1. Troubleshooting Hard Disk Problems with Chkdsk
Chkdsk is a tool that automatically finds
and repairs disk volume problems related to bad sectors, lost
clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors. You can run Chkdsk
either in Windows or offline, but if you want to scan the system
volume itself, you must run the tool outside of Windows. In this case,
as with Windows Memory Diagnostic, you can schedule the tool to run
the next time Windows starts.
Note
TROUBLESHOOTING WITH Chkdsk
Disk errors are a common source of
problems that appear in software. Bad sectors on a hard disk, for
example, can result in stop errors, system freezes, or other errors.
When you are troubleshooting problems that do not appear to be the
result of a recent system change, you should always remember to use
Chkdsk to scan your disks for errors.
The name Chkdsk refers to the spelling of
the command-line version of the tool, but you can also start Chkdsk
through the graphical user interface. To do so, open the properties of
the volume you want to check and click the Tools tab. Then, click
Check Now, as shown in Figure 1.
This step opens the Check Disk dialog box, as shown in Figure 2. In this dialog box, you choose whether to
fix both file system errors and bad sectors, or just file system
errors. Once you have made the selection, click Start.
If you have selected the system volume to check, you see the
message shown in Figure 3. This
message indicates that the hard disk will be checked for errors the
next time you start your computer.
