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I recently ran the chkdsk in Windows 7 on my local C: drive. After chkdsk completed, the results flashed on the screen for a few seconds and then the computer booted up. I wasn't able to read the results in time. Are the results saved to a text file somewhere?

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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Brian Sturm
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4 Answers4

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As Randolph mentions, it is in the Event Viewer. More specifically, here:

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer -> Windows Logs -> Application -> Wininit

Wininit is found under the source column.

Paul
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  • Thanks - it was 50 / 50 between System and Application. I've updated my answer as well. –  Nov 23 '10 at 22:05
  • In XP there was, since then I haven't had a use for a log, so I don't know. However, you can run CHKDSK from the command line and force it to output a text file log: CHKDSK C: /F > C:\LOG.TXT – Paul Nov 23 '10 at 22:22
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To add to Paul's post:

Go to Start, then type in 'event viewer' (without the quotes) in the search bar, and then select 'Event Viewer'.

Since the Event Viewer could list tens of thousands or more events, this could make finding the 'Wininit' event (the chkdsk log) very hard.

To make this easier, when in "Event Viewer » Windows Logs » Application", go to "Filter Current Log... » Filter » Event sources » check 'Wininit'":

Filter Current Log... > Filter > Event sources > check 'Wininit'

This will make the Event Viewer only show sources that are 'Wininit' (chkdsk logs only).

There are also chkdsk .log files, viewable in a text editor, located at [Drive Letter]:\System Volume Information\Chkdsk. You can only view it if Control Panel » Folder Options » 'Hidden files and folders' » 'Show hidden files, folders, and drives' is selected, 'Hide protected operating system files' is unchecked and you took ownership of that folder.

Community
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galacticninja
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    Way better detail than the accepted answer, but my +1 is really for the `Chkdsk*.log`. I used my old Windows to fix my USB drive while away - but am very glad to access the log as normal UTF-16 under Linux, without having to suffer with my old boot drive and Windows itself. – underscore_d Nov 06 '15 at 20:12
  • Thanks for the tip re. filtering the event log. – FKEinternet Nov 18 '22 at 13:24
  • ... and yes, *WAY* better than the accepted answer - much more informative *and* detailed. Thank you for that, as well !! – FKEinternet Nov 18 '22 at 13:34
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Here's an alternative way to view the results (found here):

  1. Press the Windows + R keys to open the Run dialog, type powershell.exe, and press Enter.

  2. In PowerShell, copy and paste the command below, and press Enter. (see screenshot below) NOTE: To paste the copied command into PowerShell, you will just need to right click in PowerShell.

  3. Enter the command

    get-winevent -FilterHashTable @{logname="Application"; id="1001"}| ?{$_.providername –match "wininit"} | fl timecreated, message | out-file Desktop\CHKDSKResults.txt

  4. You will now have a CHKDSKResults.txt file created on your desktop that is the log file of your chkdsk scan results from Event Viewer.

Peter
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  • Very nice. Consistent across Windows versions and so much simpler than navigating the new event viewer. – Michael Kropat Feb 05 '15 at 15:34
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    I like it. Anything is better than dealing with EventViewer. – Kaz Feb 11 '15 at 23:05
  • @Peter Thank you for this nice solution it help a lot here and this what exactly i'm looking for [How can I get the results of a CHKDSK that ran on boot ?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38504689/how-can-i-get-the-results-of-a-chkdsk-that-ran-on-boot) – Hackoo Jul 21 '16 at 23:40
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    FYI: Since I wanted to get a log created not at the boot time, I had to use different filters: `get-winevent -FilterHashTable @{logname="Application"; id="26214"}| ?{$_.providername –match " Chkdsk"} | fl timecreated, message | out-file CHKDSKResults.txt`. I also noticed that sometimes ID=26212 is used as well. – quetzalcoatl Jun 19 '17 at 08:15
  • This doesn't seem to work if the chkdsk scan was not done at boot time. I ran chkdsk on an external drive through the Windows Explorer UI, tried this command but got an empty CHKDSKResults.txt file. – galacticninja May 06 '21 at 17:21
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Event Viewer, under System Application, but in some cases it won't show at all.