Often, there is something wrong with your Windows PC and it’s not obvious what the problem is. There is a tried and true series of steps to fix quite a few problems:
- Reboot your computer. If you don’t get power to your PC or aren’t able to get to Windows, skip this and see my future post on “My PC isn’t booting up.”
- Run anti-virus/anti-malware software to make sure you haven’t picked up any viruses/malware/trojans/etc.
- Run CHKDSK /F or CHKDSK /R on your PC by opening a elevated command prompt and running the appropriate command
- /F does a Fix WITHOUT checking for bad sectors. If you have a SSD, you don’t have bad sectors, so this is best.
- /R does a fix WITH checking for bad sectors. If you have a legacy HDD (i.e. Plater based storage), the /R will check for and attempt to resolve bad sectors.
- RUN SFC /scannow from an elevated command prompt:
- This command checks for and replaces corrupt or incorrect system files. If at the end of the scan, it indicates that there were uncorrectable problems, run it again. If after the second run, there are still uncorrectable problems, continue to the next step.
- RUN the following DISM commands from an elevated command prompt:
- DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth – A quick check that tells you if corruption has already been detected. I don’t see a reason to run this, but 9 out of 10 online references list this as the first thing to run.
- DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth – An in-depth check that scans through the component store. Run this first and if corruption is detected, run /RestoreHealth.
- DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
- Run “Check for Updates” in Windows. An argument can be made that this should be run first, but if you’re having trouble, it makes more sense to make sure there is no disk, operating system, or component store issues first.
- Run your vendor’s driver update tool and update your drivers. Be careful with BIOS updates. There is a chance that a failed BIOS or F/W update can make your computer inoperable. Follow all directions from the vendor for BIOS and Firmware updates and be aware of the risks involved.
It’ goes something like this, 90% of your computer problems will be fixed by rebooting the computer, 50% of the problems that aren’t fixed by rebooting your computer are fixed by the steps above. My basis for the percentages listed is an estimation based on 30+ years of working in the IT field. My list of operations and their order are based on the same. I hope this helps you out.