Windows 7 Disk error checking frozen while checking external drive

[gtgm_110]

I have a 1 TB WD external drive that I keep photos and music on. Yesterday I tried to open one of the folders and it said the folder was corrupted.

I used the built-in disk checker in Windows 7 (right-click on drive in computer/click properties/click the tool tab/click check now and select both boxes)

This morning the progress bar was all the way to the end and it said "151763619 free clusters processed" and it's been there all day today. The window doesn't say "Not responding" but it's frozen and clicking anywhere on it does nothing.

Is it safe to just kill the process? For the record, I checked and my files are accessible again but explorer is taking up memory constantly but I don't want to compromise my drive if killing it would corrupt anything else

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there gtgm_110,

I think that the best you can do for now is to wait it for a while. There may be too many bad sectors on the drive. You can check out some similar threads:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/297461-32-chkdsk-stuck
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/329907/need-to-stop-chkdsk-in-progress/

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

 

[gtgm_110]

Hi there gtgm_110,

I think that the best you can do for now is to wait it for a while. There may be too many bad sectors on the drive. You can check out some similar threads:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/297461-32-chkdsk-stuck
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/329907/need-to-stop-chkdsk-in-progress/

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

Thank you! I didn't even think about how old the drive was (over four years). I have another external drive that's the same size and model, but it was made last year so I'll switch things over to it until I can get a replacement. I've been pretty lucky with hard drive lifespans though. I've never had any drive, external or internal, that failed within the first two years. I hope it stays that way