Running ChkDsk on Systems With SSD After Windows 10 20H2 Update Reportedly Damages SSD File Systems

Think Twice before running ChkDsk especially ChkDsk /f

Published on December 21, 2020 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

Came across this article this morning, and thought it best to report on it to prevent possible problems for those running ChkDsk (Windows' native utility to discover and fix corruptions in its file system when adding /f to the command ChkDsk. This affects SSDs only, apparently.

If you have updated to W10 20H2, do not run ChkDsk or worse, ChkDsk /f.

"One of the authors at Planet3DNow say they ran the utility with the /f parameter, which prompts a system reboot so that it can be initiated on startup, only to run into a blue screen of death error. This is not an isolated case. It is also not due to the hardware used by the PCs, because it can also be reproduced in a VM on a completely different system. An automatic or manual repair is then required, depending on how the system is set up, in order to get the PC to boot properly again." - hothardware.com

So, beware this minefield. I haven't seen anything on MS fixing this minefield yet. I will update this if more comes to light.

Comments

DaveRI

on Dec 21, 2020

That is a bit disturbing.

Thanks for the notice.

LightStar

on Dec 21, 2020

Gee, I wonder if they screwed up sfc /scannow too! Frickin Microsoft!

DrJBHL

on Dec 21, 2020

LightStar

reply 2

Gee, I wonder if they screwed up sfc /scannow too! Frickin Microsoft!

I saw no mention of that, Tom.

LightStar

on Dec 21, 2020

DrJBHL

reply 3

Quoting LightStar,

reply 2

Gee, I wonder if they screwed up sfc /scannow too! Frickin Microsoft!

I saw no mention of that, Tom.

Good to know Doc!

admiralWillyWilber

on Dec 21, 2020

News to me. Your not so posed to run chkdsk on a ssd. It doesn’t do anything but use up a write cycle.

ALMonty

on Dec 21, 2020

Tom I have done sfc /scannow on my laptop and desktop without problems. My desktop has an SSD and my laptop has a M.2.

DrJBHL

on Dec 21, 2020

admiralWillyWilber

reply 5

News to me. Your not so posed to run chkdsk on a ssd. It doesn’t do anything but use up a write cycle.

There's nothing wrong with running a ChkDsk /f /r on an SSD before updates of the OS as corrupt files can bork an update. I believe you're referring to running a defrag, which should only be done on a HDD.

Dcrew57

on Dec 21, 2020

Microcrap trying to get us again. Thanks as I use a SSD

DrJBHL

on Dec 24, 2020

Update:

Here's a temporary fix. Microsoft will be releasing a fix for ChkDsk in the coming days. If you get the bsod,

The device should automatically start up into the Recovery Console after failing to start up a few times.

Select Advanced options.

Select Command Prompt from the list of actions.

Once Command Prompt opens, type: chkdsk /f

Allow chkdsk to complete the scan, this can take a little while. Once it has completed, type: exit

The device should now start up as expected. If it restarts into Recovery Console, select Exit and continue to Windows 10.

You can read more here:

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-fix-windows-10s-pc-breaking-chkdsk-bug-1845933967

Just hold off doing a ChkDsk until the fix appears in Updates.

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