Sometimes, when you start your Windows 10 PC, a disk check automatically starts. A special built-in tool, chkdsk, performs the file system check for errors. Once Windows has booted, the user can run chkdsk manually from the disk's properties too via This PC. But in Windows 10 and Windows 8, Microsoft hides important details about the disk check if it runs before Windows has booted. Here is how you can view the detailed results of the disk check.
The only way to see chkdsk results if it was started automatically during the boot sequence is Windows Event Viewer. In Windows 7 and all previous versions of Windows, if some inconsistency was found on the file system, chkdsk would run automatically but it showed you the details. In Windows 10 and Windows 8, this was removed as part of Microsoft's effort to simplify the OS, same as the updated Blue Screen appearance. Chkdsk, or rather autochk.exe when it runs during the boot sequence now shows only the percent complete. So there is no way to know if it found any errors and whether any changes or corrections were made to the file system.
The Windows Event Log contains tons of information about various events happening on your PC. It can be confusing and intimidating for the regular user. But we will see how to navigate it quickly and see only the required logs, in this case, the results of the disk check. Follow these steps.
- Go to the Start menu -> All apps -> Windows Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer. Or you can simply type Event Viewer into the search box.
- In Event Viewer, expand Windows Logs on the left - Application:
- In the task pane on the right hand side, click Filter Current Log... and enter 26226 in the event ID box:
- Press OK and you will see the results of all disk checks stored in the Application log!
This useful trick can also be performed in Windows 8 and Windows 7. In Windows 7, you should look for another event ID - 1001, while in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, it is 26226, the same as Windows 10.
That's it.
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Just ran a full scan on my system drive in Windows 10 (took forever even though it was an SSD) but the event viewer only shows details about another drive I didn’t ask to scan from weeks ago. So Event Viewer didn’t even record the most recent scan. Windows 10 is becoming more and more unwanted for me.
It seems that scans of disk c: show up under id 26226 as the article says, but scans of drive d: (possibly other drives) show up under id 1001, even under windows 10. Thus, I would suggest, if you can’t find a scan result under id 26226, also filter the application log for id 1001, or the source Wininit (select from the list, or make sure you get capitalization right, as it seems to matter).
I thought the same thing, that neither of my scans had been logged. But, just before I clicked on the X to close Event Viewer, I saw the comment about Windows 7 having a different ID number. Guess what. The chkdsk logs that i was looking for had 1001 as the ID.
by windows 10 is the Event-ID 26212
I’ve posted a copy of this document with credits to this web page and to Sergey Tkachenko at this link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19fk-JsEAXJCj5HdYxgtqjinbiCx4n9hlnwE3AycDjaI/edit?usp=sharing
However, I’ve made 2 significant changes to improve the results and make it easier to run:
1. I’ve changed the chkdsk log selection process to be independent of the Event ID because I found that there are multiple Event IDs for chkdsk logs.
2. I’ve added a section at the end of the document to create a Event Viewer Custom View so that all chkdsk logs can be viewed simply with one click.
My Id was also 1001 on Win 10. Could be because it started as as Win 7 machine.
On Windows 10 v. 1703 and newer I see the chkdsk results logged with Source: Wininit and Event ID: 1001.
Thanks for this.
My check disk did not match any eventID listed above. My eventID was 1001. And the source name was “Wininit” Its better to search the logs by date/time than relying on a specific event as apparently that is not accurate.
On my Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit, the Chkdsk Event ID is 26214.
This technique does not capture output from disk repair that happens before Windows starts.
“Stu Berg”‘s document is better than this. As it says, instead of filtering by Event ID, filter by Event sources Chkdsk, Wininit (you can click these in the ENORMOUS drop-down list). Wininit seems to be Event ID 1001.