If your hard drive on your PC is experiencing a lot of errors, one of the solutions is to do a search for bad sectors and try to fix them. To do that you can use a built-in Windows utility called Windows Check Disk or chkdsk. Here’s how to use it.

What to do:

• In the Search bar type cmd then right click on it to Run as administrator.
• Now type the command: chkdsk C: /f /r [where C is the drive letter you want to search]. The /f flag fixes errors on the disk, and the /r flag locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.
• If the drive is in use, you may be prompted to schedule the check for the next restart. Type Y to confirm.
• After the scan completes, chkdsk will provide a report indicating if any bad sectors were found and whether they were repaired.

Just a note: chkdsk will fix problems, but it can also encounter bad sectors that it can’t repair and that can cause data to become unstable, so it’s advisable to always have all your data backed up before you run it to prevent data loss.

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Author: Dominic Bayley, Australian Editor, PCWorld