How can I check my data drive for errors?

JOSHSKORN · 03 Jan 2021

I'm sorry, this is a silly question, and I used to know the answer to this.

I've got two hard drives on my PC.

Drive C:\ - is a NVMe drive with my system and many of my apps on

Drive D:\ - This is my storage drive. I've relocated all of my personal Windows user folders to my D:\ Drive. In otherwords, Music, Documents, Pictures, Downloads and Videos. Not Desktop.

When I'm saving pictures from Google Chrome, when the Save as Window pops up, it's been freezing for a few seconds, but not completely crashing. I seem to notice it being consistently set on either Pictures, Documents or Downloads, as I don't save to Desktop too often. I'm thinking either two things:
My D:\ Drive is failing (I doubt it actually)
My D:\ Drive just needs to be checked for errors. I'm guessing that's the case.

That said, how can I check Drive D:\ for errors?

Try3 · 03 Jan 2021

Josh,

Run File explorer,
Select This PC,
In the right-hand pane, right-click on the D drive & select Properties,
Click on the Tools tab,
In the Error-checking section, click on the Check button.

Drive Error Checking - TenForumsTutorials

Denis

dalchina · 03 Jan 2021

That covers chkdsk.

3rd party utilities can be invaluable. Examples:
a. Crystal Diskinfo (free) - can be set to continuously monitor SMART parameters and alert you of degradation againt preset thresholds.

b. Regularly and routinely use disk imaging. The act of disk imaging checks the data being imaged can be read and you get a report if there's a problem. E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + large enough external storage for image files. Then when you have a problem you have a recent backup of the used space on the whole disk or partition.

c. Hard Disk Sentinel (SSDs too). The best report I know of - not free, sometimes given away.

zbook · 03 Jan 2021

Hangs and freezes are multifactorial.

Many significant drive problems can be ruled in / out with the above steps: Chkdsk and SMART
Additional testing can include surface tests, benchmarks, and generic tests.

Logs may have recorded problems and can be scanned.