{"id":19056,"date":"2018-05-25T05:29:39","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T05:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stellarinfo.com\/blog\/?p=19056"},"modified":"2025-04-28T08:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T08:56:37","slug":"how-to-recover-files-which-are-lost-after-using-chkdsk-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stellarinfo.com\/blog\/how-to-recover-files-which-are-lost-after-using-chkdsk-command\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Recover Files lost after using the CHKDSK Command?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Check Disk<\/strong> or CHKDSK<\/strong> is a system tool that helps to verify the file system integrity of a volume and fix the logical file system errors including bad sectors. It is commonly used when the system shows various boot errors and for repairing the disk. However, it doesn’t work every time.<\/p>

This is indeed true as CHKDSK utility marks the bad sectors on the hard disk in order to help Windows understand not to store or read data from those marked bad sectors. If data is stored in those bad sectors, it will be lost permanently since Windows stops accessing those marked bad sectors. However, if you don’t use CHKDSK utility, even when the system is prompting, you are inviting more trouble as this could be a sign of bad hard drive health, which can lead to a disk failure and ultimately data loss. This is a catch 22 situation<\/strong> so you need to be very careful about when to use CHKDSK utility in Windows.<\/p>

To understand this, you need to know how CHKDSK utility works and what you can do next to recover deleted files and data in case CHKDSK utility deletes or further corrupts your hard drive data.<\/p>

How CHKDSK Utility Works?<\/strong><\/h2>

When you run CHKDSK, this utility does whatever it needs to do in order to fix the logical file system. CHKDSK’s attempt to ‘fix’ an issue could also result in data loss. CHKDSK process consists of five stages out of which three are major while two are optional stages. You can also see different stages of CHKDSK when you run the utility in CMD.<\/p>

Stage 1.<\/strong> Checks and Verify Files
Stage 2.<\/strong> Checks indexes on Volume
Stage 3.<\/strong> Checks Security Descriptors for each Volume
Stage 4.<\/strong> Verification of Data (optional)
Stage 5.<\/strong> Verifies Free Space (optional)<\/p>

Note:<\/strong> Stage 4<\/strong> and Stage 5<\/strong> are two extra passes to look for bad sectors that are performed when you use parameter \/r<\/strong> while running CHKDSK; e.g. chkdsk X: \/r<\/strong> where X<\/strong> is the drive letter.<\/p>

Before running CHKDSK you should always remember,<\/strong><\/p>