What Is a Scan Disk?
Scan Disk is a disk-checking MS-DOS utility and included as a user interface with Windows 95, 98, ME and NT operating systems. Scan Disk checks the hard drive for problems and repairs errors when possible. These errors are caused by a "blue-screen" or freeze-up of the Windows operating system.
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History
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Scan Disk was first shipped with MS-DOS 6.2. The predecessor of Scan Disk was a simple text-based utility named Checkdisk (MS-DOS chkdsk).
Significance
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Scan Disk is a useful utility for repairing damaged hard drive clusters and sectors. In most cases, Scan Disk recovers the data from the damaged area.
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Function
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Scan Disk scans the hard drive for physical errors and if possible, repairs them. When a bad cluster is found during a scan, the data in the cluster is moved to a new location on the disk and data is recovered from the damaged location. To run Scan Disk, click the Start button > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scan Disk.
Frequency
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Microsoft advises that Scan Disk be run once per month.
Current Status
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In more recent versions of Windows operating systems (2000, 2003, XP and Vista), Scan Disk has been replaced with a new version of chkdsk (see link in resources). This new version differs from Ms-DOS chkdsk and is able to scan NTFS drives. Recovery of data is more extensive with this version as well.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Scan Disk User Interface
