RUNNING THE MICROSOFT UTILITY CHKDSK

Author: Mike Boesen

Last updated 2 March 2008

 

If you are having problems with applications running on your hard drive such as unpredictable blue scrrens of death, it's worth running the Windows utility CHKDSK.  This utility checks the integrity of a hard drive's file system.  If the /R option is used, CHKDSK will attempt to fix any errors. 

There are two ways to run CHKDSK on your Windows 2000, NT or XP system:  the point and click method from within the My Computer window and a method that involves typing in a command-line statement in a DOS-type box.  The two methods can be implemented in either the normal Windows mode or in Safe mode. I assume that there is an equivalent process for Vista.

Irrespective of the method used to run CHKDSK it will take a considerable time to do its checking and fixing - up to a couple of hours for a large drive.  So do not be surprised at how slowly it will appear to be running.

A.  Point and click method

For inexperienced PC users this is the easier of the two methods.  To run CHKDSK using the point and click method within Windows: 

              point1.jpg

B.  Command-line statement

I prefer the command-line method because it provides more information about what is happening.  You will need to know the drive letter that has been assigned to the hard drive that you want to check.  That will be shown in the My Computer window. 

In this example, let's assume that the drive to be checked is the boot drive C.  So:

           cmd00

           cmd01.jpg

          cmdo2.jpg

          cmd022.jpg

CHKDSK can be run on drives other than the boot C drive.   If you want to do that, when you are in the DOS box, replace C: in the statement CHKDSK  C:  /R  with an appropriate drive letter ( e.g. D:  or  E:  ).   If the drive being checked is NOT the boot drive you may get a message in the DOS box indicating that it is 'in use by another process' and you will be asked if you would like to "force a dismount' so that CHKDSK can be run.  If there is no application that is running and requiring access to the drive, type 'Y' (without the quotes) and hit Enter.  CHKDSK should then run immediately without needing to restart the PC.   The progress through each of the 5 stages will be displayed in the DOS box.  Close the DOS box at the completion of the 5th stage.  Here is an example of the dialog when checking my E drive:

cmd04.jpg

If the drive being checked is NOT the boot drive and you do NOT get the 'in use by another process' dialog in the DOS box, then CHKDSK should run immediately without needing to restart.   The progress through each of the 5 stages will be displayed in the DOS box in the same way as is shown in the image above.  Close the DOS box at the completion of the 5th stage.

CHKDSK can also be run through a command-line statement via the Windows Recovery Console.  See this article for an explanation of that: http://www.pcug.org.au/boesen/Backups/backups.htm#Appendix4

There are some other articles about PC stuff on my site here: http://www.pcug.org.au/boesen/  In particular, if CHKDSK has not fixed your problem you might like to have a look at the troubleshooting appendix in this article of mine:

http://www.pcug.org.au/boesen/maintenance/maintenance.htm#troubleshooting

Mike Boesen