Learn me on chckdsk / scandsk.

[Parker]

The first part is a little vague because it's my company's software that I'm using.
I've got a program that doesn't always run perfectly. And at times I'm guessing that it's the problem for the computer locking up and maxing out the cpu @ 100%.

So herein lies my real question...In an effort to help out the half full 5Gb (total capacity) harddrive, I'm trying to defrag. Upon analyzing, a popup appears stating that there is an error and I must first run either chkdsk or scandsk. I have never seen these programs and I'm curious as to what they do and if they can cause more harm than help. Would I possibly need the Windows disk also?

 

[GushpinBob]

Which version of Windows?

chkdisk and scandisk are both hard disk checkers that scan for inconsistencies, errors, or bad sectors on a floppy or hard disk. If you're running Windows 9x/ME, use scandisk to check your drive before performing a defragmentation (the defragmenter that was built into those versions of Windows was verrry picky about your hard drive being 'clean').

If you use Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 either go into the command prompt and type "chkdisk x: /f" (where x: is your drive you want to defragment) or open 'My Computer' and right click the drive/partition you're trying to defragment, go to tools and select the scandisk option. It will most likely ask for you to restart the computer.