How to check the hard drive on a laptop

The hard drive is the main data storage device on any computer. Often, the slow operation of the system is due to problems with the hard drive, so before taking the laptop to the workshop, you can check the drive yourself and try to fix all the errors.

How to check a hard drive: methods

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

Standard Windows tools

This check is the same for any version of Windows.

Action steps:

1. Open "My Computer".
2. Right-click on the desired drive and click the “Properties” menu.
3. In the tab that appears, find “Service”, click “Check Disk”.
4. In this menu, you need to check two boxes opposite: “Sector recovery” and “Automatically correct errors”.
5. Perform “Start”.

If you receive the message “Windows cannot scan the disk being used,” you need to enter the “Scan Schedule.”

Reference! Afterwards, a restart is performed, and while Windows is loading, a test will start running to check the operating status 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 drive.

Using the command line

To perform the check, you need to perform the following steps: go through “Start” to the “All Programs” menu, then select “Accessories” and find the “Command Line” section. Right-click and select “Administrator”.

In the field we write “chkdsk disk: scan_settings”. Please note that this method can only work with storage devices formatted in FAT32.

For example "chkdsk D:/F /R". That is:

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

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

How to understand that there are problems with your hard drive

It is always better to know when problems with a hard drive are approaching in advance, before the hard drive “dies” and the information cannot be recovered.

Listen to extraneous sounds

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

What else do sounds in the laptop case indicate:

• for a problem with the power supply, for example, a broken head, a burnt-out chip, damage to the hard drive, failure of the PCB controller, voltage drop or faults associated with an impact;
• a failure of the built-in software on the ROM chip of the storage device;
• to failure of the read head.

If the cooling system begins to make a lot of noise, this means that the central processor is starting to load. If there are no active tasks at this time, then you need to scan for virus programs.

The hard drive, which will soon fail, “knocks” and “cracks” a lot when opening files. These sounds only intensify over time. But it is necessary to exclude the situation if extraneous noise indicates that the disk is full of information. Defragmentation can help here.

Blue Screen of Death BSOD

In the best case, when documents are damaged, a BSOD screen pops up. In this case, try installing the system on another hard drive and save the information.

These screens indicate that the system is malfunctioning.

Winchester is not formatted

This message usually appears if one of the drive sectors is damaged. This is caused by various reasons, among the most common: incorrect restart, virus programs, running a utility, partitioning the hard drive, turning off or power surge, installing new software, running an antivirus, updating software. There are quite a few reasons.

Laptop keeps rebooting

The main reason is the boot sector, which was attacked by 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 rapid failure of the drive.

Folder opening speed

For example, opening Explorer takes more than 20 minutes, emptying the Recycle Bin takes more than an hour.This is a very common problem, which is constantly accompanied by a breakdown of the hard drive after 2-3 months.

Even if the hard drive being tested is working properly, experts advise still saving important data located on the hard drive. Backup copies of documents should always be made on another drive.