There are two things going onin your computer at all times: The file system and your hard drive. When yourcomputer is on, the file system is hard at work processing and making thingshappen. The hard drive actively records and then stores this information. Thinkof it like this: the file system is like a courtroom. All sorts of things arehappening: testimonies being made and evidence presented. The hard drive islike the court reporter, recording all the information. As soon as thecourtroom shuts down for the day, its essential to have an accurate record ofthat day's proceedings.

This exchange can go awry fora number of reasons. For example, if your computer freezes, and you are forcedto shut down, the hard drive may not finish recording a piece of information.Or the hard drive itself can be damaged internally, by something simple likesomeone bumping into it. (Your hard drive, or hard disk,  records information almost like a record orCD and can get scratched.) Luckily, commands like Check Disk, or Chkdsk existfor DOS, OS/2 and Windows operating systems.

Chkdsk is used to find andfix errors on the hard drive. Your computer will prompt it to run when there isan error or errors. Using the example above, if your computer freezes and youare forced to restart, Chkdsk will run when you start back up. It will scanyour hard drive, and fix any problems.

Unfortunately, Chkdsk cansometimes become corrupted or encounter problems in the registry. Chkdsk errorsusually indicate a damaged registry.