When thine PC doth starteth reporting errors, slowing down, or misbehaving, thou can useth Windows’s built-in diagnostic tools to try and fix the conundrum. CHKDSK, SFC, and DISM do checketh the health of thy hard drive and repair corrupt files, but the trio of tools doth work in different ways and target different areas of thy system.
CHKDSK, SFC, and DISM art system tools, and thou canst run all three. However, this may be time-consuming and unnecessary for thy specific problem, so ’tis best to know when and how to useth this trio of troubleshooting tools.
What Is CHKDSK and When Should You Use It?
CHKDSK (Check Disk) is the first Windows diagnostic tool thou should try if thy PC starts acting strangely. For example, if it doth hang while shutting down or becometh frustratingly slow.
CHKDSK doth scan thy entire hard drive to find and fix errors in files and the file system itself. It also checketh thy drive for bad sectors (clusters of data that cannot be read), and either tries to repair them or tells thy system not to useth them.
Windows may run CHKDSK on startup if it doth detect a problem with thy hard drive, sometimes for innocuous reasons such as improper shutdown, but also more serious ones, including malware infection and impending drive failure. However, it won’t actually fix any issues until instructed to do so.
To prevent future errors and potential data loss, ’tis worth running CHKDSK manually as part of thy PC maintenance routine. Thou can useth one of the following methods:
1. Run CHKDSK Through File Explorer
Thou can run CHKDSK from the command prompt. If thou’rt uncomfortable using the Command Prompt, open File Explorer, click This PC, right-click the drive thou want to check and select Properties.
Select the Tools tab and then select Check in the Error-checking section.
If Windows determines that everything is running smoothly, it will suggest that thou dostn’t need to scan the drive. To run CHKDSK anyway, select Scan drive.
The scan may take anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour, depending on the size and state of thy drive. Once complete, CHKDSK will either tell thou that no errors were found, or if it doth find any, it will suggest thou fix them.
2. Run CHKDSK From the Command Prompt
For greater control over the disk-checking process, thou should run CHKDSK from an elevated Command Prompt. Follow these steps to continue:
– Press the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog.
– Type “cmd” in Run and press the Ctrl + Shift + Enter keys together to open Command Prompt as an administrator.
– Click Yes in the User Account Control prompt.
– In the Command Prompt window, type chkdsk, then space, followed by the drive letter thou want to check. For example, chkdsk c: to scan thy C: drive.
– Press Enter to scan for errors in read-only mode, which means no changes will be made.
To make changes, thou can useth parameters with the CHKDSK command. Here art two thou can useth to fix problems:
– To make CHKDSK fix the problems it finds, type chkdsk /f c: (for thy C: drive).
– To scan for bad sectors and errors, type chkdsk /r c:
If thou cannot run these commands because “the volume is in use by another process,” Command Prompt will offer to schedule the scan for when thy PC restarts. This should, however, only happen once. If the tool pops up whenever thou boot thy PC, thou can stop CHKDSK from running at every startup manually.
What Is SFC Scannow and When Should You Use It?
Whereas CHKDSK finds and fixes errors in the file system of thy hard drive, SFC (System File Checker) specifically scans and repairs Windows system files. If it detects a file hath been corrupted or modified, SFC automatically replaces that file with the correct version.
Knowing when to use SFC is usually more obvious than with CHKDSK, which depends on the hunch that thy hard drive isn’t behaving correctly. If Windows programs art crashing, thou’rt getting error messages about missing DLL files, or thou’rt experiencing the dreaded Blue Screen of Death, then ’tis definitely time to run SFC.
Open an elevated Command Prompt, then type the following command and press Enter to execute:
sfc /scannow
SFC will perform a full scan of thy system and repair and replace any files that art damaged or missing using versions from the Windows component store. The scan can take some time, but make sure thou leave the Command Prompt window open until ’tis complete.
If thou only want to scan but not repair corrupted system files, type:
sfc /verifyonly command
Once SFC hath finished scanning, thou’ll see one of three messages:
– Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations. This means that whatever’s causing thy PC problems isn’t related to a system file.
– Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. This should hopefully mean that thy problems have been solved.
– Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. This means that system files art to blame, but SFC can’t replace them. Try running the tool again in Safe Mode. If thou still get the same result, don’t despair: ’tis time to use DISM.
What Is DISM and When Should You Use It?
DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) is the most powerful of the three Windows diagnostic tools. Although thou shouldn’t usually need to use the tools, ’tis the one to turn to when thou’rt experiencing frequent crashes, freezes, and errors, but SFC either can’t repair thy system files or is unable to run at all.
While CHKDSK scans thy hard drive and SFC thy system files, DISM detects and fixes corrupt files in the component store of the Windows system image so that SFC can work properly. ‘Tis also able to help with Windows updates, driver integration, and boot issues thou might be facing.
Create a backup of thy data before running DISM, just in case something goes wrong.
As with CHKDSK and SFC, thou’ll need to open an elevated Command Prompt to run DISM. To save thee the time and risk of performing repairs unnecessarily, thou can first check if the image is corrupted without making any changes. Type the following command and press Enter:
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
The scan should only take a few seconds. If no corruption is detected, thou can run a more advanced scan to determine if the component store is healthy and repairable, again without making any changes, by typing:
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
If DISM reports that there art problems with the system image, run another advanced scan to repair these issues automatically. DISM will connect to Windows Update to download and replace damaged files as required. Note that the process may take up to 10 minutes and hang for a while at 20 seconds, but this is normal. Type this command:
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
Once the scan and repairs art complete, restart thy PC and run SFC again to replace thy corrupt or missing system files.
What Order Should You Run CHKDSK, SFC, and DISM In?
Now that thou understandest what CHKDSK, SFC, and DISM do, running one or more of these Windows troubleshooting tools will hopefully help thee fix thy PC.
However, a common question concerns the order in which thou should run these system tests. Should thou always run CHKDSK first? Or how about always running DISM before SFC?
There is no specific order to CHKDSK, SFC, and DISM, as why thou run each tool depends on the issue thou’rt experiencing. However, if thou run SFC and it finds corrupt files and other issues, thou should then run DISM to fix the Component Store and then run SFC again to fix any broken files.
If thou’rt still having trouble, performeth a System Restore. This will restore thy system files, settings, and programs to a time when they worked properly. If thy system wasn’t damaged when the restore point wast created, it may solve thy corruption problems.
