Chkdsk Demystified : Part 1

Hi Friends!

Here I am(sounds like Brian Adams solo, right!) with another post in which we will explore Windows built in utility known as CHKDSK .

Lets get started.

What does CHKDSK mean, let us try to understand what Wikipedia has to say,

CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a system tool in DOS, OS/2 and Windows. It verifies the file system integrity on hard disks or floppy disk and fixes logical file system errors

                                                                                                      -- Wikipedia

So, it means it is used to Check, Repair and Recover data(if possible) on the drive. It comes with a number of parameters. With command prompt help, you can find all the parameters and their actions using the cmd/? option.

Let us see what this results into in a Win 7 machine:

Well the options are self explanatory, for example:

#1: chkdsk /f : Will fix the errors on the current disk. Like if I run it on the above screen, it will take C: and try to fix the errors on C:

#2: chkdsk /r : Will attempt to recover data from from damaged sectors.

One important point, CHKDSK requires the drive not to be Locked. If the drive cannot be locked (you see a message, The Volume is in use by another process and that process is none other than your OS!), then, it will prompt you if you want to schedule it on the next system restart. If you press 'y' / 'Y'; it schedules on the next restart of the system.

In Win Vista or Win 7, the output is actually piped to App Event Log found in bootex.log in the root folder of the drive.

Let me show you the path to that folder --->> it is in C:\bootex.log !! [Sorry, I just tried to be funny!]

If it is not there, simply, run the CHKDSK utility again, it will appear!!! 

I will continue with the UI version of this in my next article!

See you later!