CHKDSK was developed by Microsoft as an essential maintenance tool for Windows. To check and fix hard disk errors or explore bad sectors on the disk, you should run CHKDSK. To detect, repair and restore corrupt system files, you should run SFC Scannow command. Scan the drive to check for various errors and issues such as bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, directory errors, invalid security descriptors, and more. CHKDSK will scan the volume bitmap and file system metadata to identify any inconsistencies or corruption [1].
- ScanDisk and CHKDSK are disk utility tools in Microsoft Windows operating systems that allow users to scan, diagnose, and repair issues with storage drives.
- Next you can browse from the left panel, or right-click the selected partition, and choose Check File System or Surface Test option based on your need.
- This recovered data will not be in a form useable by its default application.
- You can use it to fast check file system of partitions with ease, as well as conduct a surface test to check hard drive bad sectors.
- If the CHKDSK process gets stuck at 10%, 11%, 12%, etc. for a long time, you can take some actions to fix this.
When disaster happens, you can easily restore your computer to a previous healthy state. Check how to run DISM command in Windows 10 to repair system image below. There is another Windows command utility named SFC Scannow that some of you may be confused with CHKDSK. It’s good for a quick scan if you just want to check for and identify problems.
How to Run DISM Command in Windows 10 to Repair Corrupt System Image
In this part, I would like to introduce some alternatives to ScanDisk. You can use them to check your hard drive for errors on the new versions of Windows, like Windows 10. This gives into some new ways of doing software recovery, maintenance, and repair. For example, in cases where a problem arises that the Windows system does not load, you could load up your Ubuntu and fix some of the problems with a quick fsck/ntfs-3g on the partition/disk. Use the /f and /r parameters with CHKDSK for best results. /f fixes errors and /r locates bad sectors and recovers readable data.
What Is ScanDisk? Any Alternatives to ScanDisk on Windows PC?
Windows offers some built-in easy tools to allow you to scan and repair disk errors in your Windows 10 computer, among which CHKDSK, ScanDisk, SFC Scannow, DISM are popular. In summary, using CHKDSK and ScanDisk together provides both preventative and restorative maintenance. CHKDSK proactively fixes issues to avoid potential file corruption or loss, while ScanDisk recovers files lost due to those issues. This robust disk and data care regimen can optimize disk health and longevity. Overall, CHKDSK superseded ScanDisk as a more powerful, versatile disk checking utility and has become the standard on modern Windows versions.
If you frequently run into some issues (like computer crashing when playing games) related to hard drive issues, you can run this DOS utility more frequently. Absolutely, Microsoft ScanDisk won’t cause any physical problems to the hard drive. This Windows utility is designed to verify data integrity.
Chkdsk is a hold over from disk operating systems (DOS) and has been included as part of every Windows operating system since the beginning. CHKDSK is designed to check the integrity of disk partition file system, scan and fix detected logical file system errors on the hard disk. scandisk vs chkdsk Every now and then, running a CHKDSK scan can help avoid bigger problems and help prevent data loss in future. Repair any file system errors or corruption that is found. CHKDSK can fix bad sectors, recover readable information, recover lost clusters, fix cross linked files, etc.
How to Recover Lost Data from Windows 10 with MiniTool Power Data Recovery
This makes CHKDSK the clear winner when it comes to compatibility, as it works across all modern hardware and is the standard disk checking utility included with Windows. CHKDSK has more options and parameters that can be used to customize the scan. CHKDSK allows scanning specific drives or volumes while ScanDisk scans entire partitions (Source).
And ScanDisk does not have an equivalent to CHKDSK’s /F parameter to fix errors in the file system. The Check File System feature equals to the chkdsk /f command, and help https://1investing.in/ you detect and fix any disk errors. The Surface Test feature can help you check bad sectors on the target partition, and you can use it to substitute chkdsk /r command.
CHKDSK can check errors on both FAT and NTFS partitions, while ScanDisk is limited only to FAT. When comparing the performance and speed of ScanDisk vs CHKDSK, CHKDSK generally performs better and faster for checking drive errors on modern versions of Windows. This is because CHKDSK is natively built into Windows, while ScanDisk has not been included since Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 98 [1]. If your Windows computer is running abnormally or often crashes, you may suspect that there are some corruptions related to system files. You might run SFC command to automatically check and repair damaged or missing system files in your Windows 10 computer.
Optimizing disk space usage – ScanDisk can consolidate fragmented files and folders to optimize space usage. /B – This parameter instructs the chkdsk utility to re-evaluate the bad clusters on a specified volume. /C – This, like the previous switch, only works with the NTFS file system. It will bypass cycle checking with the folder structure. Filename – This parameter scans for fragmentation in a specific file.
/SdCleanup – Garbage collects Security Descriptor data. If you are using old versions of Windows, like Windows 95/98, follow the steps below. To help you get a relatively complete understanding of this Windows utility, I gather some common questions related to ScanDisk usage from the Internet. After reading, you may learn about this Windows utility better.
CHKDSK also provides more options than ScanDisk for scanning, including the ability to detect and recover bad sectors. ScanDisk relies on the older FAT file system while CHKDSK works with both FAT and NTFS. Overall, CHKDSK has more advanced error checking abilities and is better at salvaging data from failing drives (2). For the most thorough and reliable error detection, CHKDSK is recommended over ScanDisk.
CHKDSK /F or /R Difference Between CHKDSK /F and CHKDSK /R
ScanDisk, in contrast, primarily scans the FAT file tables and no longer repairs disk surface errors in modern versions of Windows (1). Both Scandisk and CHKDSK are disk checking and error correcting utilities used to check volumes for issues and automatically repair them. Scandisk was an older utility included in Microsoft Windows up until Windows XP, while CHKDSK originated in the MS-DOS days and is still included in modern versions of Windows.