The Disk Check Could Not Be Performed" Solutions

For computer users, buying an external hard drive is a crucial investment. Using an external hard drive, users can back up important files and data to it or store important files in it and take it with them. However, there can be problems with the external hard drive. For example, your external hard drive is suddenly not showing up on your computer, or the access denied error message appears.

Recently, a user said that when he clicked Properties on his external hard drive, it shows 0 bytes and then he clicked "check now" in the tool tab under error checking. But he received an error message saying that "The disk check could not be performed because Windows cannot access the disk."

If you have encountered the same problem, you can find solutions in this article. Keep reading and check more details.

Method 1. Check External Hard Drive Connection

One reason you would see this error message is that the external hard drive has a bad connection with your computer. So it's highly recommended for you to check the connection cables and USB port.

First of all, change another cable to see if Windows still cannot access the disk. Then, try to plug your external hard drive into other USB ports to see if the problem still exists. If you can confirm that both the cable and the USB port are working properly, try Method 2 to solve the problem.

Method 2. Two Ways - Change the Drive Letter of Your External Hard Drive

Another reason Windows can't access your disk is the drive letter. Every time you plug in a new drive to your computer, the system will assign a new drive letter for it. If there's any mismatch or inconsistency with the default drive letter, you might receive the error message "The disk check could not be performed because Windows cannot access the disk." 

You can solve this issue by changing the drive letter. There are two methods for Windows users to change, one is to use the Disk Management, and the other is to use the partition manage software - Qiling Partition Master.

#1. Change Drive Letter in Disk Management

Step 1. Right-click the Windows icon, and select Disk Management to enter.

Step 2. In the Disk Management console, you can see all the connected drives. Right-click on your external hard drive.

Step 3. Choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Step 4. Then click Change, choose a new letter from the drop-down menu and click OK to confirm the change.

After changing the drive letter, restart your computer and check in the Properties again. Or running CHKDSK again to see if Windows can access your disk.

#2. Change Drive Letter with Qiling Partition Master

We'd like to introduce a handy and free tool for you to change drive letters and perform a disk check, this tool is Qiling Partition Master. It is designed for users to manage partitions more easily. It simplified the interface and operation for novice users. Even if you only have basic partition knowledge, you can resize partition, format partitions, check partition, and wipe partition date with this tool. 

Now you can download the Qiling Partition Master for free, and follow the guide to see how to change the drive letter with it.

• Free Download
• Windows 11/10/8/7, 100% Secure

Step 1. Run Qiling Partition Master, right-click the target partition, and choose "Change Drive Letter".

Step 2. In the new window, click the down arrow and choose a drive letter for the partition from the drop-down menu, then click "OK" to change the drive letter of the selected partition.

Bonus Tip: Run Check Disk with Qiling Partition Master

Besides helping you change the drive letter of the external hard drive, Qiling Partition Master can also help you to perform disk checks. Usually, users need to open Windows Command Prompt and enter several command lines. But with this tool, a simple click would help you check and fix partition errors. Here are the detailed steps.

Step 1. Open Qiling Partition Master on your computer. Then, locate the disk, click the partition you want to check, and choose "Surface test".

Step 2. In the Check File System window, selected and click "Proceed".

Step 3. The software will begin checking your partition file system on your disk.

The Bottom Line

Hope you could solve the "The disk check could not be performed because Windows cannot access the disk" problem after reading this article. When you have the same problem, first checking the connection of your external hard drive and your computer; then change the drive letter.

It's worth mention that if you need to check the disk and fix errors with the chkdsk command, you should recover the data of the target drive to another safe location. It's because the chkdsk command would reconstruct the data structure, which will cause the device data to be completely lost and cannot be recovered.

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