Over the years, the Windows user interface has evolved greatly, something that we have been able to verify with the passage of its versions. But with everything and with it, there are a series of functions and internal commands of the operating system that have been maintained over time, as is the case with CHKDSK.
Most of the users, as is normal, when working with Windows makes use of its graphical interface, for that they present it to us from Redmond . This, as we tell you, has evolved greatly with the passage of time and versions of Windows. But this interface does not always offer us everything necessary, something that is especially evident among the most advanced users. Therefore, for these, tools such as the command line or the PowerShell , become basic.
Also, the operating system itself presents us with a series of internal commands that make it work better. This is the case we have previously referred to with CHKDSK . Actually, with this we are talking about a command that comes with MS-DOS and that has survived all subsequent versions of Windows.
What is the CHSKDSK command
Specifically, this refers to one of the most important sections of the operating system itself, storage units. Therefore, at this point say that CHKDSK is the diminutive of the words Check Disk . So, as it is easy to imagine, these is a utility that focuses on analyzing, verifying and repairing the storage units of the computer. This is something that refers to both mechanical hard drives, such as SSDs or USB devices.
Through CHKDSK we can improve the performance of the unit, and optimize its use and performance. Therefore, at the same time it is important to know that this command we are talking about carries out a scan and repair of logical and physical errors in the disk drives. Of course, it is executed by the user or the operating system itself, in a window of the Windows CMD and from the PowerShell with administrator permissions.
In the same way, it puts at our disposal a good number of parameters to adjust its operation, something that we can consult from chkdsk / ?.
Common Uses of CHKDSK to Troubleshoot Disk Problems
As we mentioned, there are many parameters that allow us to customize the use of this important command as much as possible. For example, in the event that what we need is to carry out an analysis and repair of a complete disk drive, the command that we execute is chkdsk C: / F / R. These two specific parameters indicate to the command to solve all the detected faults and locate the damaged sectors.
In the same way, it could also be enough to carry out a previous analysis of the unit in question to locate possible faults . Therefore in this case the most suitable command would be chkdsk / scan. At the same time, it may be the case that, in order to repair certain disk failures, we need to force an offline repair. To do this we just have to use the command chkdsk / scan / forceofflinefix.
On the other hand, we can add the / perf parameter to speed up the scanning process, but this will consume more equipment resources. Therefore if at that time we work with it, it is not recommended. And also to save time, we can use / spotfix, which forces CHKDSK to fix the errors already detected in previous analyzes .
Customize CHKDSK autorun on Windows
On the other hand, it is also interesting to know that Windows 10 itself, when detecting any error in the installed disk drives, executes CHKDSK by itself. This serves, as we have mentioned, to analyze these discs, detect problems and fix us. In the same way, the command as such is usually executed before starting Windows itself. Thus, the operating system ensures that the user has their storage units without problem and the system can be used without fail.
Before that, the system shows a countdown during startup when it is going to execute the check command, so we can skip it. But it is also good to know that we can customize the time we want the scan to take to run when we restart the computer . Say that by default CHKDSK runs after eight seconds, amount of time that we can change if we want to.
Change the CHKDSK time from the registry
On the one hand, this customization of the waiting time can be carried out from the same system registry. We access it through the regedit command that we type in the search box.
Once in the Windows registry window itself, we are at the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession Manager. Here we will look for the value called AutoChkTimeout, which at first we will see that it comes with a value information set to 8. Those are the seconds that we previously mentioned, so we will only have to modify it and set the desired time .
Modify time using CMD commands in NTFS
Of course, this is a change that we can also carry out from the Command Prompt or CMD window. To do this, we just need to open a command prompt window by typing the command CMD in the search box, something that we execute with administrator permissions.
In this case we will use the / t parameter to modify this time period. Specifically, and to give us an idea, if we want to set that time to 20 seconds, the correct command to use in this case would be chkntfs / t: 20.
Disable CHKDSK from Windows startup
As we mentioned before, in certain circumstances this is a Windows command that runs by itself to check the integrity of the disks . Earlier we showed you how to increase the waiting time of eight seconds that come by default to cancel this analysis. And it is that for some, those eight seconds is too little, so we can increase that time.
But likewise, we have the possibility to cancel the process as such at the start of the operating system. So, if what we want is that it always starts as quickly as possible, we show you how to disable this automated execution.
In the event that we want to disable this automated process and prevent Windows from launching CHKDSK at startup, we will have to use the registry editor again. We open this section as we saw previously, with the regedit command. Once in the window that appears, we are located in the path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession Manager.
Here we double click on the entry called BootExecute that we find in the right panel. Then we will see that the value information here is set to autocheck autochk *. Well, to disable auto-run forever on Windows startup, we changed it to autocheck autochk / k: C *. Say that C is the disk drive where we have canceled this that we discussed. Of course, we can always continue using the functionality manually if necessary.