SEPTEMBER 2020 PCWorld 101to run the check disk program with
the /F or /R options. The /F
option focuses on fixing filesystem
errors, while the /R option also
checks for bad physical sectors on
the drive—don’t use the /R option
on an SSD as this option is not built
for solid state drives. The /R
option can take a very long time to
complete, and needs to work on a
reboot so only run that when you
have the time. The /F option also
needs a reboot to run but requires
less time.
An example command might
be chkdsk d: /r. That
command tells the utility to check only your
D: drive. In this scenario the C: drive is an
NvME SSD and D: is the higher-capacity hard
drive that requires servicing.
Windows 10 is set to run chkdsk
automatically, so you may be alerted to issues
before you do a manual run of this utility.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
To avoid the worst effects of dying storage
drives, make sure you’re doing regular
backups. The best option is to use something
that saves multiple historical states of your
data such as Windows’ built-in File History.
That way if a recent backup has the same
garbage drives, you can go back in time to
retrieve earlier versions of them. If you don’t
like File History, check out our tour of the best
Windows backup software (go.pcworld.
com/bksf), as well as our roundup of the best
external drives to store your backups (go.
pcworld.com/exdr).
It’s also a good idea to use a cloud
backup service so you have a third copy of
your data that’s offsite. An alternative would
be to have two hard drives doing File
History backups, and keeping one offsite,
with regular swaps to keep each drive as
current as possible.
Once you start seeing serious hard-drive
errors that can’t be fixed with check disk, it’s
time to replace the drive as soon as possible.
If the errors can be fixed, you can probably
eke a little more life out of the drive, but it’s
still a good idea to replace it and avoid further
heartache.Run the command prompt as an administrator to use ‘chkdsk.’