How to Scan & Fix Hard Drives with CHKDSK in Windows 10

Microsoft’s hard disk scanning and repair utility, CHKDSK (“check disk”), was introduced over 30 years ago but still has a useful place today. Users running even the latest Microsoft operating system can still use the command to examine their hard drives for errors and repair them if necessary. Here’s how to run CHKDSK in Windows 10.

Even in Windows 10, the CHKDSK command is run via the Command Prompt, but we’ll need to use administrative privileges to properly access it. To launch a Command Prompt as an Administrator, press the keyboard shortcut Windows Key + X to bring up the power users menu, then let go of those two keys and tap the A key. Alternatively, with the power users menu open you can use your mouse or trackpad to select the Command Prompt (Admin) option.

You’ll be presented with a UAC window requesting permission to launch the Command Prompt as Administrator. Click Yes to proceed and you’ll see a new Command Prompt window. You can verify that you’ve successfully granted the Command Prompt administrative privileges by ensuring that “Administrator: Command Prompt” is present in the window’s title bar.

From the Command Prompt, type the command “chkdsk” followed by a space, then the letter of the drive you wish to examine or repair. In our case, it’s internal drive “C.”

Simply running the CHKDSK command in Windows 10 will only display the disk’s status, and won’t fix any errors present on the volume. To tell CHKDSK to fix the drive, we need to give it parameters. After your drive letter, type the following parameters separated by a space each: “/f /r /x”.

The “/f” parameter tells CHKDSK to fix any errors it finds; “/r” tells it to locate the bad sectors on the drive and recover readable information; “/x” forces the drive to dismount before the process starts. Additional parameters are available for more specialized tasks, and are detailed at Microsoft’s TechNet site.

To summarize, the full command that should be typed into the Command Prompt is:

chkdsk [Drive:] [parameters]

In our example, it’s:

chkdsk C: /f /r /x

Note that CHKDSK needs to be able to lock the drive, meaning that it cannot be used to examine the system’s boot drive if the computer is in use. If your target drive is an external or non-boot internal disk, the CHKDSK process will begin as soon as we enter the command above. If, however, the target drive is a boot disk, the system will ask you if you’d like to run the command before the next boot. Type “yes” (or “y”), restart the computer, and the command will run before the operating system loads, allowing it to gain full access to the disk.

A CHKDSK command can take a long time, especially when performed on larger drives. Once it’s done, however, it will present a summary of results including total disk space, byte allocation, and, most importantly, any errors that were found and corrected.

The CHKDSK command is available in all versions of Windows, so those on Windows 7, 8, or XP can also perform the steps above to initiate a scan of their hard drive. In the case of older versions of Windows, users can get to the Command Prompt by going to Start > Run and typing “cmd”. Once the Command Prompt result is displayed, right-click on it and select “Run as Administrator” to grant the program the necessary privileges to execute CHKDSK successfully.

A final note: we’ve covered how to run CHKDSK in previous versions of Windows, and some users who followed the suggested steps were alarmed to find that their hard drive space was significantly reduced after running the command. This result is due to a failing hard drive, as one of the crucial functions that CHKDSK performs is to identify and block bad sectors on the drive. A few bad sectors on an old drive will typically go unnoticed to the user, but if the drive is failing or has serious problems, you could have huge numbers of bad sectors that, when mapped and blocked by CHKDSK, appear to “steal” significant portions of your hard drive’s capacity.

flaming hard drive — *Dramatization: actual failing hard drive may not spontaneously combust.*
Image: Sandra.Matic / Shutterstock

This is expected behavior, and it means that those sectors, and any data potentially stored on them, have failed, even if you or your operating system didn’t realize it yet. CHKDSK will attempt to recover data from bad sectors when using the /r parameter, but some data may be corrupted and unrecoverable. Therefore, make sure to always keep good backups of all of your important data, and don’t blame CHKDSK (i.e., kill the messenger) for confirming that your PC’s hard drive is about to kick the proverbial bucket.

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Leonard Manuel

I have been getting the following error message, since Tuesday:
Windows have detected a hard disk problem back up your files immediately….
I went to My PC, right clicked the drive, selected properties and checked/scanning the C drive-no errors was found. Also ran Malware bytes and it also checked out with no errors or viruses.
While running above tests the above error message popped up twice.
How must I proceed from here? I upgraded from windows 7 pro to Windows 10 pro last year
My computer sometimes loads the task bar very slowly, the start button takes a bit to respond, but after some patience everything runs fine.
FYI: I’ve done a reset about 2 months ago as the start button did not want to respond.
My notebook does not heat up out of the ordinary and there is no strange noises
Last year prior to upgrading Speccy only rendered 2 yellow items, everything else as green and no red. The fan was also cleaned.
Should I still run chkdsk c: /f /r /x ?
And what useful software can I download to scan the hard drive for errors that are compatible with windows 10 ie speccy, Flobo hard disk repair…
- http://www.tekrevue.com/ TekRevue
  
  Hi Leonard,
  
  There could be other problems with the drive outside of bad sectors (e.g., hardware failures, corrupted system files), but using the CHKDSK command via the command line (and having to reboot to run the test if it’s your boot drive) is probably a good idea. However, make sure your data is backed up ASAP, as I’ve learned the hard way to never take hard drive warnings lightly (plus it’s just a good idea to have robust backups of your important data at all times regardless).
  
  As for other tools that could give you some insight, I like Seagate’s SeaTools utility (which works on drives from all manufacturers). You’ll be able to run various levels of reliability tests that aren’t available via the tools built-in to Windows. Again, however, your first step should be to back up as much as possible, as if there is indeed a problem with the drive, it could fail during these tests.
  
  What make and model of laptop is it? If you need to replace the drive, some models make it very easy to do so.
  - Leonard Manuel
    
    Hi thanks for the speedy reply.
    Samsung Model NP300E5A-A05ZA (South Africa)
    750GB S-ATAⅡHard Drive (5,400RPM)
    Super Multi Dual Layer
    Still have 500GB of free space and most important folders uploaded to One Drive.
    Will run Seagate utility tonight and than ran chkdsk from boot tomorrow night.
    If I decide on buying a new hard drive should it be of the same make or could you recommend something better
    - http://www.tekrevue.com/ TekRevue
      
      You can use any 2.5-inch SATA II or SATA III hard drive or SSD that is 9.5mm thick or less, which gives you lots of options. Since you have a large amount of free space, you may want to consider switching to an SSD, which will give you a noticeable bump in performance. I don’t know about pricing in South Africa, but the Samsung 850 EVO series SSDs are a good balance of performance and value. The 500GB model is currently selling for about USD 150.00. If you want to go with another HDD, I like the HGST and Western Digital brands (HGST is now owned by Western Digital, but they maintain separate product lines). A 1TB HGST Travelstar HDD can be picked up for about USD 60.00.
      
      When it comes time to replace your current drive, it looks like all you need to do is remove the bottom cover and you’ll see the drive installed in a sled at the center. Before you remove the drive, however, create a bootable Windows 10 installer if you don’t already have one. Use it to install a fresh copy of Windows 10, and then you can activate it directly by using your Windows 7 product key (which should be on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop).
  - Leonard Manuel
    
    Good morning
    Following the instructions as per your article I have run command prompt chkdsk c:
    It gave the following feedback:
    Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems. No further action is required
    However 32kb in bad sectors
    Then I run chkdsk c: /f /r /x and restarted the pc
    -the scan completed 100% in a blink of an eye
    All good than, but I still gets windows detected hard drive problem message
    Where to from here should I disable above message and how?; or is there other likely tests that could be run?
    - http://www.tekrevue.com/ TekRevue
      
      Give Seagate SeaTools a shot and see what it says about the drive health. CHKDSK will only look at bad sectors, so it’s good that you don’t have many of those (and that it repaired the few that were there), but there are other factors involved in a drive’s overall health that SeaTools might be able to detect.