Run Check Disk from Windows Explorer to Check for and fix Disk Errors

Data Corruption, no matter how up to date your OS or your hard drive is, can still occur. So you should not be one to believe that data corruption is a thing of the past. It isn’t. To address that you should use the Check Disk tool periodically to check the integrity of disks.

What does Check Disk Do?

Check Disk examines disks and can correct many types of common errors on FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS drives. By comparing the volume bitmap with the disk sectors assigned to files in the file system Check Disk locates disk errors. However, Check Disk can’t repair corrupted data within files that appear to be structurally intact.

Running Check Disk Interactively
You can also Check Disk interactively using Windows Explorer. To use Windows Explorer to check disk drives on the local computer, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, and then click Computer. Under Hard Disk Drives, right-click a drive, and then click Properties.

2. On the Tools tab, click Check Now. This displays the Check Disk dialog box.

3. To check for errors without repairing them, click Start without selecting either of the check boxes in the Check Disk dialog box.

4. To check for errors and attempt to resolve them, select either or both of the following options, and then click Start.

• Automatically Fix File System Errors Specifies whether Windows 7 repairs file system errors it finds.
• Scan For And Attempt Recovery Of Bad Sectors Specifies whether Windows 7 checks for bad sectors and attempts to recover readable information from them.

5. If the disk is in use, Check Disk displays a prompt that asks whether you want to schedule the disk to be checked the next time you restart the system. Click Yes to schedule this check.

6. When Check Disk finishes analyzing and repairing the disk, click OK.

While this approach is easy, you can also run Check Disk from the command line.