Various DOS commands. From time to time parts of the hard disk can become damaged and files occupying those parts of the disk can become unreadable and cause problems with software as well as slowing the whole system down. Often these are caused by sudden switch-offs due to power failures etc or people not closing down the pc in the correct manner. This is the time to run a disk check with the command “chkdsk” from within the dos command prompt. To get to DOS click Start, Run and type in “cmd” without the inverted commas and click OK or hit the Enter key. Inside this Dos window type chkdsk c: /f and hit Enter key and a check of the disk C: will be carried out and the /f means to fix any errors it finds – basically to mark bad sectors of the hard disk as bad so that they are not used and to try and recover any files occupying that space and relocate them to a good part of the disk. Another important dos command to remember is system file check sfc which will carry out a check of all the windows system files and compare them with a data-base it made at the time of installation to see if the files have been changed or become damaged. If one types sfc and hits enter in the dos command, one should have an original windows installation disk ready to insert if it should be required to obtain any damaged/changed files that it finds. To get a list of other dos commands type help and then hit the enter key within the dos command prompt. Before windows operating systems, these were the commands we used to work with computers.
