How to Check Windows for Disk or Memory Problems Windows 8 & Windows 10: Lance Whitney

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1 How to Check Windows for Disk or Memory Problems Windows 8 & Windows 10: Lance Whitney Is Windows misbehaving on you? Freezing? Crashing? Blue screening? Problems like that can be tough to troubleshoot. They could be hardware-related. They could be software-related. How can you tell? Well, one step you can take is to run two commands in Windows to check for disk or memory issues. The chkdsk command can scan your hard drive for trouble. And the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool can scan your memory for any glitches. These tools have been around for years and are still available in Windows 10 as they still get the job done. Check for Disk Errors with Chkdsk Let s try out the chkdsk command first. Your hard drive, whether it s physical disk or a solid state drive, uses a file system to keep track of all its data. Sometimes that file system can become corrupted with errors that affect its performance and reliability. Your disk drive can also develop bad sectors, which are small areas of storage that take up a certain amount of space. These problems often result in unreadable files, among other problems. In both cases, the chkdsk command can reveal errors with your file system or hard disk and hopefully fix them. You can trigger the chkdsk command a couple of ways. The most familiar method is to run it from a command prompt. In Windows 10 or 8.1, right-click on the Start button and click on the command for Command Prompt (Admin). In Windows 7, click on the Start button and type cmd in the Search programs and files field. The resulting cmd command appears at the top of the window. Right click on that command and click on Run as administrator from the popup menu. At the command prompt in any version of Windows, type chkdsk to launch the tool and scan your disk drive. You can easily run chkdsk from the command prompt. Another way to run chkdsk is within Windows. In Windows 10 or 8.1, open File Explorer and right-click on your C drive (you can also run it on your D drive if it s a separate hard disk). From the popup menu, click on the Properties command. From the Properties window, click on the Tools tab and then click on the Check button in the Error Checking section. Windows may tell you at that point whether it s already uncovered any errors or has given your hard disk a clean bill of health. Either way, click on the Scan drive option to check your disk.

2 You can also scan your disk directly within Windows. In Windows 7, follow the same steps in Windows Explorer except click on the Check now button in the Error-checking section. With the Windows 7 version of the tool, you ll also see a small window pop up with checkmarks to Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sector. You can check both options. Running chkdsk from the command prompt may be preferable since you can see the results of the scan as they occur. Scanning your disk within Windows doesn t provide you with any feedback until the scan has finished. Within Windows, however, clicking on the link for More details after the scan is done does automatically open the Windows Event Viewer with details on the scan. But you can also launch Event Viewer to see the same details after you run chkdsk from the command prompt. Scanning your disk from the command prompt or from within Windows leads you to detailed feedback on the scan. To fix problems uncovered by chkdsk at the command prompt, you may need to rerun the command with the /f switch, which resolves disk errors, or the /r switch, which finds bad sectors and attempts to retrieve file information. Running chkdsk /r is your best bet since that automatically includes the /f switch to resolve disk errors. You can also type chkdsk /? at the command prompt to view a list of all available switches for chkdsk.

3 Caption: If the scan finds any disk errors, you may need to rerun it with certain switches to resolve the problem. After chkdsk has completed its mission, see if you can reproduce the same errors you were bumping into beforehand. You may find certain files still unreadable. But otherwise, chkdsk should have fixed the main problem of a corrupted file system or bad sectors so you won t experience any further trouble. Check for Memory Problems with the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool Another issue that could plague your PC and trigger trouble is bad memory. Like any other physical component, any of your memory modules can go bad or be defective. This could cause Windows to freeze or crash. The Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool is one way to discover if any of your RAM modules are on the fritz. In any version of Windows from 7 to 10, press Win+R. At the Open field in the Run window, type mdsched.exe and click OK. Up pops the opening screen for the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool. The tool can run only when your PC boots up, so you have two options: You can restart your computer now, and the tool executes at bootup; alternately, you can schedule it to run the next time you reboot. Let s opt to restart and run the command now. Caption: Your PC has to reboot to run the Windows Memory Diagnostic. Your PC reboots and launches the Memory Diagnostic to scope out your RAM. By default, the tool begins in Standard mode, which includes eight different memory tests, each of which uses a different algorithm

4 to scan for various types of errors. You can allow the Standard tests to run until they finish. Caption: By default, the Memory Diagnostic runs in Standard mode with eight different tests. Alternately, you can press F1 at anytime during the test. That takes you to an Options screen where you can choose a different scan. The Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool offers three types of scans: Basic, Standard, and Extended. Basic runs only three tests but it runs them quickly. Standard runs eight different tests but takes longer to complete. Extended runs 17 different tests and takes a long time to finish. Your best bet is to stick with the Standard scan. If an error is detected, you can then run the Extended scan to see if further details are uncovered. Caption: You can opt to run the Memory Diagnostics scans in Basic, Standard, or Extended mode. At the Options screen, you can also disable the processor s cache, which forces the tool to access data directly from RAM, ensuring a more thorough test. You can leave this as is, which means the cache setting for each test remains turned on or turned off depending on the default values. Finally, you can set the Pass Count to determine the number of times each test runs. Two is the default and should suffice. After each test completes, the Windows Memory Diagnostic displays a Succeeded or Failed message. A Failed message includes details about the problem and typically indicates a fault with one of your RAM modules. The diagnostic may be able to narrow down a memory problem to a specific module. If your PC contains more than one RAM module, you can also remove each of them one at a time and run the diagnostic to see if you can isolate the glitch to a specific module. After the scan is finished, your PC automatically reboots. Log back into Windows, and you ll see a brief message pop up indicating the results of the scan. If a bad module is to blame for your Windows troubles, then replacing it should resolve your predicament.

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