Resolve: Your Disk Needs to Be Checked for Consistency

What does this error message “your disk needs to be checked for consistency” mean? Simply put, it is a warning that a file system on your disk may be corrupted and not be completely safe to use.

Windows users can use this CHKDSK utility to check their disks’ status and fix errors promptly, such as the “your disk needs to be checked for consistency” error. CHKDSK(check disk) is a command that is designed to check and assure disk integrity for faulty sectors and fragment spaces to optimize disk performance. It can display the disk status and help users find and repair bug-causing errors easily.

Your Disk Needs to Be Checked for Consistency on Windows

Most Windows users have likely encountered this problem. When they boot up the computer, everything seems normal, but then a black screen unexpectedly appears. The on-screen notification states that the hard drive requires a consistency check. The full message reads:

This black CHKDSK window indicates that a hard disk check is in progress. Pressing any key before the countdown ends will cancel the disk check. Nevertheless, after rebooting the computer, you will receive the same error message since the operating system still believes that the drive requires a scan and check. If no key is pressed, the disk check will be performed automatically.

Why It Says Your Disk Needs to Be Checked for Consistency

As mentioned above, the primary reason for the occurrence of error messages is that Windows has detected file system corruption. Windows operating system scans your PC and believes the drive needs to be checked. Therefore, it runs CHKDSK to check and fix the error automatically. Here are several causes of file system corruption:

1. Improper system shutdown: The error message might display if you shut down the computer incorrectly. For instance, you directly shut down your PC while programs are still running.
2. Improper removal of a USB disk: Once you don’t safely eject the USB before the Windows process is completely terminated, the Windows operating system will likely mark your device as “dirty” and run CHKDSK after turning on your PC next time.
3. Windows operating system: Sometimes, the Windows operating system will scan your disks automatically even though you have checked the disks completely.
4. Power outage: If your computer does not have a power backup, your computer may have a sudden power outage, causing your PC to check the hard disk.
5. Freezing of Windows computer: You might have fixed the issue that the computer keeps freezing by force shutting down your PC. This might have resulted in the error “the disk needs to be checked for consistency.”

2 Ways to Recover Lost Files

If you receive the “your disk needs to be checked for consistency” error message on your computer and choose to complete the CHKDSK, it may cause files lost. Considering this, you need to rescue lost files from your disk. If your computer can boot up normally, the following two methods work effectively.

Method 1: Recover Data from Found.000 Folder

In this way, you can recover your lost files from your disks manually without downloading any other data recovery software.

Step 1: You will receive a message saying “Conver lost chains to files <Y / N>?” before CHKDSK starts deleting your files. In this window, you need to enter Y so that the disk check operation will save each lost chain in found.000 folder. This folder locates the root directory of the disk being checked. If you enter N, the operating system will fix the disk without saving lost content of lost allocation units.

Step 2: After CHKDSK completes, you need to find the Found.000 folder which is hidden by default. To view this folder, you can show hidden files and folders in File Explorer by enabling the Hidden item option from the View bar.

Step 3: You may see the Found.000 folder, double-click it, and there are some .chk files. You may find that the files are not accessible. Therefore, you need to change the file extension to the correct one. For instance, if you need to restore a JPG picture from this folder, you can change the file extension of the target file from .chk to .jpg. After the operation, the file can be opened.

Method 2: Recover Lost Files with Free Data Recovery Software

If you do not want to recover lost files in such a complicated way and there are too many files on your disks, we recommend you try free data recovery software to recover files deleted by CHKDSK. MiniTool Power Data Recovery free is an ideal option for you to have a try, owing to its straightforward operation, clear user interface, robust functions, and easy-to-use. It has many highlights and outstanding features:

• Cover All Storage Devices for Data Restoration: This MiniTool free data recovery software can deep scan internal/external hard drives, memory cards, SSDs, USB flash drives, etc. on Windows-compatible devices.
• Superior File Preview Before Recovery: MiniTool free data recovery software makes it possible to preview types of files including photos, videos, audio, documents, and more before restoring them.
• Solve Different Data Loss Cases: MiniTool free data recovery software can recover data from kinds of storage devices under different data loss situations like file deletion, virus attack, disk failure, file system error, etc.
• The Display of Data Filtering Results: The MiniTool Power Data Recovery free version allows you to filter files before restoring them by using the Filter, Search, and Type features. This makes file restoration easier as you can determine whether these files are the ones you want.

All these designs are efficient in saving time. Why not have a try? Download this data recovery software NOW by clicking the download button below to try to recover your lost data from the checked disk.

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There are 5 steps to recover data by using MiniTool Power Data Recovery.

Suppose you have downloaded and installed the software on your computer successfully, follow the instructions below to recover data:

Step 1: Launch the MiniTool Power Data Recovery software to enter its main interface. In the UAC prompt, you need to click the Yes button.

Step 2: In the This PC interface, choose the partition listed under the Logical Drives tab, and click Scan. It will take a few minutes to complete the entire scanning process. Please be patient and wait until the scan is finished to get the best results.

Step 3: After scanning, you will see three general folders for detected files: Deleted Files, Lost files, and Existing Files. To find the desired files easily, you can filter files by using the Type, Filter, and Search features.

Four useful features:

• Filter: The Filter function is to show the filter criteria. It provides more choices to filter files with data modified, file type, file size, and file category. You can modify the options to select the desired files from the file list.
• Type: Click the Type button to check files according to their types. This function works significantly when you want to restore a certain type of file.
• Search: The Search function helps locate wanted files quickly. If you remember the name of the file, you can input continuous keywords in the box and press Enter.
• Preview: You can click the Preview button to check the chosen file is what you want. This function allows you to preview files, photos, videos, and audio. Please note that the previewed videos and audio should not be larger than 2GB.
  

Step 4: Add checkmarks before the files you want to recover, then click on the Save button.

Step 5: Choose the correct storage path to save files and click OK to confirm. Remember that, the storage location cannot be the original path. Otherwise, the lost data might be overwritten and the data recovery process will fail.

In the worst case, if this problem occurs on the system disk, it may cause the computer to fail to boot. Don’t worry, you can also run MiniTool Power Data Recovery to create a bootable disk and use this created bootable media to recover data from the unbootable computer. Learn more specific information from this post.

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How to Fix the Disk Consistency Issue

What to do when the computer displays that your hard drive needs a disk checking? When your computer receives the error message and you have already restored files from the problematic disk with powerful data recovery software, it is a sensible choice to complete the disk check. But, if you accidentally press the key to skip it, you can try the methods provided below to fix the “your disk needs to be checked for consistency” error message appearing when you turn on your PC.

Fix 1: Disable Automatic Disk Check through Windows Registry Editor

Several users reported that the HDD consistency issue was resolved after clearing scheduled CHKDSK scans from the Windows Registry Editor. Therefore, you can disable automatic disk checks using the Registry Editor.

Step 1: Press Win + R together to open the Run dialog box, type regedit, and press Enter.

Step 2: Click the Yes button in the UAC prompt.

Step 3: In the pop-up window, navigate to the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager

Step 4: Find and double-click the BootExecute string in the right panel.

Step 5: If the Value data of BootExecute is set to autocheck autochk * /r\DosDevice\C:,you need to change the value data to autocheck autochk * and press OK to save the change.

Fix 2: Use Disk Defragment

Windows has a disk defragmenter tool that you can use to analyze your disk and then defragment it. The tool will arrange the files on the disk so that they are stored in contiguous blocks. To fix the disk consistency issue, you can also choose to use disk defragment by following the steps below:

Step 1: Press Win + E to open File Explorer, go to This PC, and find the hard drive that needs to be checked.

Step 2: Right-click on it and select the Properties option.

Step 3: Choose the Tool tab and select the Optimize button.

Step 4: On the new window, choose the drives you want to optimize under Status, and click the Optimize button.

Fix 3: Run the CHKDSK Command

If you accidentally stop CHKDSK, you can also run a manual CHKDSK scan by following these instructions:

Step 1: Press Win + R together to open the Run dialog box. Type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter together to open Command Prompt.

Step 2: Click the Yes button in the UAC prompt.

Step 3: Copy and paste the following command: chkdsk /r, and press Ener.

After completing the process, reboot your PC and check if the message reappears.

Fix 4: Format the Disk

Formatting the disk in Windows can effectively repair the drive. How to format a hard drive? This process is complex and will delete all data. Therefore, you need to back up your data by using MiniTool ShadowMaker.

Step 1: Press Win + E to open File Explorer. Go to This PC and right-click on the affected hard drive.

Step 2: Select the Format option.

Step 3: Enable Quick Format under the File System and press Start.

Bottom Line

If you encounter the “your disk needs to be checked for consistency” error, the four methods mentioned in this article will help you run the disk check safely and fix the issue. As you may lose data during the fix process, you are highly advised to recover lost data with MiniTool Power Data Recovery.

Hope you can fix the issue successfully with this article. If you have any puzzles in using MiniTool software, please feel free to let us know via [email protected].