How do i find bad sectors on my HDD when Windows 10 native programs/apps/services says there are none?

Question

The situation:
Hardware: a Lenovo GS50-80, 1 TB 5400rpm, RAM 12 GB
My Window 10 sometimes freezes, sometimes for five minutes, whenever it tries to read certain older files, and it affects ALL of my system. Sometimes it takes so long I do a HARD reboot with the on-off BUTTON.
The error messages are all about how the C-Drive is unreacheable, of the "Can't read this or that"-variation

I've analyzed and defragged with Defraggler, but that doesn't seem to work and it doesn't even defrag to zero percent. So, sure, it could be something else, like a system problem, an OS problem, a software problem or a virus.
If you have ideas how freezing Windows-10 can be caused by system, OS, software or virus, PLEASE share

However, I wanna exclude that it could be a hardware problem, so, how do I do that?

Back to my original question:
How do i find bad sectors on my HDD when Windows 10 native programs/apps/services says there are none?

Answer 1

Use the native program check disk. The first part shows how to do it from a cmd promt. Below that is a section that shows how to do check disk by right clicking on C drive, properties, tool with no command line needed. I copied that part from NeoSmart

1. Press the windows key on your keyboard.

2. Type cmd

3. Right click cmd in the list and choose run as administrator

4. If it's the C drive use the following.

If it's a diffrent drive letter replace the Capital C with your drive letter.

chkdsk C: /x /f /r

If it's the system drive you will be asked to run it on next reboot. Type Y if you choose to do so and reboot.

/x forces the drive to dismount so check disk can run if it's not the system drive that your booted up on.

/f fixes any errors

/r finds bad sectors and recovers any readable data on those sectors.

If you want to see all the option type

chkdsk /? 

---

NeoSmart

To run the check disk utility from Computer (My Computer), follow these steps:

Boot into Windows 10

Double-click on Computer (My Computer) to open it.

Select the drive you want to run a check on, e.g. C:\

Right-click on the drive

Click Properties

Go to the Tools tab

Select Check, at the Error checking section

Click Scan drive to begin the scan: If you receive the following message, You don't need to scan this drive: 'We haven't found any errors on this drive' You can still scan the drive for errors if you want.

If errors are found, you can decide if you want to fix them. Depending on the results of this scan, the utility will report the results: If no errors were found, you’ll see this message: Your drive was successfully scanned Windows successfully scanned the drive. No errors were found.If errors were found, you’ll see this message instead: Restart your computer to repair file system. You can restart right away or schedule the error fixing on next restart

If chkdsk dosen't work it sounds like a software issue then. Open a command prompt asks run sfc /scannow and see if that helps. If not you could have corruption, virus, malware, or the left overs of a bad registry cleaner if you ran one. If you've loaded any free software they come loaded with stuff you don't want sometimes. If sfc doesn't work you may want to try the HijackThis forum. Those guys are amazing at finding malware and viruses.

the result of that scan was: Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. So what can I see in that log that is relevant? – GwenKillerby 25 mins ago

That log may show what file is corrupt. If it does you may be able to replace the file with a good copy from a good running computer or installation disk.

Or

You may need to do a Win 10 refresh but try this first.

1. Open an elevated command prompt (click start, type cmd, right click cmd and choose run as administrator).

2. Type Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth this will take some time.

Here are more things you can try. link