The CHKDSK command is used to analyze a computer’s disk and solve a wide variety of problems. However, there are not a few users who reported that when they try to perform a scan CHKDSK they run into the error “The volume bitmap is incorrect«. Even some users are encountering this issue after the operation is completed, the problem persists and the screen keeps flickering when the command is executed.
In this article, we are going to see the different ways that we have available to fix this problem once and for all.
Fix: Volume bitmap is incorrect when running CHKDSK
Run CHKDSK without scanning
By running the CHKDSK /scan command, we skip many necessary steps; so let’s see that the system can’t find the correct volume bitmap. In these cases, the first thing we will have to do is run the CHKDSK command without scanning and specify a drive. Then run the command to scan and fix the problem.
To do this, we will press the Windows key and we will have to open the command prompt as administrator. The next thing will be to write the command that we will see below and press Enter.
chkdskD: /f
Here we will have to make sure to replace the “D” at the end with the letter that has the drive where we want to execute the command. This command will run the scan on the designated driver and fix the error.
We also have to consider that nothing should interrupt the CHKDSK command, such as closing the CMD window or restarting the PC. It is possible to perform a scan of different drives using the same command with the name of the drive. When the process is complete, we will have to restart the computer. Then we can execute the command “chkdsk /scan” and check if the problem persists.
Run the scan on a clean boot
The problem appears thanks to third-party interference applications, such as HDD partitioning programs, this ends up confusing CHKDSK into thinking that we do not have the necessary permissions. We can run the computer in a clean boot state to be completely sure that no third party program is interfering.
For this we are simply going to start the computer in a clean boot state, press the Windows key, type CMD and run it as administrator. Next, we are going to have to run the “chkdsk /scan” command.
Uninstall disk partition app
If we have a disk partitioning app installed that is running in the background or even present on the system, the command will have trouble performing some tasks. This happens because the Disk Partitioning application tries to manage the drives and the command cannot prevent it. In these cases we would have to proceed to uninstall the application or, at least, disable it when using the command.
Run DISM and SFC scans to avoid bad bitmap error with CHKDSK
Another possibility is system file corruption because some associated files may be corrupted. So, the scan fails and we are faced with the annoying message. If this is what happens, we can try to fix it using SFC and DISM.
What we will do is open Command Prompt as administrator. Next, we are going to type the following command and press Enter: sfc /scannow
If the previous utility does not work, we can type the following commands and press Enter to start a DISM scan that will be able to identify and resolve system file errors.
Dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
Dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
After running these commands, we’ll need to run disk checker again to see if the issue is resolved.
