How to check the hard drive on a laptop

The hard disk is the main data keeper on any computer equipment. Often, the slow operation of the system is due to problems with the hard drive, because before carrying the laptop to the workshop, you can check the drive yourself and try to fix all the errors.

How to check hard drive: ways

Often, the slow operation of the operating system in a laptop is due to malfunctions of the hard disk. There are many ways to determine the performance of the hard drive.

Standard means of Windows

This check is the same for all versions of Windows.

Stages of action:

1. Open "My Computer".
2. Right-click on the desired drive and click the "Properties" menu.
3. In the appeared tab, find "Service", click "Check Disk".
4. In this menu it is necessary to mark two checkboxes opposite: "Sector recovery" and "Automatically correct errors".
5. Make a start.

If there is a message "Windows can not check the used disk", you need to enter the "Check schedule".

Reference! After the restart is performed, and during Windows bootup, the test will start working to check the status of work and correct errors. The duration of testing ranges from several minutes to 2-3 hours, taking into account the size and parameters of the hard disk.

Using the command line

To perform the check, you need to perform the following steps: go through the "Start" in the "All Programs" menu, then select "Standard" and find the section "Command line". He clicks the right mouse button, and select "Administrator".

In the field we write "chkdsk disk: settings_proverki". It should be noted that this method can only work with storage devices formatted in FAT32.

For example "chkdsk D: / F / R". I.e:

1. Drive D is checked.
2. Errors are corrected automatically (command F).
3. All sectors are checked and data is restored (command R).

If you need to diagnose the disk that is currently being used by the system, a message will appear prompting you to check when the PC is restarted. Y - agree, N - refuse. After checking, information on the number of errors and bad sectors will appear.

How to understand that there are problems with the hard disk

Approaching problems with a hard disk is always better to know in advance, before the hard drive "dies" and information will not be able to recover.

Listen to extraneous sounds

Periodically literally listen to how the storage device works. If you hear any sounds that were not previously in the laptop, it may be a harbinger of a hard drive.

What else do the sounds in the laptop case indicate:

• a power problem, for example, a broken head, a burned-out chip, damage to the hard drive pancakes, a pcb controller failure, voltage drop or malfunctions associated with a shock;
• on the failure of the firmware on the ROM-chip storage device;
• on the failure of the read head.

If the cooling system starts to make a lot of noise, it means that the CPU starts loading. If there are no active tasks at this time, then you need to check for the presence of virus programs.

Winchester, which will soon fail, strongly “knocks” and “cracks” during the opening of files. These sounds only get stronger over time. But it is necessary to eliminate the situation if the outside noise means the disk overflow with information. Here defragmentation can help.

"Blue screen of death" BSOD

At best, if the documents are damaged, the BSOD screen pops up. In this case, try to put the system on another hard drive and so save the information.

These screens indicate that the system is malfunctioning.

Winchester is not formatted

This message usually occurs if one of the sectors of the drive is damaged. This is caused by various reasons, among the most frequent: improper restart, virus programs, utility launch, partitioning of the hard drive, shutting down or a jump in electricity, installing new software, antivirus work, software update. There are a lot of reasons.

Laptop reboot all the time

The main reason is the boot sector, which attacked the virus, creating a constant cycle of restarting the PC. The virus program causes the OS to access the boot sector and continuously reboot the laptop. This can lead to a quick breakdown of the drive.

Folder opening speed

For example, the opening of the "Explorer" lasts more than 20 minutes, cleaning the "Basket" takes more than an hour. This is a very frequent problem that is constantly accompanied by a hard drive crash in 2-3 months.

In the case of even when the checked hard drive is intact, experts advise to save important data on the hard disk anyway. Backup copies of documents should always be done on another drive.