5 Vital Tips to Fix Hard Drive Issues with CHKDSK in Windows

Since computer data is stored in the computer hard drive, if the drive suffers any serious issues, data will be prone to corruption. So, Windows offers users a built-in disk repair tool – CHKDSK. Now, this post will share you 5 tips in using this tool.

Computer data corruption or loss can occur from a variety of reasons, including software faults, virus attacks, power failures, and hardware problems, etc. Among these factors, without any doubts, hard drive issues can be one of the most knotty causes. Therefore, when you encounter any errors related to hard drive, in order to avert data corruption like PST corruption, you have to resolve them as soon as possible. If your computer is running on Windows, it is suggested to make use of its built-in utility – CHKDSK. It can scan and resolve hard drive problems to its utmost. Now, thereinafter, we will expose you 5 useful tricks which can help you maximize the effects of CHKDSK.

1. Run CHKDSK from Drive Partition Properties

To launch this internal disk fix tool, you can simply follow the steps below:

1. To begin with, in Windows Desktop, click on the “Start” button in the bottom left corner.
2. From the displaying “Start Menu”, you can locate and click on the “Computer” button in the right option list.
3. Later, in the popup new window, you need to choose and right click a drive partition.
4. In its context menu, select “Properties”.
5. Next, in the subsequent dialog box, switch to “Tools” tab.
6. After that, under this tab, you will see a “Check Now” button. Now, hit it.
7. At once, another small dialog box will display, in which you can specify the “check disk options”.
8. Eventually, click “Start” button.

2. Fix Errors using CHKDSK in cmd

Apart from through drive partition properties, you can run CHKDSK in Command Prompt. Here are the detailed steps.

1. At the outset, in the “Start Menu”, input “cmd” in the search box.
2. In the displaying searching list, you’ll see and right click the “cmd” program.
3. From the right clicking menu, select “Run as administrator”.
4. Then, the Command Prompt window will show up.
5. Now, you can type either the following two command lines.
6. Input “CHKDSK driveletter: /f”, which aims to repair logical file system errors.
7. Or input “CHKDSK driveletter: /r”, which is more potent and complete than the former. It will scan the drive for both logical errors and bad sectors.
8. Finally, you can press “Enter” key to start CHKDSK.

3. Additional Commands for using CHKDSK in cmd

The two command lines mentioned in above tips are generally used for fixing the drive errors. Actually, aside from them, there are many additional commands that can improve and define the CHKDSK performance, like the followings:

1. Firstly, “CHKDSK driveletter: /v”, which will display the full path and name of every file on the disk.
2. Secondly, “CHKDSK driveletter: /l:size”, which is used to change the log file size to the specified number in kilobytes.
3. Thirdly, “CHKDSK driveletter: /I”, which will make this tool to perform a minimum check of index entries.
4. Fourthly, “CHKDSK driveletter: /c”, which will skip checking the folder structure.
5. Fifthly, “CHKDSK driveletter: /b”, which will scan and evaluate the bad sectors on the drive once again.

4. Turn on/off Scheduled CHKDSK

For most Windows-based computers, the CHKDSK is scheduled to run on every computer startup. In such situations, if your computer’s hard drive malfunctions, when Windows start, CHKDSK will works and tend to get stuck. It’ll prevent you from accessing your computer.

1. If you want to check if your CHKDSK is scheduled on the next start, you can go to Command Prompt window, in which input the “chkntfs driveletter:” and press “Enter” button. When you see a message mentioning the volume is dirty, it means that Windows has scheduled an automatic CHKDSK.
2. If you want to disable the scheduled CHKDSK, you can use the “chkntfs /x c:” command instead.

5. Necessity before Running CHKDSK

Many users are complaining that files or data get lost after CHKDSK. In general, it can be caused by the sudden interruption of CHKDSK. Thus, you had better make some precautions before running it, as follows:

1. First of all, you have to properly stop all running programs. Scanning a drive will pass all data on this drive, including the data involving the program.
2. In addition, you need to scan your drive via antivirus software in advance. It can kill potential viruses, preventing them from interrupting CHKDSK.
3. Last but not least, you need insure that your computer has consistent power supply. Otherwise, once your PC suddenly gets powered off, CHKDSK will be hard stopped, which can lead to pretty serious problems.

Author Introduction:

Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including corrupted sql and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com