Often times, we need to repair hard disks to overcome from various errors and problem that we might face almost every day. Check Disk utility in Windows is still a winner among various other free utilities provided from Microsoft that we use to check hard disk errors and repair them, even in Windows 8.
Previously, Disk Check utility comes with slight differences and limitations that may have lifted in Windows 8. Checking your hard disk in Windows 8 through CHKDSK command every once in a while will ensures healthy performance of your PC. You can use it anytime to deal with various problems such as improper shutdown, third party hefty software, file system corruption, disk structure corruption etc.
How to run CHKDSK in Windows 8
Microsoft has completely redesigned Check Disk utility in Windows 8 to meet the growing needs of user who found themselves incapable to deal with various hard disk issues such as bad sectors and blocks, freezing issues, automatic restart etc. Microsoft has also introduced Automatic Maintenance to run in the background and repair errors if it founds any. However, if you want to run check disk command at any particular instant or to address any particular issues, you can do so by following the steps below:
- Simply right click on any drive listed under ‘This PC’ window and choose ‘Properties’
- Navigate to ‘Tools’ tab and click on ‘Check’ button listed under ‘Error Checking’ rectangular box.
- System error checking process will begin immediately and will report any errors that it founds. In case, check disk utility don’t found any errors you will get a confirmation dialog box stating ‘You Don’t need to scan this drive’. Still not satisfied, you can proceed to perform disk error check by clicking on ‘Scan Drive’ button.
- Disk scanning for errors and corruption is faster than ever. The whole system check can be performed in minutes.
- Once the Scanning is completed, you’ll get a confirmation dialog box stating ‘Your Drive was successfully scanned. Now Errors were found. ’
- You can also choose an option to scan and repair drive together. This option is limited to Window default bootable drive containing your system files.
- You can also chose to repair the problem drive on next restart. Additionally, if the drive you’re trying to repair is default windows drive, Windows will ask to repair this drive on the next restart to make sure that nothing bad will happen.
- That’s it. Check disk utility perform well and helps you deal with any minor or major disk related errors or problems.
Steps to deal with disk related errors and problems
There are number of Disk related errors exist and one can happen anytime on your system. Some error sounds not that typical and can be dealt and fixed easily. However, most of the time not. Below mentioned are few particular type of disk related problems that may occur on your system:
A disk read error occurred
Disk Read or write error
A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.
Once such error strikes to your system, you’ll face freezing, interrupted shutdowns, slow system processing while accessing any files etc. Besides number of reasons that could cause this, first things you’ll need to do is to perform disk check. Follow the steps described above to check hard disk for errors and problem on your Windows 8 PC. In case you are using older version of PCs i.e. Windows 7, Vista, XP etc., you can still use the same operations except #1 (This PC was entitled as ‘My Computer’ previously).
To deal with such hard disk related problems, you’ll need to perform few others troubleshooting steps like testing your memory, replacing the problem drive, resetting or updating the BIOS etc.
If the above problems continue to exist even after following all the above troubleshooting steps, you’ll need to proceed with installing a fresh copy of Windows or even worse, have to format the drive completely. This could permanently delete files that you’ve stored on the problem drive or volume and will found no way back to restore it other using standard hard disk recovery tools provided by various software vendors across the globe, see some disk recovery tools here. It is specifically designed to handle data loss situations carefully and restore files with their actual names.
Benefits of using Disk Check Utility against various other disk repair tools
You may find number of tools designed to address disk related issues. These tools can check your hard disk for possible causes and may repair them immediately. However, you’ve to use such tools with caution as it may harm your computer and make the situation worse.
Running disk check utility provide no harms to your system whatsoever is completely safe. It’ll do no harm if no good. It’s also recommended that running check disk operations once in a while will make your PC functioning smoothly and avoid crashes or sudden system restarts.