How to Fix Hard Disk Damage without Software

One cause that make the computer becomes frequently hangs, restarts itself and even a bluescreen was due to problems / damage to the computer hard disk.

Damage to the hard disk of which this is because the computer oftenly get turned off without proper shutdown command and due to an interruption in the flow of electricity, such as electric death or sudden spikes in electrical voltage as is common when there is lightning when it rains.

Besides, the lifetime of the hard disk itself was also an issue that can affect the performance of the hard disk. On this occasion I will share information about How to Fix the Hard Disk using the Checkdisk / CHKDSK.EXE command.

What is CHKDSK

CHKDSK (short for “check disk”) is a system tool in DOS, OS/2 and Windows operating system. This tool is used to diagnosing and repairing certain types of disk problems. In earlier windows operating system, CHKDSK examines disks and can correct many types of common errors on hard drive even SSD.

Generally by using this Checkdisk / CHKDSK command only, we can repair any common damage on the hard disk, such as bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors.

How to run CHKDSK

Checkdisk command can be run in 2 ways, via the Command Prompt and through My Computer or Windows Explorer. If windows can’t startup, we must use bootable CD Recovery or CD Installer Windows to run CHKDSK command.

1. Run CHKDSK command from Command Prompt.

• At the command prompt type: CHKDSK D:
  This command will run CHKDSK on drive D: in read-only mode.
• Type: CHKDSK D: /F
  This command is used to correct errors without scanning for bad sectors.
• Type: CHKDSK D: /R
  This command is used to repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover the data.

If you want to display any options that we can do using this CHKDSK command, just type CHKDSK help command by typing: CHKDSK /?

The complete syntax for Check Disk is as follows:
CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]]

The options and switches for Check Disk are used as follows:

volume - Sets the volume to work with
path/filename - Specifies files to check for fragmentation (FAT16 and FAT32 only)
/F - Fixes errors on the disk
/V - Displays the full path and name of every file on the disk (FAT16 and FAT32); displays cleanup messages if any (NTFS)
/R - Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information (implies /F)
/X - Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary (implies /F)
/I - Performs a minimum check of index entries (NTFS only)
/C - Skips checking of cycles within the folder structure (NTFS only)
/L - size Sets the log file size (NTFS only)
/B - Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume (NTFS only; implies /R)

2. Run the command CHKDSK on My Computer or Windows Explorer.

• Open Windows Explorer, or My Computer.
• Right-click on the hard disk going to be checked, select "Properties".
• Select the tab "Tools", then select "Error Checking", and click "Check Now".
• The "Check disk" option window will appear.
  
  
  
  
  
• To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
• To repair errors in the file system, check "Automatically fix file system errors"
• To repair errors, locate bad sectors and perform data recovery, check "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"
• You can also check both options if necessary

If a message appears: "Chkdsk can not run Because The volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y / N)" Just type Y, and hit ENTER, and then restart the computer to run Scandisk.

To fix hard disk damage using a Checkdisk / CHKDSK command, there are several methods that we can do, namely:

• If the computer is still able to boot and log into windows, then both way to run CHKDSK.EXE as explained above (via the command prompt or Windows Explorer) can still be done.
• If the hard disk can not boot, then we have to take the hard disk and put it into another computer running Windows, and then run the command Checkdisk / CHKDSK from that computer.
• Also, We can always use Windows installation CD/DVD and run CHKDSK command from the Recovery Console menu.
• Use Checkdisk Option on emergency bootable disk such as Hirens or UBCD4WIN.

So that is how to fix the hard disk using the default Windows utility: Checkdisk / CHKDSK.EXE, and from some of my own experience in fixing computers, it proved to be quite an effective tool to deal on hard disk damage. Next I will try to review on how to repair bad sectors on hard disk. Hope that it can be helpful ...

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