Wednesday, April 15, 2009

How Long Does a Chkdsk r Take?

So, as I sat in the office till all hours of the night, watching my Small Business Server 2003 stuck on the same stage 4 of 5 while running a check disk (chkdsk r), I began to wonder what I was in for.
I googled "How long does a checkdisk take?" and "How long does a chkdsk r take?" and found lots of people asking the question, though the answers were not detailed enough to give me an estimate.

First, a word of advice, even if it appears your server/pc is doing nothing, it is, so never never never power off or reboot the machine.

So, for me, the answer is, just under 4 hours for the chkdsk r.

Now, here is the part people never mention, their system specifications!


As mentioned, my server is a Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, running exchange. I have 2 (raid) 300GB SCSI drives in the machine (total capacity is only 300gb, just cloned hot-swap drives). I have two 3.06 ghz Xeon processors on the box with 3GB of ram.

Hopefully that answer helped someone out there late at night that has a similar machine and wants to know if they should order pizza and beer.

46 comments:

Drew said...

Fantastic news.

Not.

Still waiting on mine here. ~220GB in a RAID0 that I inherited from the revolving door of IT "professionals."

I think I'm into Hour 2 now.

Thoughts said...

I hope it finished for you!

ninjovee said...

I was searching google for an answer to this question and I'm honestly baffled. Most people say it just takes 2-3 hours...or 4-5 at the most. I already left chkdsk running for almost 10 hours and it's still not finished, let alone, is still stuck at 10% at the 4th stage.

I'm running Chkdsk r on a 1TB external hard drive (that only has 100GB of files in it) and my PC has 4GB RAM and Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 processor. I would think that it would at the least run for a few hours but this is too long for comfort. I do see the light on the HDD blinking so that means chkdsk is doing something. What do you suggest?

Thoughts said...

Unfortunately External drives are limited by the speed of the USB bus. I would imagine it could easily takes 10 hours if the disk has problems. Anything beyond 12 hours, and I would personally give up.

ninjovee said...

Thanks for the comment. It's been running for three days since I started it and it's still displaying that it's at 10%. There's a message that says it fixed some bad clusters on file 40 so I guess that means it's really running. But I have 400+ files in there. I really do want to recover the HD since it's roughly just a week old from when I bought it. I'm not sure the PC store would replace this for this kind of problem.

I did see a post in a forum that says that chkdsk ran for 63 hours on a server with 4 million files... so I'll be patient and give it about a week. Hopefully it's done by then. Thanks again

Canadian Patriot said...

I am currently running CHKDSK /R on a 1 TB drive I suspect of having problems. I freshly formatted the drive, and ran CHKDSK /R to identify any bad sectors upfront before archiving files. I started the CHKDSK at around 2:00pm, and it is now 7:30pm and it is at stage 5, 30%. It is moving, but very slowly as it checks and verifies every free cluster on the drive. I estimate at the rate it is going it will take another 24 hours to complete...which is a small cost to verify whether the drive is botched or not.

Unknown said...

I have a SBS 2003 on an intel xeon dual core 3ghz 2gbs ram.... I am running chkdsk on the 30GB c:\ partition of a drive I suspect is bad... been going on for 2hrs holding at stage 4 of 5. Mine doesnt have a percentage meter, I really detest having to do this on labor day.

Willie said...

Even though it's an old post, it's still good solid information.

Thanks for also posting the size/setup of your disks as that's important too.

Three observations to provide a little more info for people:
1) Stages 4 and 5 only run if you do a chkdsk /r
2) Stage 4 checks the parts of your disk being used by files, stage 5 checks the part unused. So if you have a mostly empty hard drive, stage 4 will be quick and stage 5 will be long. If your hard drive is mostly full, it'll be opposite.
3) You usually get a percentage if you are checking while Windows is fully booted. If it is checking on startup (also called autochk) then you will get no percentages.

Freebies said...

Ok thanks for the info. Unfortunately I rebooted several times because my system froze. I hope I am not in deep shit because of it. I ran it again and I am still stuck at stage 4 so I guess it will take a while. The first time I did it I let it sit for two hours. Now I will not touch it.

Hippisak said...

How can i skip the test if I dont have the patience to let it run for three days?

Thoughts said...

You really should not skip the test. It might be damaging to do so.

Jorge Montano Parraga said...

I have a 256 GB HDD, leave it running for long hours and had no success, so I'm afraid I need to replace this, is there a way to save this drive to be thrown away, someone told me that through programs you can create a partition with bad sectors and use that disk without problems, does anyone knows which program can do that?

Unknown said...

I am working remotely and only 30minutes has gone by and was getting a little ansty but after seeing these posts it makes me a little more comfortable.

Running chkdsk /r on local C:\ Windows Server 2008 STD 64bit 12gb ram.

phaetoncz said...

hi ppl,

i have 1,5 Tb hdd and i was doing chkdsk during night. At morning i was on 3 percent (6 hours of work). At evening i got 10 percent. Estimated time of work about 5 days for me (stage of repairing bad sectors run really slow) but still worthy, because i got there photos nowhere else saved and so on.

Good luck with chckdsk, keep my long time in mind while checking yours hdds.

(Btw conected by eSata).

Unknown said...

WHS v1 Chkdsk - Still Waiting at 4 days.

I am trying to remember when I started this! Wednesday, I think (it's Sat now). I have a Windows Home Server (HP Mediasmart) with 3 2TB drives and a 500 GB Drive. Space Used is 4.9 TB of 5.9 TB. Because WHS uses the Drive Extender, D: drive CHKDSK split into 3 extra chkdsk windows. Yesterday they all completed successfully but one. The last one is popping up a few file cluster errors and sitting at 36%. The bad news is that WHS Backups are inaccessible although most other files are OK. I am starting a WHS 2011 machine build so hopefully I can copy the files off before the drive craters! I think the failing 2TB Drive is almost 10 years old...

Good news - My Backups are not critical and all my photos and personal files are also backed up on other machines. I got hacked in 2002 (Kuwait!) and lost many key files so I am paranoid at the best of times.

May the Bytes be ever in your favor!

Alex said...

I'm running checkdisk at system startup (before Windows loads) on a 1.5 TB (2/3 full) 5400 RPM drive connected via SATA 2, on a C2D 6400 @ 2.98 GHz CPU.

It ran quickly until 10% through Step 4, and then it slowed down to a crawl after it found the first bad block. It stayed at 10% for hours, though the file count would increment every so often.

As of right now it's been running for 14 hours and still isn't done. :(

Alex said...

I have a 1.5 TB (1TB full) 5400 RPM drive on a SATA 2 connection, with a C2D 6400 @ 2.98GHZ CPU.

I started the scandisk at system bootup, figuring it would be faster without Windows loaded. My mistake.

Scandisk quickly got to Step 4, where it seemed to stop at 10% for hours. The file count kept incrementing, but the % stayed at 10%.

It's been running for 20 hours now, still not done. :(

Anonymous said...

It really depends on the damage on the drive. if there is alot of errors the process will take longer because it has to repair then check it to consistency, then scan that sector over again, and then it moves on... its a lengthy process for disks that may have more damage than one with maybe one or four bad sectors...

WhyNotZoidberg said...

838GB RAID5 spread across 4 10K SAS drives connected by a HP Smart Array P420i controller w/ two 6 core E5-2640 2.5 Zeon's. Server 2012R2 Data center.


Ran /r and its been running for about 3.5 days now and at 10%.

For perspective I ran /r on one of the VMs (200GB) and it ran for 26 hours and stayed at 12% the entire time until it was done.

I started the scan due to a suspected corrupted section of files.

Anonymous said...

838GB RAID5 spread across 4 10K SAS drives connected by a HP Smart Array P420i controller w/ two 6 core E5-2640 2.5 Zeon's. Server 2012R2 Data center.


Ran /r and its been running for about 3.5 days now and at 10%.

For perspective I ran /r on one of the VMs (200GB) and it ran for 26 hours and stayed at 12% the entire time until it was done.

I started the scan due to a suspected corrupted section of files.

Ucok said...

I have 500 GB External Dard Drive and take 3 days to complete chksdsk process.
Insane...

Bitca said...

Thanks for adding to this thread! My 1TB win8 C drive has been running chkdsk f & r for nearly 30 hours--& displayed "11% complete" for the past 18 hrs. With 600GB free space (+ a bank acct with way too much free space) I really need to save it. Mine has BAD bad sectors from a power strip incident, but your account suggests it's too soon to give up. Hope your drives are doing better :).

Teal said...

I feel yer pain bruvs, at 11% even though its at 108322 out of 190448 files xD step 4, i checked this thread out of fear it may not complete before i leave for work today, and i guess I was right

Unknown said...

So I have a 1Tb HDD I formatted and am running chkdsk on. I started around 5 pm and on stage 5 it got stupid. It appears to be checking about 6000kb a minute. This may take a while. Damn it all.

Unknown said...

I started my disk check nearly 6 hours ago on my packed 500GB Toshiba HDD and it's been stuck on stage 4 with the message "progress ... done; Stage 4%; Total: 4%; ETA: 27:52:29" displayed on the terminal for the past 4!

I'm going to assume that "ETA: 27:59:29" means it will take about 24-28 hours to complete so I'll be patient.

Unknown said...

I started my disk check nearly 6 hours ago on my packed 500GB Toshiba HDD and it's been stuck on stage 4 with the message "progress ... done; Stage 4%; Total: 4%; ETA: 27:52:29" displayed on the terminal for the past 4!

I'm going to assume that "ETA: 27:59:29" means it will take about 24-28 hours to complete so I'll be patient.

Unknown said...

I started my disk check nearly 6 hours ago on my packed 500GB Toshiba HDD and it's been stuck on stage 4 with the message "progress ... done; Stage 4%; Total: 4%; ETA: 27:52:29" displayed on the terminal for the past 4!

I'm going to assume that "ETA: 27:59:29" means it will take about 24-28 hours to complete so I'll be patient.

Unknown said...

I started my disk check on my packed 500GB Toshiba HDD nearly 6 hours ago and it's been stuck on stage 4 with the message "progress...done; Stage: 4%: Total 4%; ETA: 27:59:29" displayed on the terminal for the past 4!

I'm going to assume that "ETA: 27:59:29" means it will take about 24-28 hours for the check to complete so I'll be patient.

cohendave33 said...

HP/Compaq Pavilion
AMD A8-6500 processor - 3.5GHz
RAM: 16 GB
Windows 10 - 64 bit
1 TB Hard drive

I had done a CHKDSK /F /R so when the machine rebooted, it just immediately went into CHKDSK mode.
So, I didn't see any of the "stage messages" or any type of ETA.
On the bootup screen, it simply said 11% ... until it was done ... about 4 hours, in total.

Unknown said...

that explaibs why mine is stuck at 13%

Sridhar Cherukuri said...

Good i have seen this otherwise i have decided to format, mine stuck at 10% more than 1 hr now. Will wait for few more hours and see it how it goes.

blog poster said...

I did chkdsk e: /r last night at about 6pm. Now in the morning of the following day at 7am. It's still stuck showing no progress compared to its last night status at about 10pm. The end of the message shows the same status for both times:

...
CHKDSK is scanning unindexed files for reconnect to their original directory.
11 percent complete. (1 of 454 unindexed files scanned)
Recovering orphaned file help.db_ (103822) into directory file 103821.
Recovering orphaned file help.ht_ (103823) into directory file 103821.
Recovering orphaned file help.jar (103824) into directory file 103821.
Recovering orphaned file help.key_ (103825) into directory file 103821.
Recovering orphaned file HELP~1.KEY (103825) into directory file 103821.

At about six o'clock this morning I tried to cancel it with ctrl-c in the cmd line where chkdsk run, it gave no effect of cancelling the command.

at task manager, it gives memory print of 4gb. My laptop is x220 with 8gb of memory. the disk being checked is 1TB Toshiba external hddd.

I think Microsoft should give a warning before she proceed the chkdsk /r command reminding the user that the user should agree that the command will take days to complete, do it at your own risk, etc. This warning will help user to choose to proceed (when user have enough time to wait) and to cancel the command (when the user does not have enough time to wait).

Jonnycox said...

I really wish the same. It can't hurt to have a disclaimer stating the process can take hours or days to complete. Especially since once you start you can't stop without risking damage to your drive.

That's another one I would have liked to see. I didn't know the damage was potentially fatal to your drive if you Reboot in the middle of chkdsk

(correct me here if that's wrong. It's just what I've gathered from reading this whole thread)

Unknown said...

I ran a chkdsk /r command on my 1 TB hard disk which i currently in stage 4 scanning nearly 900000 files. Only 5% has been completed. ETA is nearly 10 hours.The hard disk is almost full.
Should i wait for 10 hours?
Will any data will be lost if i cancel this?
Can i continue to run this command on a computer?

Anonymous said...

24 hrs in im 55% on stage 1, hasnt moved in about 12 hours. Still flicker of drive light so i guess its doing something. I have 10 year old pc, 1ghz chip with 2gb ram. I'll check how its doing in a week or 2 haha!

Hejazi.W said...

I'm running a chkdsk /f/r on my external 2TB (has about 180GB free). I'm using Dell 5577, but I think every thing depends on the usb bus.
It has been 6 hours now and it's on 10% of stage 4, and the ETA is about 110 hours but it feels like a decade.

Unknown said...

Old Post but useful. Not many seem to come back to say how long it eventually took. Acer Aspire ES 15 1tb stuck at 10% 1hr in after running chkdsk /r and rebooting (C:)...

I'll come back and report how long it eventually took. Intentionally this helps someone else's peace of mind.

Unknown said...

I started chkdsk yesterday, at around 1pm. i had alot of orphaned files, and errors in some indexes. It took hours to complete the first four stages of the scan. Almost exactly 24 hours later; it is on stage 5 of 5, but has been sitting at 37% since about 6pm last night. Progress is painfully slow, but the number of free clusters processed is going up. I am hopeful that it will complete, but my patience is wearing thin with that system. I will post the final tally...if it ever decides to finish.

Asus x551m
500gb hdd
2.4Ghz Proc(I think)
4gb RAM

Unknown said...

Been having loads of laptop problems since a Windows update earlier in the year. Keeps randomly blue screening and restarting. The start-up scan and repair won't go above 5% so I'm running the command prompt chkdsk /f. It's been running now for 24 hours. It skipped through to 57% in a matter of minutes after starting but is still on 57% now. ETA is now 75 hours! It is still running and working so will leave it to hopefully finish. Tosh laptop, 1TB hard drive, 8GB ram. If anyone else has experienced the same, please let me know how long it eventually took 🙂

Unknown said...

so where is your reply ? now already November , the disk is still scanning right now ?

izlude said...

1TB drive, been running 12 days so far, stage 1 at 30%. When it's damaged it's damaged. My sis wants files recovered, tried easeus, however some of the files were 0kb. In the past, a chkdsk /r fixed that for me on another drive. The clock is ticking though, I have to be moving in 3 weeks. Very unexpected turn of events...

Windows stuck said...

1TB drive, Stage 4 took over an hour. Completed within two hours, maybe around 1 and half hours to be exact

Windows stuck said...

1TB drive chkdsk completed within 2 hours. Stage 4 took the most time. Slow as hell!!

Shin said...

Nice info...
I think I'll share mine too..
I have 2Tb Seagate HDD external and have been acting weird for couple days and finally I can't access my drive...
So I google it, and a lot people on web/forum give suggestions to do 'chkdsk /r /f' ...
So I do it, but I do it separately, first I do it chkdsk /f (for fix error) and it took about 6½ hours to complete....
and now I'm running chkdsk /r and it's been 20 hours since I started this and now it reach 50% (stage 5 of 5) as I post this. Maybe it will done after 24 hours, maybe...
Btw my spech is pentium dual core 2.4Ghz with 8Gb RAM...

Rushabh said...

Hahaha..This is funny. I guess it's still running. 😂

Anonymous said...

---------------------------------------------------------------------
TL;DR |

I was able to recover all my files with the tool testdisk for Linux. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I have a WD Elements 4TB. One day I unplugged it (safely) and immediately plugged it back in because I had forgotten to do something. Big mistake. From that point on the disk stopped working, both on Windows and Linux. The disk was unable to be mounted and therefore I didn't have access to my files.

I tried running chkdsk /f /x on two different machines, not just once, but like 6 times in total (which on the other hand is not very clever to do, especially on a damaged hard drive). Anyways, it always failed, on the second machine with the following very descriptive error: "Unspecified error".

Every time it took 3/4 days just for the first stage, at the end of which always failed (reading this blog was somehow comforting, I knew I wasn't alone in this haha).

So, after all these failed tries I gave up for some time, and today decided to give it another try, this time on Linux. I had tried other tools also on Linux before, like ntfsfix. They didn't work for me.

And today, I came across testdisk and I was able to access and backup all my files!

Anyways, good luck to everyone, don't lose hope, it might take some time but you'll eventually find a solution!