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PowerShell replacement for ‘chkdsk’

Aaron Rothstein
Repair-Volume interactive progress bar

Fix your disk using the PowerShell successor to chkdsk, Repair-Volume.

Fixing a corrupted file system, the old way

At some point in your IT career, you’ve likely encountered a few bad sectors on a hard drive. The impact can be anything from stuttering performance to a non-starting computer.

Since 1981, chkdsk has been the go-to built-in Microsoft utility for scanning and fixing the disk. By “fixing” I don’t mean it can physically repair the disk itself, but checking the file system integrity and fix any logical file system errors.

While chkdsk is still available in Windows today, a successor PowerShell cmdlet was introduced in Windows Server 2012, Repair-Volume.

Repair-Volume

As the cmdlet name implies, Repair-Volume performs repairs on a volume. It comes with parameters to match up with existing chkdsk capabilities. NOTE: Repair-Volume must be ran from an elevated (aka Administrator) session.

SYNTAX
    Repair-Volume [-DriveLetter] <Char[]> [-CimSession <CimSession[]>] [-OfflineScanAndFix] [-Scan] [-SpotFix]
    [-ThrottleLimit <Int32>] [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [<CommonParameters>]

    Repair-Volume [-CimSession <CimSession[]>] [-OfflineScanAndFix] [-Scan] [-SpotFix] [-ThrottleLimit <Int32>]
    [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [<CommonParameters>]

    Repair-Volume [-CimSession <CimSession[]>] [-OfflineScanAndFix] [-Scan] [-SpotFix] [-ThrottleLimit <Int32>] -Path
    <String[]> [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [<CommonParameters>]

    Repair-Volume [-CimSession <CimSession[]>] [-OfflineScanAndFix] [-Scan] [-SpotFix] [-ThrottleLimit <Int32>]
    -FileSystemLabel <String[]> [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [<CommonParameters>]

    Repair-Volume [-CimSession <CimSession[]>] [-OfflineScanAndFix] [-Scan] [-SpotFix] [-ThrottleLimit <Int32>]
    -ObjectId <String[]> [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [<CommonParameters>]

Scan volume without attempting to repair it

To prevent disrupting a volume’s availability, you can scan a volume without attempting to repair it. All detected corruptions are added to the $corrupt system file. This is equivalent to running chkdsk /scan:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Repair-Volume -DriveLetter C -Scan                                                              NoErrorsFound

Fix issues logged in the $corrupt system file

So what do you do if a scan finds errors and adds them to the $corrupt system file? You can use SpotFix to only take the volume offline for the time needed to fix those identified errors. This is equivalent to running chkdsk /spotfix:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Repair-Volume -DriveLetter C -SpotFix                                                           NoErrorsFound

Take a volume offline for a full scan and fix any errors

If you are actively experiencing problems, you can justify taking the volume offline in order to perform a full scan and fix any errors found along the way. This requires the most time but is also the most comprehensive. This is equivalent to running chkdsk /f:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Repair-Volume -DriveLetter C -OfflineScanAndFix
NoErrorsFound

Repair multiple volumes with a single command

If you want to scan more than one volume, you can specify multiple drive letters in the -DriveLetter parameter. For example, if your computer had drives C, D, and E, specify CDE:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Repair-Volume -DriveLetter CDE -Scan

Repair volumes without letter drives

Not all volumes have a letter drive assigned. For example, you might have a System or Recovery partition. You can run Repair-Volume against these volumes using the -FileSystemLabel parameter.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-Volume                                                                                      
DriveLetter FriendlyName FileSystemType DriveType HealthStatus OperationalStatus 
----------- ------------ -------------- --------- ------------ -----------------
                         FAT32          Fixed     Healthy      OK                     
C                        NTFS           Fixed     Healthy      OK                     
D                        Unknown        CD-ROM    Healthy      Unknown                     
            Recovery     NTFS           Fixed     Healthy      OK        

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Repair-Volume -FileSystemLabel Recovery -Scan
NoErrorsFound

Repair volumes on a remote computer

If you can establish a CIM Session to a remote computer, you can use the -CIMSession parameter of Repair-Volume to run repair actions remotely.

Not all chkdsk functions available

While arguably the most popular chkdsk functions are available with Repair-Volume, a quick look at chkdsk /? will show some less used and more granular controls which are NOT available in Repair-Volume. However, for most standard use cases, Repair-Volume is an adequate PowerShell replacement for the traditional command line tool chkdsk.

Reference

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