Running Check Disk to Fix Drive Errors
Improperly shutting down your PC, system crashes, and infections can cause errors on your hard drive. If you think back to the tape example, you could say getting the black tape film dirty is comparable to having disk errors on your drive.
Problems can arise and performance can lack when you have corrupted video (data) on your tape (hard drive).
Microsoft again comes to your rescue—Windows includes a utility called Check Disk. It's typically best to run this utility every month to ensure that any disk errors are found and fixed.
To start up Check Disk, open My Computer (or Computer), right-click the drive you want to check, and select Properties.
On the Disk Properties dialog box, choose the Tools tab, and click the Check Now button under the Error-checking section. For optimum scanning, select both options before hitting the Start button.