Noticed that when I run the Check Disk utility on the target machine the percentage indicator doesn't display the correct percentage.
It usually freezes at 10% or an arbitrary number and then appears to complete.
What is causing this?
The above is normal behavior for chkdsk when run from administrative command prompt or administrative powershell.
It will run up to a number in the low teens and remain there until complete.
In contrast when chkdsk is used in the Windows RE (recovery environment) it will typically display ETA.
Chkdsk has 5 phases it verifies:
1. file system structure,
2. file name linkage,
3. security descriptors
4. used space
5. free space
The first 3 are done in mere seconds, hence why the percentage increases very fast.
The last 2, verifying all sectors in the used space and free space is what's taking long and why it looks like chkdsk is freezing.
Excellent commentary axe0. I always wondered why ChkDsk always runs up to 10% very fast, and then just seemed to hang. Now, I know!
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