Detect and Repair disk errors

If your computer’s performance is degrading, you must take action immediately! The issue can be caused by disk space, data access, or disk errors. To get rid of the disk space problem, simply run the Disk Cleanup utility. To make sure your data is accessed correctly and your disks are not fragmented, run the Disk Defragmenter tool. But what can you do if you have disk errors on your computer?

Disk errors slow down the hard disk and can even cause errors when writing data (like saving a file). If you use your computer daily, disk errors are very likely to appear. How can you get rid of them? Simple – by using Microsoft Windows’s Error Checking utility. This is a very powerful and flexible tool that can detect and fix disk errors to keep your computer at top performance.

Here is how to find and use it. This guide is from Microsoft’s own website and is recommended for everyone:

  1. Close all open files
  2. Click Start, and then click My Computer
  3. In the My Computer window, right-click the hard disk you want to search for bad sectors, and then click Properties
  4. In the Properties dialog box, click the Tools tab
  5. Click the Check Now button
  6. In the Check Disk dialog box, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start
  7. If bad sectors are found, choose to fix them

Tip: Only select the "Automatically fix file system errors" check box if you think that your disk contains bad sectors.

Please note that the tool can display the following error if one or more files from the hard disk are open:

“The disk check could not be performed because the Disk Check utility needs exclusive access to some Windows files on the disk. These files can be accessed by restarting Windows. Do you want to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart the computer?”

If this happens, click YES and then restart your computer. Windows will start the Error Checking utility automatically.

As you can see, using this tool is quite easy to use and it does not take too much of your precious time. It is recommended that you scan your disk for errors at least once per week. Simply by doing this you can prevent data loss and critical errors. Imagine what it would be like if you are unable to save a document you are working on or, even worse, if your document would be gone in the morning. You think this can’t happen to you, but it surely can – this is exactly what can happen if you don’t detect and repair disk errors on time!

Try to use the Error Checking utility after you use the Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup tools. All of these tools help you speed up your computer and keep your data safe.

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