Scan and Fix Hard Disk Errors with CHKDSK command in Windows

scan and fix your hard disk errors yourself

If you are used to windows then most of you already know about this command CHKDSK and what it does. And if you don't know about it, then you should know this because this will help you a lot. Read more and find out about this helpful command.

CHKDSK (full form is "Check Disk") is a Hard Disk scanning and repairing command system utility tool which was introduced some what like three decades ago. Yeah you heard it correct. It was introduced that time ago but still it is being used in our latest Microsoft Operating Systems and yeah even in Windows 10.

What this command does is:

1. It scans and verifies the file system of a volume or drive (Hard Disk Partition like C: D: E: or more if you have any)
2. Then it checks and fix the file system errors by locating the bad sectors or clusters

How to run this command on Windows

First make sure the drive which you are trying to scan and fix is not being used or accessed.

Step One

Open your command prompt (or cmd) on administrator mode. On your command prompt things should look like this in administrator mode.

Microsoft Windows [version 10.0.10240]

(c) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Note the part in the red. If it is as it is then you are accessing the command prompt in administrator mode. If not then you are not in administrator mode.

What if you don't know how to open command prompt in administrator mode?

Well in this case you can follow the simple steps mentioned below:

1. Right click on the empty area of your desktop
2. Go to New > Shortcut
3. A window will pop up type cmd in the blank box
4. Click on Next and click on Finish
5. On your desktop there will be a black icon with the name cmd. Right click that icon then click on Run as Administrator
6. A window will appear which may say like "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your PC" or something like that. Click on Yes.
7. Command Prompt will open (A window with black interface)

command terminal with administrator rights

Step Two

Now that you are in command prompt with administrative priviledge. Lets just say you want to check the drive e: of your computer.

Simply typing and running the CHKDSK command on the command prompt will only display the drive’s status, and won’t fix any errors. To fix the drive, we need to type CHKDSK with its parameters. After your drive letter, type the following parameters separated by a space each: “/f /r /x”

For example, here we want to check and fix the drive e: so you need to type chkdsk e: /f and press enter.

chkdsk fixes your hard disk errors

If you type /f only then it will only scan and fix the file system structure, file name linkage and security descriptors of your drive. This step will complete in 3 stages and takes only little bit of time. Generally typing /f will fix most of the errors of your drive, but if you are sure that your drive have errors then you can run the through and detail analysis of your drive by typing chkdsk /f /r /x. But remember this will take lot of time to complete.

The “/f” parameter orders CHKDSK to fix any errors it finds; “/r” orders it to locate the bad sectors on the drive and recover readable information; “/x” forces the drive to dismount before the process starts (forces the drive to dismount means that drive will be temporarily unavailable until the scan is finished).

If you type /f /r /x all at the same time after CHKDSK then it will scan file system structure, file name linkage, security descriptors, look for bad clusters and verify file data and free space. This whole scanning and fixing process completes in 5 stages and takes load of time to finish.

Important

As I have already mentioned that First make sure the drive which you are trying to scan and fix is not being used or accessed. We wont be able to check the system boot drive or the drive on which your windows or operating system runs (drive c: by default) because it is being used to run the operating system. But it can be scanned on the next restart or startup of your computer. Typing chkdsk c: /f on command prompt will ask you if you’d like to run the command before the next boot. Type y for “yes,” restart the computer, and the command will run before the operating system loads, allowing it to gain full access to the disk.

checking your c drive with chkdsk

You can use chkdsk command on all version of Windows, XP, 7, 8, 10 and possibly in the future too.