How to run chkdsk to check the disk for errors and fix if possible. This is for Windows 8 and 10 but should be similar elsewhere.

1. Click Start and in start Search, type CMD
2. Right click on CMD and select ‘Run as Administrator'
3. Click YES to allow app to make changes
4. At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER
chkdsk /f/r/v C: (C: or whatever the drive to be checked, and there are no spaces between the command letters except between /V and C:)
5. It may run multiple hours, if it does not change for a while, be pationt.
6. Press Y when you are prompted to check the disk the next time that the system restarts.
7. Close all applications, and then restart the computer.

If you want to run chkdsk on a computer which will not boot, then:
1 Do a hard shutdown (holt the computer start button down for 20 seconds or so till it forces a shutdown) Do this about 3 times till it comes back saying "Preparing Automatic repair" then "Diagnosing your PC" them Automatic Repair" "Repair your computer" or something along those lines
2 Then Troubleshoot" then "Advanced Options" "System Recovery Options" and an option "Command Prompt"  or some variation on this.
3 At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER
chkdsk /f /r/v C: (C: or whatever the drive to be checked, and there are no spaces between the command letters except between /V and C:)

It will run for a long  time, hours.

Note: While performing checkdisk on the hard drive if any bad sectors are found  chkdsk tries to repair that sector and the data on that sector could be  lost.  (Of course, if it is a bad sector it is probably not readable anyway.)

Chkdsk takes a long time to run, many hours, and may seem to hang for an hour or more.

If you get "failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50 after chkdsk" and you ran it from the installation disk, then it is because chkdsk could not write to the installation disk.  If you ran it from your computer, it means you have bad sectors on your hard disk (in the Windows partition).  You might be able to recover the data on the hard disk by making it a secondary hard disk rather than the primary one, not the C: drive, typically by removing it from the computer and hanging it off another computer. 
Another thing that I want you to do now is to always restart the system after chkdsk makes repairs. Type exit in the command prompt then click on the "Restart" button instead of the "Shut Down". unless it starts on its own.

/f means Fixes errors on the disk. Does not scan for bad sectors.
/r means Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information (implies /f).
/v may wish to add this so you can see the program is making progress. On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file on the disk. On NTFS (what you probably have): Displays cleanup messages if any.
/x can be added to make chkdsk run the next  time the computer starts (boots up) This command includes the functionality of /f so that can be omitted.
/? gives a definition of all the options.  There are more than listed here.

If you get the message "Cannot Open Volume for Direct Access", it is a bad sign and your hard disk may be dying.  You may be able to fix it enough to run chkdsk on it by running the "Error Checking" routine under "Properties" for the hard disk under consideration.  See Hard Disk Error Checking in Routine Maintenance.

If chkdsk runs but give you lots of "Windows replaced bad clusters in file..." then it is time for a new hard disk.

The error report goes to event viewer if you are checking the C: drive, otherwise the CMD window stays open and you can read it there.

 How to use event viewer
This set of notes is principally aimed at viewing chkdsk errors but it does give you a general idea of how it works. This applies to windows 8 and 10, it was different on earlier versions of Windows.

1.  To bring up the event viewer,  right click the start button (the one in the lower left corner of your windows screen) and select “Event Viewer” near the top of the menu.  Now make certain the 3rd icon along the top is highlighted.  It is called "Show/hide Console tree"
2.  Next select the appropriate log, for chkdsk errors, they can be found by selecting "Windows Logs" then “Application” in the left hand pane (double click "Application" if the lest does not appear) then
3.  In the event log list that appears to the top middle window, click on the first item, and then, one at a time, press the down-arrow key to see each successive event. If you can not see the "Source", make the Event Viewer window bigger. It is between "Data and Time" and "Event ID".
4.  You’re viewing them in reverse-chronological order (most recent first). A description of the event is in the bottom center window. There will be many that are basically incomprehensible – don’t worry about them. There may be several that display scary red “error” icons – ignore those too, they’re part of the mess that is the Event Viewer.  You will also see many things labeled information. Typically information you have no interest in.
5.  Eventually you’ll come to an event with its “Source” listed as Wininit (Windows Initialization). The information displayed in the window below will look very familiar (there may be many other events from Wininit; we’re looking for the one that has CHKDSK information in the event information below the list.  On my machine, it did not mention CHKDSK but did say "Checking file system on C:). The time will match the time you ran CHKDSK. To see a bigger version of the lower window, double click on the key event in the upper window.
6.  The text box within the “General” tab of that information below the event-log listing is scrollable, and contains the entire text of the CHKDSK run that happened at boot time. You can scroll up and down to view the entire CHKDSK session.

An easier way to view the entire CHKDSK result is to click anywhere on the results text, type CTRL+A to select all, then CTRL+C to copy it all to the clipboard. Now run Notepad or your word processor, and paste the results in there.

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Rev. 11/3/18