BUG: CHKDSK stuck at 11% for hours, but was actually working

Anonymous
2013-10-29T15:12:28+00:00

I ran CHKDSK on my Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit laptop.  The message said that it was up to 11% and then it stopped advancing for ages.  I thought that CHKDSK had stalled or crashed, but it turns out that it was working, it's just that it took several hours to complete one stage but it didn't update the progress indicator.

MORE DETAILS

I ran CHKDISK from the command prompt on my C drive and it offered to run the command on the next restart.  I answered yes and restarted, and CHKDSK ran, updating its progress, but it stopped at 11% and stayed there for ages and ages.

Note that in Windows 8.1, CHKDSK doesn't display lines of text as it goes along like in certain earlier versions of Windows.  It just displays a single line, e.g. "Scanning and repairing drive (C:): 11% complete" that gets updated from time to time.

At first I thought it was stalled or crashed, so I rebooted the laptop.  CHKDSK ran again and once again got stuck at 11%.  So I rebooted the laptop with a recovery USB and ran CHKDISK from the command prompt.  This one displayed more progress information.  It estimated that a particular stage would take 3 or 4 hours (it fluctuated from one to the other at first before settling on over 3 hours and then slowly counting down).  After several hours it completed successfully, fixing some errors and reporting its results.

I rebooted the computer again, from the hard drive.  CHKDSK ran again (since it didn't complete before) and after several hours it completed.  It warned me that Windows didn't close normally (because I interrupted the previous CHKDSK) and gave me some options.

So it looks like there's one stage in CHKDSK where the status line isn't getting updated regularly.  Could Microsoft please fix this?

EDIT: corrected spelling of subject heading.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-13T18:31:21+00:00

    Sorry, but I'm attempting your solution right now but when I ctl+alt+del nothing happens. Suggestions?

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-13T21:53:08+00:00

    Are you running chkdsk /f or chkdisk /r?

    The latter of the two causes the tool to scan the entire hard disk searching for bad sectors which it will subsequently try to fix. On an HD which is less than five years old, it's completely unnecessary and also causes undue wear and tear on the drive thereby reducing its lifespan.

    Run chkdsk /f by all means, but once every three months is more that enough.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-09-25T14:40:46+00:00

    I found this at another site, it's pretty useful:

    Windows 8 and Newer

    Windows 8 takes care of these kind of issues in a much more efficient way. The file system is always checking itself for issues. Issues that don’t require your hard drive to be offline are fixed immediately. Issues that require your hard drive to be offline, like when you restart, will be logged in a sort of To Do list.

    Because only items that require the drive to be offline need to be fixed, Check Disk can complete its job in a matter of seconds to maybe a couple minutes. To do this, click on your Start button. Type cmd in the Search programs and files box. The top result should be cmd.exe. Right-click on that and select Run as Administrator.

    start-command-prompt-through-start-menu

    Just to make sure that all issues are found and dealt with, run a check disk scan first, by typing in the command

    chkdsk C: /scan

    and pressing the Enter key. As it scans, it will fix anything that it can without being offline. Once that is finished, type in the command

    chkdsk C: /spotfix

    and press the Enter key. You’ll see the command prompt tell you that it, “…cannot run because the volume is in use by another process.” It will then ask you if you, “Would… like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)” Type Y and press Enter to schedule Check Disk. Now, restart your computer.

    This time Check Disk will run and fix any problems that were identified in the scan. Because it’s only fixing those specific problems, the process only takes a few seconds to a few minutes.

    windows-8-spotfix

    Your file system should now be repaired and Check Disk should not run on start-up anymore, unless there’s another issue.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-08-17T00:44:27+00:00

    Well,

    My chkdsk on my Windows 10 machine is stuck at 11%.  If it is working then this is yet another incredibly poor Microsoft software design.  How does this company survive putting out such **** year in and year out???!!!

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-02-24T17:11:15+00:00

    I'm stuck @ 12%, n already 3hrs now. Dell N5420, 6GB ram 1 GB VRam, windows 8.1 for now, was 7 home basic (suddenly error n blocked, black screen, said I was using non original.

    W/ this win 8,  sometimes I got: camera not connected error message, nvdia control panel simetimes error message too.

    1st time blue screen w/ win 8.1, I wasn't able to play game i'm usually playing, a note that my comp display memory only set @ 30Mb, 256 is minimum. When I check, again... error again w/ nvidia control panel (said: no nvidia detected)

     What should I do?

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