Is it safe to cancel chkdsk?

Question

Is it safe to cancel chkdsk?

Anonymous

Hi guys.

I was experiencing some memory related problems and lots of Internet articles recommend doing the chkdsk /f /r command in cmd. I scheduled it to run after I restart.

I restarted, and now I see my laptop logo with the windows loading icon and some text which says 'scanning and repairing drive (C:)'.

It's been at 10% for about an hour and a half but the problem is that I need my laptop for some work in about 30 minutes so is it safe to press the power button and run it later? Or will that ruin any files or the hard disk itself?

My computer is a Lenovo with a 1TB hard drive manufactured by Seagate (I am not entirely sure about the hdd manufacturer however)

Thanks in advance

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9 additional answers

Answer 1

nickspeed,

I think the consequences of files being ruined would be minimal (affecting one to a few files when in use during a scan). In fact after doing some research after my posting, it's been told that interrupting chkdsk would not make a volume more corrupt than what it was before. So if you feel that if you have any time to spare in the future, you can run chkdsk to continue fixing those corruptions from when you interrupted it.

One intuitive step to make sure that chkdsk isn't using the hard drive/solid state drive is to take note of the percentage or what it's currently doing. If it hasn't advanced since then, I would gather it's not doing anything and you can safely shut it down.

Hope that clears it up.

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versi...(v=ws.11)

Answer 2

Why would you run CHKDSK for memory-related problems? CHKDSK analyzes your hard drive.

If you ran CHKDSK with the /f switch you're going to have to let it go all the way.

The CHKDSK command was created long before today's huge hard drives. A 1 TB drive will take a very long time to scan. That's one reason why people don't run CHKDSK anymore. Another reason is that today's hard drives are substantially more reliable than they were when CHKDSK was originally created, so there's not much point to running it now. Finally, today's hard drives have S.M.A.R.T. built in, which will alert you in the rare case that there is a problem with your hard drive.

Answer 3

DaveM121 871K Independent Advisor

Hi NickSpeed,

It is safe to cancel Check Disc in phase 4 or 5, it is not safe to cancel in phase 1, 2 or 3 as that can result in data loss and/or bricking your system . . .

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Answer 4

Anonymous

I believe if you cancel it, you do so by powering it off. But on start up, it will run it again and now you have to start all over. Not sure but I think so.

And you can damage system if on stage 4 or 5 and end it and might have to use install media to repair or you might get BSOD.

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Answer 5

If you have a laptop that might be a little slow and a lot of data, I would not stop it. You can wipe everything out.

It could take 4 hours. So be patient.

Bulldogx could not have said it any better, you need to run memory diagnostics test not check disk,

However, your pagefile on your SSD or HDD could be a possible issue from a bad sector on the drive where the pagefile is and check disk could be beneficial.

Go here and select standard and 8 pass when check disk completes.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/29343.running-windows-memory-diagnostics-tool-in-windows-10-technical-preview.aspx

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Is it safe to cancel chkdsk?

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