Perform a Disk Check Within Windows
By: Chad Sweely
If you have been in the computing world for a long time, many of you will know of the MS-DOS command of chkdsk. This is a tool in MS-DOS that has been around since the early Windows 3.x days that thoroughly scans your hard drive, and can fix and report any logical file system errors. While chkdsk is running, the program can also check for physical issues, such as bad sectors, and also attempt to recover information that may be damaged associated with the bad sectors that it finds.
Up until Windows 2000 and XP, users could only run this command from an MS-DOS prompt; however, if you would like to use a more GUI-based application of this helpful tool, Windows 2000 (along with operating systems released after it) offers you a way that you can check the integrity of your hard drive without an MS-DOS prompt. To run chkdsk within Windows (called “Check Disk”), please follow the steps that I have provided below.
- From the Start menu, click on the My Computer item. This will display the various drives and media that are connected to your computer.
- From within My Computer window, right-click on your hard drive (most commonly classified as C / Local Disk) and select the “Properties” option. This will load the “Local Disk Properties” window.
- With the “Local Disk Properties” window open, select the “Tools” tab (if it is not already selected).
- Within the “Tools” section of the “Local Disk Properties” window, under the “Error Checking” section, click on the Check Now button.
- After the Check Now button has been pressed, a prompt window will appear that asks you to select the following options:
- Automatically fix file system errors
- Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors
- After you have selected one or both of the options listed above, click on the Start button, and the process of checking your hard drive’s integrity will commence.