How to check and fix errors in Windows 10/11 system drive? With the guide of using CHKDSK command, you will know how and use it for hard disk, and external drive that not function properly due to bad sectors, sudden shutdown or metadata corruption.
After a period of time, you may find that Windows 10 reports different kinds of disk errors to remind you that there is something wrong with your hard drive. When an error occurs, you won’t be able to open some certain file or application normally. If you happen to come across one of the following disk errors, it is high time to perform hard drive error checking and repair.
Some possible causes for hard drive errors would be bad sectors, damaged system files, unexpected shutdown, corrupted software, file system errors, lost clusters, and metadata corruption. You need to check hard disk errors and take measurements accordingly. The most common method is to use CHKDSK in Windows 10. In the next part, we will guide you to do so.
If you get a disk error message, you can check the drive status first in Control Panel >Security and Maintenance > unfold Maintenance > Drive status. If nothing goes wrong, you’ll see: All drives are working properly, which is typically the case. If you still get the error, what do?
Windows 10/11 provides several methods to do hard drive scanning and repairing. For instance, the Check Disk (CHKDSK.exe) utility in Command Prompt and File Explorer helps you to check hard drive integrity, file system errors, bad sectors, lost clusters, and so on. Let’s learn how to scan drive for errors in Windows 10 and 11.
In the first place, bring out Command Prompt by pressing Windows key + R, input cmd, and hit Enter. Be sure to run it as administrator. Following are a couple of commands that you may need.
• chkdsk. chkdsk displays only the status of volume and does not fix any errors. • chkdsk d: /f. This will check and fix errors that it found on D: volume. You can replace d with another drive letter. For example, you want to scan an external hard drive for errors in Windows 10.
If you run chkdsk without the /f parameter on an active partition, it might report spurious errors because it cannot lock the drive.
• chkdsk f: /f /r /x. /r will locate the bad sectors on the drive and recover readable information and /x forces the drive to dismount before the process starts. Some data cannot be recovered with /r. Therefore, it is important to develop the habit of building schedule backups.
Please note that /f command will lock the selected drive. If it cannot be locked, a message appears that asks you if you want to check the drive the next time you restart the computer. If you check the system for errors in Windows 10, it will prompt you to check it the next system restart.
Sometimes you may receive return codes along with the result.
Here are descriptions of these exit codes:
0: no errors were found. 1: errors were found and fixed. 2: Performed disk cleanup (such as garbage collection) or did not perform cleanup because /f was not specified. 3: Could not check the disk, errors could not be fixed, or errors were not fixed because /f was not specified.
You can also run Repair–Volume in PowerShell to check and repair errors. Apart from command line checking, Windows also embeds check disk utility with the graphical interface, Windows File Explorer. Open This PC, right-click the drive you want to check, and select Properties > Tools > Check.
If errors are found, you’ll receive the message: Restart your computer to repair the file system. You can restart right away or schedule the error fixing on the next restart.
Tips: above chkdsk.exe also applies to check the hard drive for errors in Windows 11/ 7/8/8.1/XP/Vista.
However, some users report that running CHKDSK on Windows 10 causes some problems, possibly due to unknown bugs. Here is a post from the Microsoft Community:
If you want to safely check hard drive for errors without any accidents, you can use a reliable third-party software like AOMEI Partition Assistant.
The aforementioned methods may be good enough for disk checking, however, some users encountered CHKDSK stuck at 100 percent, scanning and repairing drive stuck in Windows 10/1, CHKDSK Windows 10/11 stuck error, or even computer not working anymore. In that case, you can check disk for errors in Windows 10 with professional third-party tools.
AOMEI Partition Assistant is a free partition manager that will help safely and effectively you check partitions and disks. It is free for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7. You can free download to have a try.
• Check Partition for errors in Windows 10/11
Run AOMEI Partition Assistant on your Windows 10/11. Right-click the drive you want to check and go to Advanced > Check Partition. In the pop-out window, you have three options available, check the error only, check and fix the error, and find bad sectors. Choose the one that suits you.
Tips: the feature can be used only on formatted partitions.
• Check external disk for errors in Windows 10/11
1. Open AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the disk you want to scan and select Test > Disk Surface Test. It will mostly check the bad sectors of the selected disk.
2. Click Start to do the surface test. You may want to tick Quick Check to perform a fast test.
If you receive the error: Non-system disk or disk error when installing Windows 10 from USB drive or installation disc, and you are quite sure there is nothing wrong with your installation device, it could be the problem with the selected disk. Or you can directly use AOMEI software's Disk Surface Test function above.
1. Check the disk’s IDE or SATA cable.
2. Check if the disk has a corrupted MBR. You can fix MBR in this way. Bring up Command Prompt by using an installation device. Input the following commands:
• bootrec /scanos • boot rec /fixmbr • bootrec /fix boot • bootrec /rebuildbcd
Alternatively, you can fix MBR on Windows 10 in another simple way.
Different ways on how to check hard drive for errors in Windows 10/11 have been discussed, choose the one that is suitable for you. If you find the disk is failing, it is suggested to switch from HDD to SSD or another HDD as soon as possible.