Running an error check

If a drive starts acting weird - for example, you see error messages when trying to open a file, or Windows crashes in unpredictable ways - run the Windows error-checking routines.

If you're an old hand at Windows - or an even older hand at DOS - you probably recognize the following steps as the venerable CHKDSK routine.

Follow these steps to run Check Disk:

1. Choose Start → Computer.
2. Right-click the drive that's malfunctioning and choose Properties.
3. On the Tools tab, click the Check Now button.
   You may have to click through a User Account Control dialog box, providing it with an administrator account username and password, but ultimately the Check Disk dialog box appears.
4. In most circumstances, you select the Scan For and Attempt Recovery of Bad Sectors check box and then click the Start button.
   If you don't want to sit and wait and wait for Windows to finish, you probably want to select the Automatically Fix File System Errors check box, too.

As long as you aren't using any files on the hard drive that Windows is scanning, Windows performs the scan on the spot and reports on what it finds. If you're using files on the hard drive, however - and that always happens if you're scanning the drive that contains Windows itself - Windows asks whether you want to schedule a scan to run the next time you restart your machine. If you say yes, you have to turn off the computer and then turn it back on again before Windows runs the scan. (Note that merely logging off isn't sufficient.)