Check Hard Disk Professional Technology Support

Tim Fisher has 30 years professional technology support experience.

He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire.

Scanning your hard drive with the Error Checking tool can help identify, and possibly even correct, a range of hard drive errors, from file system issues to physical problems like bad sectors.

The Windows Error Checking tool is the GUI (graphical) version of the command-line chkdsk tool, one of the more well-known commands from the early computing days.

The chkdsk command is still available and offers more advanced options than Error Checking.

Error Checking is available in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP, but there are differences, all of which well call out below.

Right-click the Start button and select File Explorer (Windows 108), Open Windows Explorer (Windows 7), or Explore (VistaXP).

Windows Explorer, in earlier versions of Windows, is also available via Computer or My Computer in the Start menu.

Select This PC (Windows 108), Computer (Windows 7Vista), or My Computer (XP) in the left margin.

Right-click or tap-and-hold the drive that you want to check for errors on (usually C), and select Properties.

What you do now depends on which version of Windows youre using.

Windows 7, Vista, XP: Choose Check now and then continue with Step 6.

Two options are available before starting an Error Checking scan in Windows 7, Vista, and XP.

Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors will perform a search for areas of the hard drive that may be damaged or unusable.

If found, this tool will mark those areas as bad and prevent your computer from using them in the future.

This is a very useful feature but could extend the scan time as much as a few hours.

Youll notice that Windows takes much longer to start up and youll see text on the screen as the Error Checking (chkdsk) process completes.

If errors were found, you may be asked to restart your computer.

If no errors were found, you can close any open windows and continue using your computer normally.

If you have trouble locating it, focus your attention on Event ID 26226.

Check Hard Disk Windows 7