How to fix hard disk errors
If youve defragmented your hard drive and are still seeing subpar performance, you may need to fix disk errors on your hard drive. Hard disk errors are typically caused by power outages, hardware failures, poor system maintenance, viruses, or human error. To fix disk errors, you can use the Chkdsk tool found in Windows operating systems. Chkdsk (Chkdsk.exe) is a command-line tool that creates and displays a status report for the disk by checking volumes for problems. The tool then lists and corrects errors on the disk, such as bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors. Heres how to use Chkdsk.
- Double-click My Computer (known simply as "Computer" in Windows® 7 and 8), then click once on the hard disk that you want to check, which will highlight it and allow you to select the drive. Right click on the drive and a window will appear.
- On the window that appears, click Properties, then Tools.
- Under Error-checking, click Check Now. A dialog box that shows the Check Disk Options is displayed.
- Use one of the following procedures:
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- To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
- To repair errors without scanning the volume for bad sectors, select the Automatically fix file system errors check box, then click Start.
- To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors checkbox, then click Start.
Note on all versions of Windows prior to Windows 8: If one or more files are open on the hard disk that you want to fix, you will receive the following message:
"The disk check could not be performed because the disk check utility needs exclusive access to some Windows files on the disk. These files can be accessed by restarting Windows. Do you want to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart the computer?"
If the above text appears, click "Yes" to schedule the disk check, then restart your computer to begin the disk check.
For more information about Chkdsk, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:
Chkdsk: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491051.aspx
Running Chkdsk to repair file systems: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457122.aspx