Introduction
Many errors in Windows are caused by corrupt files. Those files could have become corrupt because of errors on your hard drive. The Check Disk tool checks for errors and attempts to fix any it finds.

Warning: Use Check Disk at your own risk. On rare occasions I’ve experienced problems when using check disk in Windows Vista. Here are a few things to watch out for:

If you run check disk and your computer has to be restarted to scan your computer and your computer hangs at a black screen when it boots up, do the following:

Turn the computer off and back on and immediately start pressing F8 on your keyboard repeatedly. A black screen with different boot options will appear. Select to use the Last known good configuration (advanced) boot option.

Never stop check disk once it has started. It could take hours to days to scan your hard drive depending on its size.
How-to Use Check Disk
Using the Graphical User Interface (GUI)

1.Open the Start Menu and click Computer.
2.Right-click the drive you want to perform a check disk on and select Properties.
3.Click the Tools tab in the drive Properties window.
4.Click Check Now under error checking.
5.To perform a complete check of your hard drive for errors check off both options in the check disk window that pops up.
6.Click the Start button to start the process.
7.If you are trying to check a hard drive that has open files you’ll get a message similar to the one shown below.

Click Schedule disk check. Disk check can’t check a hard drive that has open files. Your computer will reboot and che