Nowadays, a computer is perceived as ordinary household appliances, the presence of which in every house no longer surprises anyone. But this was not always so. Surely most readers will recall how miraculously just recently there was a computer of its own, which stood like a car.
And it doesn’t matter that at times its power was enough only for the most primitive toys, but it was possible to spend hours studying its “offal” and getting acquainted with the principles of equipment operation. As a result, in those years there were few PC owners who would not know at least the most basic principles of caring for it.
Unfortunately, the current generation of users is often not so "savvy" in these matters, and therefore even basic problems cause them panic. Do you know what window sometimes appears at system startup? If you understand something in the English dialect, you probably noticed that you can press the C button to cancel some kind of disk check.
This is the CHKDSK program. What is it and what is it for?
Basic information
Begin from afar. If you have at least basic concepts about the organization of data storage on hard drives, then you also know about the possibility of various kinds of errors. They appear for various reasons, but the result is one - data corruption and the need to format the media.
Of course, it does not always come to such grave consequences, but anything happens. It is to prevent such cases that the CHKDSK utility is needed. What kind of program is this? Simply put, this application is responsible for checking the hard drive for logical and physical errors, as well as for correcting them.
The program is part of all versions of Windows, and therefore there is no need to install it separately.
What is being done with physically bad sectors?
If you read carefully, you were probably surprised to find information about fixing even physical errors on the surface of hard drives. No, the program does not send nanorobots there, but it can mark “bad” sections with a special marker.
As a result, the OS no longer writes any information to these cells. We remind you that the SCANDISK utility was responsible for performing this work in early versions of the Microsoft operating system.
In general, if you run the utility with the checkbox selected for detecting and correcting physical errors, get ready to wait a long time. It is best to leave this operation overnight, without touching the computer during its execution.
Run the test on Windows XP / 7
First, we prefer the simplest way. Launching a program in this way is absolutely easy. To do this, go to "My Computer", right-click on the disk that needs to be checked, and select "Properties" in the context menu.
A dialog box opens in which you need the "Service" tab. There is an item "Checking the disk for errors." Click on the appropriate button, after which the utility we need is launched. Put the checkboxes you need, and then click on the "Run" button.
Possible problems
Attention! All sorts of difficulties are not so rare. The peculiarity of Windows is that when used by some application, the disk cannot be checked. In this case, a dialog box appears in which the user will be asked to postpone the disk check until the next restart of the computer.
Remember how at the very beginning of the article we talked about this? The moment you start your computer, the text interface CHKDSK appears. What is it, we have already figured out. If the drive you have chosen is not a system one, then the check will be performed from under Windows itself.
Some nuances of Windows XP
In our country, to this day, it often happens that in the midst of a working day, electrical energy suddenly disappears in the network. Computers shut down in an emergency, the file system is in poor condition ...
Naturally, the next time you reboot, the disk check program should be launched, but with the old XP this does not always work out smoothly. Even if at the start of the CHKDSK system (what we already learned) it did not start automatically, it is better to start it in a forced manner.
The fact is that errors in the file system (and they almost always appear during an emergency shutdown) can manifest themselves suddenly and completely unexpectedly. This can be expressed in the inappropriate behavior of the OS, in crashes and improper operation of applications.
Run from the command line
Above, we have already described the simplest way with which you can run such a useful utility. But we would recommend doing this in command line emulation mode . For what?
The fact is that from under the graphical shell, a program can start with only two main parameters: fixing logical or physical problems of the hard drive. And in the command line mode, you can adjust almost dozens of parameters.
Of course, for beginners, all this is unnecessary, but over time, you will still come to the need to use advanced settings.
Enough words, time to business. How to start the command line? To do this, click on the "Start" button, find the "Run" item there. Click on it, after which a field for entering commands will appear in front of you. You need to insert something like this into it: chkdsk with: / f.
Details on launch options
How will the CHKDSK program run in this case? Parameters in this case are set by the letter "F". It means that the utility will detect and correct only logical errors on the hard drive. If you put the / v option there (chkdsk with: / v), the utility will first display all the directories that will be scanned.
In the event that you are interested in finding and repairing damaged sectors of the hard drive, put / r at the end of the command. The value of this parameter is that the utility starts not only searching for this kind of problems, but also tries to save the data that is still possible to read from the bad sections.
Important!
The last operation is possible only (!) With a locked drive. Accordingly, under normal conditions, this command cannot be executed from under Windows itself. To fix this omission, write the command as follows: chkdsk with: / x / r.
You can only use this technique (!) On disks with the NTFS file system. The / x parameter in this case blocks the hard drive, after which the program can continue to work. By the way, the same command makes full use of the / f functionality, so if you need to fix the same logical errors, you should not register it again.
It often happens that there is not enough time for technological operations. Is there any way to reduce the execution time of the CHKDSK utility? Options allow this. Just enter this command line: chkdsk with: / i. In this case, the check will be performed with less thorough checking of the index entries.
Attention! This option should also be used only with disks on the NTFS file system. So before starting the CHKDSK utility, we strongly recommend that you double-check everything again.
It must be remembered that there are many commands and conditions for their use. To fully characterize them all, the volume of this article is clearly not enough. If you want to know more about some parameters, then use the following command: chkdsk with: / ?. In this case, a completely detailed help will appear on the command line.
Important Notice
Reading this article, you have come across some comments more than once. In a word, one more moralizing will not hurt! The fact is that newcomers often fail to use a single command, since the OS displays messages like: "Access is denied."
What happened? It's simple - your account does not have the necessary rights. Yes, the vast majority of domestic users are constantly working under the "Administrator", but in the latest versions of Windows (starting with Vista), there is a good "protection against the fool."
All actions that may even harm the system in the future must be run with built-in administrative rights. To get at your disposal an “admin” command line, you need to perform several simple operations.
Before starting the CHKDSK program with advanced privileges, you must click on the "Start" button, and in the "Search" field, write CMD. In the right part of the window, a list of found files with the same name will open. Click on the first (as a rule, there will be no more) right-click, in the context menu that opens, select the item “Run as administrator”.
All! After that, you can check the disk with the keys that are necessary to perform the type of verification you need.
If the problems are more serious ...
All this is good, but how to start the CHKDSK program, if Windows itself refuses to start at all? Alas, in this case, you will not be able to do without the original boot disk from which you installed the OS.
Insert it into the drive, reboot into the BIOS, set the start there from the CD. After that, reboot again, wait for the first inscriptions to appear. In Windows XP, to exit to the console, press the "R" key, and in Vista / 7/8 you should select the item of the same name in the graphic menu.
When you go to the console, you will be asked to indicate the Windows number for which you would like to use the CHKDSK utility. How to run the required? To do this, enter the number under which it appears in the above list, and then press Enter.
If your account is password protected, you will also need to enter it. All. After that, you can use the CHKDSK command. How to run it with the parameters you need? Everything is simple. To do this, use the keys, which we already wrote about above.
Another important point
Everything would be fine, but owners of OS 2003, XP and Vista should be on their guard: Microsoft says that the disk check utility on these systems contains a critical error. In some cases, it appears, after which a message is displayed stating that “descriptors are not supported” or “CHKDSK is corrupted”.
Until relatively recently, there was no solution to the problem, and therefore often had to completely reinstall the system. At present, the support service advises using a small utility called secedit, which, even after the end of XP support, is available on the official Microsoft website.
Unfortunately, even its use does not guarantee anything. In particular, problems with starting services are often observed, and even the disk check program for errors can crash without explanation. Sometimes it helps to run it from under the administrator (as we already wrote above). Most often, a CHKDSK error will continue to “please” you until you reinstall Windows.
Stay tuned for installed programs!
Do not forget that not only in life, but also in your computer, everything is interconnected. On all thematic resources, it has already been said how many times that users should never install applications from questionable sources, but few people pay attention to these warnings.
If after installing some utility when Windows starts the disk check (CHKDSK), then this clearly indicates that something is wrong with this program. It is possible that her installer is crookedly written. There is also the possibility that it is simply not set up too well.
In this case, you can recommend reinstalling the program, and for its removal it is better to use specialized utilities (Revo Uninstaller Pro, for example), which can completely remove all traces of an unsuccessful installation.
How to remove disk check from startup?
It happens that on a completely stable system, which has not been installed for a long time, at each start a pretty tired window of this utility starts to appear. As we have said, there can be many reasons. It is possible that with the help of Windows, CHKDSK gives you desperate signals from the hard drive, which is on the verge of painful death.
Anyway, this program can be removed from startup. Attention! You do this solely at your own peril and risk!
First, click on the "Start" button, look for "Run" there, and then enter the Regedit command. The registry editor dialog box opens, in which you need to find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager section. Go to it, look for the BootExecute item, and then completely overwrite all its contents. Click on the "OK" button, exit the registry editor, reboot. As a rule, extraneous windows do not appear at boot anymore.
This is what CHKDSK is. How to start Windows 7 without it, you already know.