Checkdisk, commonly known as chkdsk, is a built-in Windows application used to look for disk errors on your hard drive. Errors on your hard drive often occur from system crashes, hard reboots, and power failures. This results in file scattering, corruption, and cross-linking. This will result in a significant slowdown in your computer’s operating speed, and is completely avoidable with a very basic command.

All you need to do to run a disk check is open a command prompt and enter a command. To enter a command prompt in Windows XP or earlier, go to your start menu, then select run and type “cmd” (without the quotes) and hit enter. If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can enter the “cmd” in the “Search programs and files” box at the bottom of the start menu.

Once you have a command prompt, don’t panic! It might look intimidating and like something from a hacker movie, but all you have to type in that box is: “chkdsk / f” and hit enter. What you will do is load the chkdsk program and / f tells the computer that you not only want it to look for errors, but you also want it to correct any that it finds (otherwise what would the point be?).

You will most likely see a message saying that chkdsk cannot lock the current drive, this is totally normal, wait a few moments and it will ask if you want to run the checkdisk the next time you start your PC. Type “Y”, press Enter and restart your PC. When your PC boots up, checkdisk will run, locate any errors and fix them for you.

It really is that simple, the process is completely automated and if you’ve had frequent computer crashes or forced reboots, this is certainly something you should consider doing!