage 4 of 5 at 18% running chkdsk after rebooting

If your computer is having issues booting then the next method of running Windows chkdsk may be ideal for your needs.

Very often at the first sign of a repetitive BSD or Blue screen of death error preventing successful booting causes many people to simply perform a complete Windows rebuild and live with the consequences of losing all their data, but many times running chkdsk will be able to resolve many problems, and it will only take around 20 minutes to run.

To run the boot time CHKDSK we first need to boot from your Windows operating system CD/DVD, this can be accomplished by either hitting the F12 key on the computers boot up; this will give a temporary boot menu, from which you select the CD/DVD drive from the menu. The other method is to go into the computers BIOS normally using the F2 or Del Keys, look for the boot order section and choose the CD/DVD drive as the first device in the boot sequence.

Now when you begin to boot from the CD/DVD you will see a message similar to press any key to boot from disk this will only be displayed for a few seconds so you need to be quick here.

Once your successfully passed all of this you will arrive at the Windows installation screen go to the repair / recovery console options, type LOGON to access the Windows installation, type CHKDSK /R to check for disk errors and repair, might take a while depending on the size of the disk.

There are a lot of other options we can select with chkdsk that cover a wide range of scenarios.

CHKDSK /F Fixes errors on the hard drive

CHKDSK /V on FAT or FAT32 volumes it will display the path of every file on the disk

CHKDSK /R Attempts to locate and recover readable information

CHKDSK /L:size NTFS only, will change the size of the log file to the size specified

CHKDSK /X Forces a volume to be dismounted first, can cause issues if any files are open or in use.

CHKDSK /I NTFS only performs a basic check of index entries

CHKDSK /C NTFS only skips checking of cycles within the folder structure

Many of these options we dont really need to worry too much about the main options are the /F & /R .

Another option worth noting is the multiple drive or partition option where other volumes can be selected, this can be implemented by using the CHKDSK command followed by the volumes drive letter with a colon; for example CHKDSK D: /R

It is advisable to run Windows CHKDSK every week or two to help your computers hard drive remain reliable by fixing any hard drive problems before they cause you problems.

Make sure your hard drive is running well
checkout more on hard disk problems and tuning

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