windows 7 - Is CHKDSK a warning sign of failing drive?
2014-07
IMB
This morning CHKDSK ran on its own during boot. It scanned 1 out of 3 HDDs in my PC. Is it a warning sign that that particular HDD is about die?
Jai Govindani
Chkdsk is automatically run on a few conditions, the most common being an improper startup/shutdown sequence.
In case you did this and forgot - Chkdsk can also be run on startup if you tried to run it when Windows was running, but Windows could not lock the disk. In this case, it will ask you if you want to run Chkdsk at startup, and if you click 'yes', then it will run before Windows starts.
Most likely it's the first case - an improper shutdown/startup. But to answer your question, no, Windows/chkdsk does not know about the condition of your HDD before it runs. It is running because it made some assumptions that a sequence of previous events may have left the data on your drive in an inconsistent state.
Dennis
A patition's dirty bit could get set because of both hardware ans software problems, although I wouldn't call it a problem if it was an isolated incident and Chkdsk didn't find any errors.
Keep in mind that Chkdsk only checks the file system, not the HDD itself.
To verify that your HDD Download a S.M.A.R.T. tool (e.g., Passmark disk checkup). These tools report on several indicators of imminent failure, such as a high reallocated sector count (sectors that have been moved to the spare area due to read/write/verification errors).
Luc Prevoo
I you have no errors in your logfile I wouldn't worry to much. You can always try the command chkdsk c: /f /r (If C: is your drive letter) and check for error's
Pretzel
Have you your event viewer for error corresponding to your hard drive? Bad drive sectors, inactivity, port failure and a variety of other errors in the System event viewer will tell you if a drive is failing aside from chkdsk reporting anything.
Serhii
My new PC with a fresh windows 7 starts a chkdsk during boot time maybe once a week. The chkdsk always finishes with 0 problems and the computer restarts into windows as normal.
I always shutdown properly this PC and I haven't got any crash that could cause any damage to the filesystem.
I've tried to find some log or event entry to know why the chkdsk starts but I haven't found any.
Is there a log of chkdsk activity?
Could this be that the drive SMART system is finding some problems?
Serhii
It seems it is a bug on the NTFS when two processes access the same file. More details at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/fi-FI/w7itprogeneral/thread/df935a52-a0a9-4f67-ac82-bc39e0585148
The error gets registered on the windows event registry under System/Ntfs.
harrymc
The reason for such troubles is probably that during shutdown some software turns on the "dirty" bit of the hard disk. This software can be a device driver, but is more often an antivirus (avira is often cited).
The measures that you can take are:
- Try running for a week without your antivirus and see if the problem disappears (you can make up for this week with a deep antivirus scan later on). If the problem disappears, switch to another antivirus product.
- Update all your drivers using downloads from the manufacturer's site. After that, ensure that all optional Windows Updates relating to devices are installed.