Using CHKDSK
CHKDSK, short for Check Disk, is a utility that checks the integrity of the files and file structure of your hard disk. I’ll walk you through it.
I have disk problems and you said I should run CHKDSK. Great. What is that?
Fair enough. It’s easy for us computer geeks to take things for granted that we shouldn’t.
CHKDSK is a command line tool that checks disks.
I’ll talk about what I mean by command line, and what it means to check a disk.
I’ll also show you how to run CHKDSK step by step.
Checking a disk
Files on your hard disk live in folders; folders can live in other folders; the whole mess lives in your disk, which might actually be a partition on a larger hard disk. On top of that, there may be security information about who is allowed to access what and in what ways they’re allowed to access it.
As you can imagine, things get pretty confusing. All that you probably care about is that you get what you expect when you access a file.
There’s a lot of information on the hard disk to help keep track of all of the data that’s being stored there. CHKDSK’s primary job is to make sure all of that administrative information about the files, folders, and other stuff stored on the disk is correct.
