If I chkdsk a partition, does it scan the entire drive for errors?

Question

If I run a windows chkdsk on a single partition and tell it to check for errors at boot time, does it check the entire physical drive, or just that partition?

So if you have a dual boot and tell Windows to scan its own partition for errors, does it check the other partitions for physical bad sectors, too? Please provide some kind of reference.

Answer 1

As started chkdsk will only check that one partition. If you are looking for a check on the full and think you might have data loss look into SpinRite, it isn't free but it can be very useful no mater what OS you run.

Answer 2

if you tell it to check a single partition then that's what it will do. but if your disk has some physical damage, there is a big chance there will be errors on other partitions too

Answer 3

It is performed on the specified partition only. Keep in mind the locking behavior. If it would scan the entire disk for bad sectors the entire disk - i.e. all partitions on it need to be locked.