How to Check Your Hard Drive For Errors Using Check Disk

Disk error checking is a task you should perform from time to time as part of your routine maintenance. The best way to do this is to use one of your system tools; Check Disc. This tool will check your hard drive volumes for errors and will attempt to fix them. It will look for bad sectors, lost clusters and directory errors. If you set up your computer with an administrator account, then you will need to log on as the administrator. Before using any system tools or altering system settings create a System Restore point and back up your files to an external media. To begin check disc, click 'Start' then 'Run'. In the 'Open' box, type cmd and press ENTER (on your keyboard). When you see a prompt type, chkdsk and ENTER. The process may take several minutes to run, or you may receive a message "Chkdsk cannot run because one or more files are open, do you want to schedule this error checking for the next time you start windows" Type 'Y' and press ENTER. If chkdsk runs immediately you will receive a report when it has completed. Quite often, you will see this message or similar - "Windows found problems with the file system run CHKDSK with the /F (Fix) option to correct these. So you now type CHKDSK/F AND PRESS ENTER. To automatically repair errors, locate bad sectors and recover readable files, at the prompt type: chkdsk volume:/r then press ENTER. Once again, it most likely will ask to schedule this task for the next time you start windows. Type 'Y' and press ENTER. To return to your normal Desktop, type EXIT and press ENTER. Re-start your computer. After POST check disc will run, this may take several minutes. Once completed your computer may re-start again automatically. If you prefer, you can run this tool from My Computer. Right click on your hard drive, usually 'C' choose 'Properties' from the drop-down list, then 'Tools'. In the 'Error Checking' box click 'Check Now'. A check disk dialog box will appear with two options: Automatically Fix file system errors - Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. Select the first option, Automatically Fix file system errors, for your first run. Then select the second option next time. Once again, you may receive a message to schedule this task for the next time you start windows, click 'Yes'. And re-start your PC. David Snowdon has been working with Computers since 1980, he is a published writer and author of many Computer articles. Read all of his articles at his Blogspot. Also check out a review of a new 'Faster PC' eBook at http://wolfdave-slowcomputer.blogspot.com/