how to scan and fix a hard drive free

The minute your computer’s hard drive starts to act slowly, make sure you have an up-to-date backup. Then you do some diagnostics and repairs. Windows and Mac OS come with built-in hard drive utility software that scans your hard disk for errors and attempts to fix them.

How to scan and fix a hard drive?

1. Click My Computer.
2. Right-click a hard drive you want to scan and fix; select Properties.
3. Select the Tools Tab and click Check Now.
4. At the Check Disk menu, click both options (“Automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”).
5. Click Start.

A message will ask you if you want to schedule a disk check, click Yes.

1. Close all open menus and programs.
2. Restart your computer.

Windows will run the CHKDSK utility and open your desktop when it has finished.

It may take an hour or two to do this test, so do not perform this test when you have insufficient time. It’s a good idea to check your hard drive once a month, keeping your system running well, finding and fixing errors in the file allocation table, the file system structure and the directory tree structure.

You should also regularly defragment your hard drive to keep your system running well. In the course of normal usage, files are constantly changed and written or rewritten to the hard drive. The file system tries to pack the files tightly, but they are not all the same size, so it breaks them into pieces to fit where it finds space for them. Over time these pieces get scattered all over the drive. It begins to take a lot of time to read and write files, slowing down your computer performance.

But Disk Defragmenter reorganizes the files on your hard disk into contiguous blocks. This improves the performance of your programs because the files are arranged closer together. Disk Defragmenter also creates a log file to determine which programs you run most frequently. All such frequently used files are then placed in a single location on your hard disk, which further reduces the time needed to start those programs.

How to use Disk Defragmenter to keep hard drive in good condition?

1. Double Click MY Computer
2. Right Click Local Drive C
3. Click on Properties.
4. Click Tools.
5. Click Defragment Now..
6. Click Analyze