Replace Scan Disk with Check Disk

Martin Brinkmann
Nov 25, 2007
Updated • Nov 8, 2017
Software, Windows software
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5

Scan Disk is a native Windows tool that you can use to scan a hard drive for errors and bad sectors.

The software is not really comfortable to use, it is for instance not possible to make the tool scan all hard drives at once.

Another issue is that it is quite difficult to find out about it if you never heard about it before.

Check Disk for Windows

Check Disk is a Scan Disk replacement that offers a more comfortable way of scanning your hard drives for errors.

First and foremost, it lets you select more than one hard drive at once which means that it is possible to scan all hard drives in one go. It supports standard, full and dirty scans, displays more information in a status window and has the option to correct errors if possible.

I do not think that it scans the hard drives faster or discovers errors that Scan Disk cannot find, but that is not the point here. The performance appears to be very similar, and the real benefit is the additional options that it makes available that you can use to scan one or multiple hard drives for errors.

Here is how the program works: The developer has made available a 32-bit and 64-bit edition of the program, and you should download the version suitable for your operating system. It is likely that the 32-bit version will work on 64-bit operating systems, but not the other way round.

Note that you may need to run the program with elevated rights. The program notifies you about the fact if you ran it with regular user rights, and if those are not sufficient.

You can select one or multiple drives that you want to check in the upper left corner of the screen, just hold down Ctrl and left-click all drives you want checked.

You can then select a standard or thorough test. I'd suggest to begin with the standard test unless you are also experiencing issues with the selected drive. If that is the case, the thorough or dirty test may be more appropriate as it offers improved scanning features to get the most out of the scan.

You may also want to check the correct errors option to have Check Disk correct errors automatically whenever possible.

It is interesting to note that CheckDisk works with removable media such as CDs or DVDs as well. While you won't be able to correct those on optical discs, it may help you detect them early to create a backup of the data before it is too late.

The application is compatible with all Windows client and server versions starting with Windows 2000.

Closing Words

Checkdisk is a handy program that you may use to scan all or some storage devices connected to a machine running Windows for errors.

Summary
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Software Name
CheckDisk
Operating System
Windows
Software Category
Administration
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Comments

  1. Oliver Alexander said on November 28, 2007 at 8:54 am
    Reply

    I faintly remember that “Scandisk” was last seen with Windows ME

  2. archer said on November 26, 2007 at 6:00 am
    Reply

    each app has a download option– “spa1”, do you know what this is, martin?

  3. Ajay said on November 25, 2007 at 4:04 pm
    Reply

    From the looks of it, it just runs chkdsk. However, the only plus point is the ability to scan multiple drives at the same time.

  4. Martin said on November 25, 2007 at 3:02 pm
    Reply

    It can scan without reboot but can’t repair while drive c: is in use.

  5. Roman ShaRP said on November 25, 2007 at 1:42 pm
    Reply

    Do you already try it “in field”?
    Can it scan without system reboot?

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