A hard disk is a key part of the computer that is under heavy load (reading and writing almost continuously). It contains your operating system, your software, your data, in short, it is essential in computing.

Unfortunately, it can happen that your hard drive encounters problems that can manifest themselves by slowing down your computer, crashes or untimely restarts.

The simplest way to resolve this is to recover your windows files which will automatically delete the corrupted files. You can download the ISO for your windows XP and install it on your windows pc.

A hard drive is often a bit fragile and has a limited lifespan, hence the importance of making backups of your data and backing up the operating system. But before you change your hard drive or format it, you can already try to correct any Windows related errors on your hard drive by following this tutorial. Chances are that this will help you repair your Windows and your computer will return to normal behavior!

WHY IS MY HARD DRIVE SHOWING ERRORS?

Apart from strictly hardware problems, your operating system can cause errors:

Errors related to an abnormal shutdown such as a power failure, forcing the shutdown (by pressing and holding down the power button for a long time), “hot unplugging” a USB hard drive or even a crash of your computer (the famous blue notch of Windows).

This can cause errors in the hard disk partition table or even defective sectors (parts of the hard disk that can no longer be used).

Windows boot errors due to the installation of an incompatible driver, a virus or malware (malicious program).

Attention, if your hard disk / USB key is not accessible and you do not see your files, stop using the hard disk (you could lose data). Start by using data recovery software to recover your files before correcting disk errors. To solve the problem and make Windows recognize your hard drive/USB key, you will certainly need to update and reinstall its driver. If the drive is still not recognized, you will probably need to format the drive (after of course backing up your data elsewhere).

FIX HARD DISK ERRORS USING WINDOWS

This is the easiest way to repair hard drive errors, especially for less experienced users.

The method used here is for Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 10, but the approach is about the same for other versions of Windows (Windows 7, Windows 8 etc…).

1. Right-click on the Windows 10 Start Menu in Windows 10 and then select Manage the
2. In the Windows Disk Manager, right-click on the partition of the disk you want to scan and repair (usually it is C: where your operating system is located) then select Properties.
3. In the Properties window, click on the Tools tab and then in the Error Checking section, click on the Check button.

As indicated, “This option is used to check for file system errors on the drive.”

• In the newly opened window, click Scan Player.
• Warning, errors may have been detected directly, so the window displayed will be potentially different.

• If anomalies were detected during the hard drive scan, you should get the message: “Errors were detected on this drive. To avoid data loss, repair this drive now”.
• Click Repair Drive and let Windows do the correction work.
• For earlier versions of Windows, instead of step 1, you can open a file explorer (keyboard shortcut: Windows key and E) and right-click the partition/hard disk you want to repair.