File system check and repair

You should check and repair your file system regularly. For this purpose, you have an utility called Check Disk (chkdsk) in Windows. This utility can be run from administrator command line.

You can run chkdsk with the following parameters:

• /f — Fixes errors on the disk. The disk has to be locked.
• /v — On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file on the disk.
• /r — Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information (implies /F, when /scan not specified).
• /x — Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid (implies /F).
• /i — NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
• /c — NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder structure.
• /l — NTFS only: Changes the log file size to the specified number of kilobytes. If size is not specified, displays current size.
• /b — NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume (implies /R).

I recommend running chkdsk every 1 – 3 months with parameters chkdsk C: /X /F /R /V /B (you can replace drive letter C: by different letters).