How to Scan a Hard Drive Using ‘Error Checking’

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How to Scan a Hard Drive Using ‘Error Checking’ – Guide

Your PC’s hard drive is your focal database. It’s where you store all your files and documents for retrieval at some point in the future. Unfortunately, similar to all other electronic things, your life is shortened with the passage of time. Relax assuming your PC is genuinely new, though; will not go bankrupt at any time in the near future. In any case, you should keep a close watch on your well-being, to avoid any insurance accident and the subsequent information misfortune that it would bring. In this article, we have tried to cover the specific techniques that you can follow for this. So how about we take a dip.

How to Scan a hard drive with the error checking tool

Scanning your hard disk with the Error Checking tool can identify and possibly correct a number of hard disk errors. The Windows Error Checking tool is the graphical version of the command line chkdsk command, which is still available and offers more advanced options than Error Checking. Error checking is available on Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP, but there are differences as shown.

Right-click on Start button and select File Explorer (Windows 11/10/8), Open Windows Explorer (Windows 7) or Explore (Vista/XP).

File Explorer is also available via a quick search. Windows Explorer, in earlier versions of Windows, is also available under Computer or My Computer in the Start menu.

Select This PC (Windows 11/10/8), Computer (Windows 7/Vista) or My Computer (XP) in the left margin.

You may need to enable the Navigation Pane from the View menu if you don’t see this option. On XP this is in View > Explorer Bar > Folders.

Right-click or tap and hold the drive you want to check for errors (usually C) and select Properties.

If you don’t see any units under the heading located in Step 2, select the small arrow on the left to show the list of units.

Select the Tools tab at the top of the window.

Windows 11, 10 and 8: Choose Scan followed by Scan Drive and skip to Step 8.

Windows 7, Vista and XP: Choose Scan Now and continue with Step 6. What you do now depends on which version of Windows you are using:

See Which version of Windows do I have? if you’re not sure what you’re running.

Two options are available before starting a bug check check on Windows 7, Vista and XP.

Automatically fix file system errors will, if possible, automatically fix file system related errors that the scan detects. It is highly recommended that you always check this option.

Scanning and attempting to recover bad sectors will search for areas of the hard drive that may be damaged or unusable. If found, this tool will mark these areas as “bad” and prevent your computer from using them in the future. This is a very useful feature but it can extend the scan time by a few hours.

The first option is equivalent to running chkdsk /fe, and the second to running chkdsk /scan /r. Checking both is the same as running chkdsk /r.

Press start.

Please wait while Error Checking checks the selected hard drive for errors and, depending on the options selected and/or the errors found, corrects the errors found.

If you get a message that Windows cannot check the disk while it is in use, select Schedule Disk Check, close all other open windows and restart your computer. You will notice that Windows takes much longer to start up and you will see the text on the screen when the error checking (chkdsk) process is complete.

Follow any advice given after the scan. If errors are found, you may be prompted to restart your computer. If no errors are found, you can close all open windows and continue using your computer normally.

Final note

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