How Long Should CHKDSK Take?

[@jec_ecart]

My 5tb backup HDDs seem to take 2 or 3 days for a full chkdsk including surface scans. I sometimes put them to scan on a weekend. Put a USB fan on top of them to keep em comfortable. Seems to help.

[@idanesquivel487]

what no way

[@idanesquivel487]

oh nvm its 5 tb i see why

[@thewatcher9572]

does the bar look like it’s been in one place for a long time cause mine has been in one place for a day now

[@jec_ecart]

@@thewatcher9572 give it time.

[@pinatacolada7986]

From my experience using the CHKDSK /f command, a large number of files can slow this down significantly. It's not so much the file sizes but the file count.

[@NoEgg4u]

The person writing in, about chkdsk taking a super long time, might be using an external drive, plugged into a USB 2.0 port.

[@willoughby1888]

THAT'S IT!!! Maybe. But Thanks! I'm trying to check my "disk" just for the fun of it, I've not tried doing it before, and I think it's taking forever because of all I got plugged in. Every restart just spins that silly little wheel for hours and I thought I had to just do a Windows reinstall, but now I got something else I can try first, thanks again.

[@YTManWithBeard]

Thank you for this video. Been running an /r command for about 30 hours now over my WD 900GB external that's showing up as simply local disk. Sadly I didn't back it up and have precious data on there. What I'm scared of is... every single file record segment is showing up as unreadable... and it's only at 38%... (And it's delete some corrupt files). Someone please say there's something that can be done...

[@oFriggi]

What happened?? I am running /X for the past 2 days, it worked for you?

[@jec_ecart]

Does it actually "repair" bad Sectors? . I don't want any weak or problematic sectors being marked as 'good' or usable because it can cause problems further in time. Can't I avoid the repairing and just mark them bad?

[@askleonotenboom]

I know of no way to change what it does. My understanding is that not all bad sectors are necessarily physically bad so recovering makes sense. Of course if it can't be recovered it'll be marked as bad and avoided.

[@jec_ecart]

Thanks for this practical information

[@rossgeography]

thanks Leo - having real trouble with a MacMini 2018 I'm running as a Windows machine - runs very hot - tried to create a bootable back-up using Easeus but it or resizing to fit the external drive really screwed up the partition - after 2 days I've decided to cut my loses. Will do as you advise, deep format and run chkdsk /r again

[@ryanworkman3032]

Is it better to run it on individual partitions one at a time after partitioning them or on one large partition before dividing into separate smaller partitions?

[@askleonotenboom]

You want to run it in whatever configuration you intend to use. Re-partitioning kind of invalidates the data structures that CHKDSK checks.

[@525Lines]

My computer restarted and went right into chkdsk and it's been running for two days so far. It's a 1tb hard drive with a lot of video on it.

[@thewatcher9572]

is it finished

[@sacheendrucker]

Does the utility try to repair any bad sectors at the time it finds them, or does it wait until it completes the entire scan to then try to repair all the bad sectors it found? I’m asking because i want to understand if all progress is lost if I have to end the scan early, or if there still is some benefit of running a scan even if I have to end it early.

[@askleonotenboom]

To the best of my knowledge it fixes as it goes.

[@LeylaA.-bk2ch]

Hello Mr., thank you for your video. I used this command for 2 TB Hard disk (HDD). Although it has been 3 days, only 30% progressed with this command. If you have a suggestion, I would appreciate it.

[@wijanarkoagus]

i think it depends on your current hard disk health too. The more bad sectors. the longer time needed.

[@fotuneTechGlobal]

I unplugged my external hard disk when it told me i can't disconnected because its being used while it wasnt in use. After i did so, i couldn't find my files, i am wondering if this can fix it?

[@johnygthing]

Is there any need to do this in a new laptop ,,would it identify and damge feom handling/droppage etc?

[@askleonotenboom]

"Need", not really, but it's a fine thing to do to check out the drive.

[@johnygthing]

@askleonotenboom I'm guessing it wouldn't take long if its brand new with nothing other than installed programmes on it,,would that be right? And is it just the C drive to check the hard drive or ?

[@askleonotenboom]

@@johnygthing A CHKDSK /F will be very fast, yes, but I think it's CHKDSK /R you want in this case, which is proportional to the size of the drive, not the amount of data on it. Any drive(s) that are internal to the machine. Usually that's only C:. But again, it's all not a big deal, and honestly, not something I bother with when I get a new laptop.

[@johnygthing]

@askleonotenboom might just not bother then and leave it

[@sudiptadas7494]

Is there any way to stop the run, its taking too long.

[@askleonotenboom]

CTRL+C

[@AmgadGaber]

Does this affects the data or delete it if I stop th run now ?? Plz I need a reply

[@Referee006]

Leo, as you started to run chkdsk, you said, "... I'll run it as Administrator just in case.". What did you mean when you said "just in case?". Just in case of what? Also, what does running something as Administrator do? Thanks

[@askleonotenboom]

Just in case it's required ... which I believe it is, depending on the disk you're CHKDSKing. (I expect CHKDSK on the system drive requires admin, which CHKDSK on a random external drive might not. I could be wrong though.) It's just a permissions thing, it does the same thing when it runs.

[@Referee006]

@@askleonotenboom Leo, thanks.

[@ryanworkman3032]

I was running chkdsk on an external hard disk when it was accidentally came unplugged. What could have happened to it?

[@askleonotenboom]

Many things COULD have happened to it. Have you run CHKDSK again?

[@ryanworkman3032]

@@askleonotenboom no I haven’t, should I?

[@delvinciposterkid]

I'm still running chkdsk from a month ago.

[@thewatcher9572]

is it still running

[@mummoorthy6511]

Thanks for this video support inf.

[@MeDecade]

I have a 6 TB external drive. It's probably a little more than half-full. I got a new(ish) computer and I got the dreaded "there's a problem with this drive". So I've been running CHKDSK /r on it. It's been going for at least a week now. Is there a way to tell how far into the scan it is, percentage-wise? My computer is begging me to restart for updates but I don't want to stop the scan and potentially cause even more problems.

[@112Elburg]

How did it end? I would like to run CHKDSK on my 4TB drive. But I wanna know how much time it can take before starting it.

[@ShortCut3732]

for me with my 1000 GB HDD it takes 10 hours

[@18Karuro]

doing this on my brother's external HDD and it takes forever 50 of 27905

[@yusufgazi7]

Thanks

[@ARBhat523]

great!

[@ArchmageHeino]

I dont know how loong this will finish At least im not the only one have this problem😂 after read comment