Where do I find CHKDSK results after a reboot?
Hi, everyone. Leo Notenboom
here for Ask Leo.com. The question is
actually a pretty common one because the answer really isn't all that obvious.
Okay, so CHKDSK ran when my machine rebooted and displayed some stuff.
Problem is, I have no idea what it
displayed since it then proceeded to reboot the machine when it was done.
How do I get it to stop, pause, or otherwise?
Let me see what it did.
Well, stopping and pausing not an option,
but letting it see what it did, that is an option.
But as you point out, it is not a very obvious one.
Let's run over here to Windows Eleven
and I'll show you the scenario that we're talking about.
I'm going to run the Windows Command Prompt Terminal,
in this case as Administrator, and run CHKDSK F.
Now CHKDSK F.
Fixes the file system if it finds any problems.
But as you can see, it immediately says it can't run because the volume is in use.
Well, as we know, Windows is using the C drive.
It can't let go while it's running,
so it can't run CHKDSK while Windows is running.
What we do is we say yes to the next time
the system restarts, because that way what will happen is when we reboot,
and I'm going to go ahead and start that process right now.
When we reboot.
What's going to happen is that before
Windows is actually loaded, CHKDSK will be run.
Okay, fantastic.
CHKDSK ran and nothing.
I mean, we may have seen some things fly by on the screen, and if there had been
problems, they may have flown by too quickly for us to see.
So what do we do?
Well, as soon as Windows finishes booting here, I'll show you.
Okay. We're back in windows.
What we're going to do is hit the Windows
key and R, and I'm going to run a program called Event Viewer, Event VWR.
This is true for actually most all versions of Windows.
While it might look a little bit different
depending on the version of Windows that you happen to have, the idea is the same.
We're going to be looking at the Event Viewer.
What we'll look for is in Windows logs.
We will expand that by clicking
on a little greater than sign in front of it and then click on Application.
Now, you can see that there are a lot of entries here in this list.
Unfortunately, it's not obvious exactly which one it is we want.
What we will do is look for when in it.
Now, in our case here, it happens to be at the very top.
And you can see here just a hint of what's happening there's.
A little bit of information.
Checking file system on C.
That looks like CHKDSK results.
What I'll do is instead double click on this to bring it up.
Make this window bigger.
And now you can see all of the information
that was recorded while CHKDSK was running.
This is the kind of stuff you would normally see on screen when you run
a CHKDSK, normally without having to do it at reboot.
If you like, you can click in here,
type Control A, Control C to copy it all to the clipboard.
And now do something like run Notepad.
And now you can see exactly what it is you've got.
You can see probably a little bit more readable than the Event Viewer display,
but ultimately this is how you see the results of CHKDSK.
If it ran as part of a reboot, I hope that's helpful.
I hope that gets you the information you need.
For updates, for comments, for related links and more, visit askleo.com/4534.
I'm Leo Notenboom.
This is ask Leo.com. Thanks for watching.