What You Should Know About Check Disk
Chkdsk is a tool to check errors on the hard drive and to fix it. It can fix physical errors and also can recover data that is still readable. The use of check disk is best defined in the Microsoft help. Chkdsk can be run from windows, from command prompt and also from the recovery console. Microsoft support also provides the guided help for Chkdsk.
We can also get help for Chkdsk using the windows help as he need to click on start click on help and support. To use Chkdsk, you must be logged on as an administrator. Windows support center provides an overview of the Chkdsk utility.
Many times some blue screen error is caused by bad volumes and when the computer is attempting to boot it will give us a blue screen First verify the blue screen and then search for windows support using Chkdsk. Chkdsk /p returns the result “one or more errors found” and Chkdsk /r returns the result “one or more unrecoverable errors found”. Screenshots for Chkdsk is available in various windows support and some windows support websites. Chkdsk is available for all the windows operating systems. Conducting a CHKDSK can take some time, especially if using the /R parameter, and the results are often not visible, for various reasons. The results of a CHKDSK conducted on restart using Windows 2000 or later operating systems are written to the Application Log, with a “Source” name of Wininit or Winlogon and can be viewed with the Event Viewer. Examples of the log files that are being created are available on windows support and windows help forums windows support we always think of Microsoft help.
Sometimes the check after CHKDSK is completed with the /p or /r option on reboot still fails, and gives the error “Cannot open volume for direct access” on startup, due to an application that locks up the partition before CHKDSK can access it. This has been improved in Windows XP Service Pack 2, but still happens occasionally. One fix is to set the /SAFEBOOT option in the boot.ini tab after running msconfig. The Chkdsk command requires the file Autochk.exe. If it cannot find it in the startup directory (%systemroot%System32, by default), it will attempt to locate it on the Windows Installation CD. If you have a multiboot computer, be sure you are issuing this command from the drive containing Windows. This is briefly explained in the TechNet site of the microsoft how to.
Chkdsk can be run as a command-line application or it can be run with a graphical user interface. Home users prefer it as it user friendly. Chkdsk is not normally listed in the All Programs menu, to launch Chkdsk we need to open “My Computer” and right-click on the icon for the drive that is to be checked. In the context menu that opens, we need to choose “Properties” and click the “Tools” tab at the top of the Properties window. In the “Error-checking” section, click the button “Check now”. A box showing the options for running Chkdsk will appear. The option “Automatically fix file system errors” should be chosen for routine checks. If serious disk problems are suspected, the option “Scan and attempt recovery of bad sectors” should also be checked. However, this may involve a period of many hours. The screenshots can be found in various windows support websites.
