How to Check the E Drive

Over time, computer drives can become corrupt and unstable. This is especially true on external drives, which may be frequently plugged into and unplugged from a computer. Most external hard drives and thumb drives are labeled as the E drive. Use Microsoft's built-in disk checking utility called Check Disk to check and repair your E drive.

Instructions

1. Open the "Run" command window. If you're on a Windows XP or older operating system, click the Start menu and select the "Run" option. On Windows Vista or 7, click the Start menu (the Windows-logo button on the lower-left-hand side of the screen) and enter "Run" into the search box to locate the program.

2. Enter "cmd" into the command box. Press "Enter."

3. Enter "chkdsk e:" into the command prompt. Press "Enter" to run the Check Disk utility in read-only mode. This locates errors but does not fix them.

4. Enter "chkdsk e:/f" into the command prompt. Press "Enter" to run Check Disk and fix errors without scanning for bad sectors.

5. Enter "chkdsk e:/r" into the command prompt, Press "Enter" to do a thorough scan of files and sectors and repair any problems found.

Tips & Warnings

• If you receive the message "Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)" when attempting to run Check Disk, hit the "Y" key. When you restart your computer, your drive will be checked.

References

• Mircosoft: How to Perform Disk Error Checking