Hard disks have evolved into multi-terabytes of size in the past few years. There was a time when only servers used to have that large hard disks, but now anybody can have one or two terabytes of hard disk installed in their personal computer. If you also have a large hard disk, then you have to be extra careful about keeping it running smooth by checking it for errors regularly. You can check your hard disk for errors by using CheckDrive software for free.
CheckDrive is a free software for Windows that offers you an easy way to check your hard drives for errors. CheckDrive may be able to detect and fix hard drive errors that might appear on system crashes or when switching off your PC without a proper Windows shutdown. It can also fetch the SMART data from your hard disk (if you have enabled it in your system BIOS) and see if your hard disk is having any problem. It can be installed on both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Vista and 7.
Here are some of the features of CheckDrive :
- Check hard disks for errors
- Show hard drive information
- Determine amount of unwanted garbage files on system
- Determines if defragmentation is required
- Monitors your hard disks in real time for errors
You can download CheckDrive from the Abelssoft website. The download size is around 14 megabytes in size. After the installation, it asks you for an unlock code. You can get an unlock code for free by supplying the email address and your full name. The unlock code is sent to you on your email address. After unlocking it, you would be able to see the main CheckDrive interface.
You will see separate buttons for all of your hard disk drives, you can click on any of the them to check the respective hard disk drive. The disk check would be completed in three stages and will tell you if you have any errors on your hard disk. During the analysis, the checked blocks are shown in green while unchecked or free blocks are shown in the yellow color. The analysis may take longer for a large sized disk drive. The CheckDrive also has a drive information tab which you can access from the top ribbon interface.
In the Drive Information tab, you can see the hard disk drive for all the drives like name, model, size, filesystem, type of drives and more. It also shows you a graphical pie chart detailing how much of your drive is used and how much is free. Additionally, it shows the healthy status using your hard disk’s SMART data. You can also access the detailed SMART data from this tab.
In case you find a problem or error in your hard disk using CheckDrive, then you can simply repair it using the on-screen directions. You are also given an option to repair the error on next boot, which works better because no other program is using the hard disk at the boot time.
So if you are tired of using the command line Windows tool chkdsk, then you can try the free GUI utility called CheckDrive. It appears to have no improvements over the Windows command chkdsk, yet it frees you from the command line interface window and typing the commands. You can download CheckDrive from its website at http://www.abelssoft.net/checkdrive.php.