Will chkdsk do detect any more errors beyond "Index verification" if run with /f as opposed to without /f?

Question

So I was using an external USB HDD, NTFS-formatted, on a linux machine with Fuse-NTFS. The machine stopped responding and crashed, and I was forced to hard-reboot. I gave it about 2 full minutes to start responding to anything, again, but it just didn't.

I care about the data on the NTFS volume, however. So I plugged it into a Win 7 box, and ran chkdsk F: and chkdsk /v F:. Neither one reports any errors which don't explicitly mention a filename with an illegal character for windows, so to me, I think it's safe to assume that all the errors are related to filenames which I have chosen that Windows just doesn't like. For these errors, I really don't care and don't really intend on using windows with the drive aside from for chkdsk, so I don't plan on fixing the filenames to make them windows-legal, and would actually rather not do so. However, chkdsk said,

Index verification completed.
Errors found. CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode.

Does that mean that if it were to run with /f, it might discover additional errors? Would it progress to non-index sections of the volume to look for more errors with an /F? Or will it just actively correct the errors that it detected without /f and do nothing more?

I really do care about real errors that aren't windows being a narcissistic, and would very much like to be aware of those. Will doing anything else with chkdsk potentially make me so? Is there any way to find out if it will without renaming my files against my will?

Answer 1

No, but /R may.

when you run without /f, you are in readonly mode and will not attempt to fix any problems it finds, but it will enumerate the whole filesystem. in addition, when running without /R, chkdsk only cares about the filesystem itself, and does not check the surface of the disk for bad sectors, so you will not be advised about them, nor will a recovery of them be attempted.

Here are the options for chkdsk via win7.

Checks a disk and displays a status report.


CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]] [/B]


  volume          Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
                  mount point, or volume name.
  filename        FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation.
  /F              Fixes errors on the disk.
  /V              On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file
                  on the disk.
                  On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
  /R              Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
                  (implies /F).
  /L:size         NTFS only:  Changes the log file size to the specified number
                  of kilobytes.  If size is not specified, displays current
                  size.
  /X              Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
                  All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid
                  (implies /F).
  /I              NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
  /C              NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder
                  structure.
  /B              NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume
                  (implies /R)

The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by
skipping certain checks of the volume.