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General discussion

How to do scandisk via Windows Vista?

Jul 21, 2007 10:42AM PDT

It does not seem to work the same as XP--can someone tell me how to scan the drive for errors with Vista?

Discussion is locked

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Scandisk was replaced...
Jul 21, 2007 12:11PM PDT

Scandisk was actually replaced in Windows XP with chkdsk (checkdisk), which can be launched by pressing Windows + R and typing in chkdsk /f (note the space). It will alert you that the disk is in use, which is normal...just type Y and press enter. It will run the next time you restart the computer.

Hope this helps,
John

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How often to scan? What about external drive/
Jul 25, 2007 1:53AM PDT

John, this sounds a bit like the old dos days...typing a command(chkdsk /f)! How often do you recommend scanning the physical disk?

What about my external Maxtor Basic drive? Do I type in an extension to the command to scan that drive? If so what? And why does one run chkdsk /f, not chkdsk /c to scan the computer's harddrive at bootup?

Alex

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Only as needed...
Jul 25, 2007 1:54PM PDT

Usually if there's a problem Windows will automatically detect it and launch chkdsk on the next reboot, giving you a few seconds to opt out of the scan. Otherwise you should just perform it if you feel there's a related problem afoot.

If you wanted to scan another drive you would use the following, replacing the drive letter as appropriate:
chkdsk volume D: /f
Note that when scanning another partition you do not need to reboot the computer...the scan is immediately launched.

Under Windows NT-based OSes /f is the switch designated to fix errors while /c is the switch designated to omit the checking of cycles in the folder structure, thereby reducing the scan time. /c doesn't refer to 'correct.'

Hope this helps,
John