is it safe to use your computer when chkdsk is running?

[tomphas]

So it seems like my hard drive is failing, but im not entirely certain, but I plan on buying another one soon. the one i currently have is a HGST/Hitachi (HUA723020ALA641) Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 64MB 7200RPM 3.5". Windows smart system told me twice that the drive was going to fail soon, but i ignored it and just thought that my cables werent properly connected to the drive, so I went into the case to fix the cables. more recently, i was trying to open up my game of civ v, and even though it was fully installed on the drive, it would not open. So I tried uninstalling it, and reinstalling it, which also did not help, as I got multiple disk write errors while trying to install the game. ultimately steams support page told me to run a hard disk error checking from windows, to which I did do, but i had no idea how long the process could take. currently, this picture shows the current state of check disk and it has been like that for at least 12 hours. I have seen forums and things on the internet saying that this could take a while, and I understand that. but my question is, is it safe to use your computer for other tasks while this is going on? My windows files are all on my C: drive, and there wasnt anything too important on the drive that is currently being checked. mostly I want to use my computer for a few games, and some video streaming. sorry for the long and drawn out post, but I wanted to be as specific as possible so that I can get the proper help. Thank you in advance for any answers!

 

[Hawkeye22]

Chkdsk locks the drive before it starts checking. If chkdsk can't lock the drive, it will ask if you want to check it on next reboot. Chkdsk is fairly quick unles you also told it to scan and repair bad sectors.

 

[hang-the-9]

First, make a backup of the files on your computer unless you don't care what's on the drive. I would not bother trying to scan and use the drive if it's sitting on the check disk for 12 hours, just replace it.