What are disk erros and how to fix them using Window Vista’s Check Disk utility

What are disk errors?

Disk errors refer to common data corruption and to actual physical damage of the hard drive (also known as bad sectors).

Data corruption is an error encountered during transmission or retrieval of data, when unintended changes to the original data occur. Data corruption is, in fact, very common, but as hard drive technology advances, so do error correction protocols, which become more sophisticated and maintain the level of reliability.

A bad sector is a sector of the hard drive to which data cannot be written. Bad sectors are created by software errors or slight errors in the read/write heads which can cause the data written in that particular sector to be completely unreadable.

Can disk errors be repaired?

Fortunately, the answer is yes. There are a number of applications which can fix the errors on your hard drive. The methods used are the following:

Error checking – the process which scans files and folders on your drive and searches for corrupted data and inconsistencies. This basic scan can clean up file problems that might cause errors in Windows.

Surface scan – is the process that examines in detail each sector of the hard drive, identifying and marking bad sectors. Marked sectors are off-limit sectors to the file system and spare sectors are used to replace them. Bad sectors are marked off-limit in order to stop the problem from spreading to other sectors of the hard drive. Surface scans take up a large amount of time, but are the only way to identify and repair this kind of disk errors.

How to repair disk errors in Windows Vista

Windows Vista, like previous versions of Windows, has an integrated Check Disk utilitym which can automatically repair many disk errors. In order to start using the Check Disk utility, you’ll have to follow these simple steps:

• Open Computer or Windows Explorer, right click on the partition you want to scan for disk errors, and choose Properties from the menu.
• Select the Tools tab and you will see the Error-checking utility there. Press the Check now button. You may be prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, (type the password or provide confirmation).
• The Check Disk dialog box will appear, from which you can select two options:
  
  
  1. Automatically fix file system errors will let Windows automatically repair errors on files and folders that the scan detects. Unselecting this option will only report the disk errors it finds, without fixing them.
  2. Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors will let Windows perform a thorough disk check, in an attempt to find and repair physical errors on the hard drive, such as bad sectors, and recover data stored in unreadable locations. Note that this action may last some time, depending on the size of the drive.

If you are scanning the partition on which Vista is installed, a dialog box will appear stating that Windows is unable to check the disk while it’s in use. In this case, you can choose Schedule disk check or Cancel. Selecting Schedule disk check will run the disk error check next time you will boot up your computer.

It is recommended not to use the computer while it is checking for disk errors.