Home Windows 7 Ways To Recover CHK Files Created by CHKDSK and SCANDISK

7 Ways To Recover CHK Files Created by

CHKDSK and SCANDISK
HAL9000 Updated 3 years ago Windows 31 Comments
One of the things about Windows is sometimes it seems to do things in a way that doesnt really
make a great deal of sense. One of those situations is when an improper shutdown is detected or
something like a USB stick is detached too quickly and Windows decides it needs to run a scan
of the drive for errors, which in itself is not a problem. If you decide to skip, Windows will
continue to ask you to scan because the dirty bit is still set on the drive. You let Chkdsk or
Scandisk run and it will repair any problems with the file system and recover or repair any
corrupted files affected because of it.

The issue arises when you want to look at the files to see if any personal or important data has
been affected because everything recovered by Chkdsk or Scandisk now has a generic filename
of File****.CHK placed in a Folder called Folder.*** at the root of your drive! The odd thing is
Windows has no utility or built in function to let you find out what these newly renamed files
were before it changed them all to CHK files.

Although sometimes a CHK file cannot be recovered successfully because it has been too badly
damaged, many of them can be used again, but you need to find out what type of file each one is
and the correct extension needs to be applied. IfWINDOWS CRASHED while editing a
document, there is only 1 CHK file and your document is missing, then renaming the file to
mylostfile.doc could be worth a shot, but in most situations you wont be so lucky or theres a lot
of files that need checking.Fortunately there are third party tools around that are able to help you
recover CHK files by checking the headers of the files and identifying what the type of file is and
what its original extension should be. Heres a selection of ways to help you out.
1. UnCHK

UnCHK is a free CHK file recovery tool that is able to help you restore CHK files for around 25
different file formats to their original extension. It can identify some of the most common types
including audio, video, images, archives, executable files and documents. UnCHK also has a
valuable feature of allowing you to add your own file type extensions by simply dragging and
dropping a known good file onto the programs icon. It will then be recognized from then
onward when scanning CHK files.

Run the tool and it will ask you for the directory where the CHK files are and then a destination
directory. The Scan Depth window gives various options about the recovery method; Whole
Files will look at each file and check for a recognized signature, Embedded Files can pull objects
like images from inside the CHK files and Floppy/Hard drive can check for cross linking in the
files. The program was tested and worked fine on Windows 7.

Download UnCHK

2. FileCHK
FileCHK is about as simple a tool as it gets, and has no options or interface at all. It simply scans
your CHK files and renames them with the correct file extension if a recognized file type is
detected. Around 30 types of file are supported including the most common multimedia files,
images, some common archives, executables and Office/text files. To use the tool all you have to
do is place it in the folder where the File****.chk files are, then run it. The process takes no
more than a second or two and the files it recognized will have been given the appropriate
extension. Because it renames the original files automatically, its best to run the tool on a
backup of the files in case you wish to try another utility here as well. FileCHK requires the VB5
runtimes installed to work.
Download FileCHK

3. CHK-Mate
CHK-Mate has a wizard style interface that asks you where the CHK files are located, then asks
where you want the renamed files to be saved as it creates a copy of them and doesnt overwrite
the originals. It will then examine the contents of the CHK files and determine whether they are
known to the program, and if they are, will create a copy with the appropriate file extension.
CHK-Mate only recognizes around 20 types of file by default although you can add custom types
yourself.

One thing we noted about CHK-Mate was just how slow it was in trying to recover the files, over
20 minutes to scan 18 CHK files in Windows 7. It did look like it had crashed several times but
did eventually finish, and at the end recovered 13, about the same as the other tools here. If the
contents of a CHK file can not be identified, you have the option to extract all the readable text
from the CHK file. This option is useful to recover information from a CHK file that is perhaps
not intact enough to be recovered completely as a known file type.

Download CHK-Mate

4. TrIDNet
If you have some more obscure types of files on your computer that might not get picked up by
one of the CHK file recovery tools, you might like to try to identify them with TrIDNet which
has a good chance of helping out. Although it cant rename the files for you automatically,
TrIDNet can perhaps fill in some gaps if your CHK files remain unknown.

The tool itself is quite old dating back to 2004, but the database is still constantly updated
meaning even the latest file types are recognized. Download the program and and unzip it, then
download the definition files package and unrar the 1000s of XML files into the TrIDNet main
folder. Run the program and click on Rescan Defs to load them all in. Then browse for, or drag
and drop a CHK file to identify it. The display will give a percentage of the likelihood a certain
file extension matches the file. As an example, the screen shot shows TrIDNet thinks the scanned
CHK file is an EXE rather than a DLL, and it is correct. The .NET Framework is required and
the defs files and program are downloaded separately.

Download TRIDNet

5. FiletypeID
This utility works along the same lines as TrIDNet and uses the same TrID library and
definitions to identify files by their type and not the extension, such as CHK files. FiletypeID has
a lot more modern graphical interface though with a couple of useful extra functions as well.
Although it is relatively up to date, the program comes with the definitions already built in so
isnt fully updated by default. This is easily cured by clicking on Update Definitions from the
programs Help menu.

The program is fully portable and usage is broadly the same as TrIDNet where you browser for
or drag and drop a CHK or any other file onto the window. Click the Analyse button and it will
give you a list of types and possible extensions with the most likely being the highest percentage
entry. A useful button is Details which can give more in depth information about certain types of
file such as video and audio encoding/bitrates and archive compression etc. Works on Windows
XP and above.

Download FiletypeID

6. Chk-Back
From TRC Data Recovery, Chk-Back is an easy to use utility with a pleasant interface. It has
support for some 40 file formats including the most common image, video, audio, executable,
document and office files, as well as Windows Address Book, Outlook Store and Outlook
Express mail store files.
Although it does require installation, Chk-Back isnt difficult to operate. Press the button to
browse for the CHK files (usually in Folder.*** in the drives root) and it will show the files to
be checked. Click Start and within a matter of seconds the process will be complete with a
highlighted log file ready for you to save to a file if you wish or copy and paste elsewhere. A
saved log file and the corrected CHK files will be created in a new folder called ChkBack
Results in the same folder as the original CHK files. Works on Windows XP and above.

Download Chk-Back

7. The Manual way

Although obviously not the quickest or simplest method, one of the ways you can check and try
to identify the CHK file is be by simply opening it with Notepad, Notepad++ or a Hex editor. All
file types have a unique header in the first few bytes to tell one file apart from another, and
although many will have unrecognizable characters at the beginning of the file, some contain a
few characters at or near the start that can be recognized to help you identify what the file is. For
example, Rar! at the start of a file is a WinRar archive, ID3 means the file is an MP3 and
JFIF in the first 10 bytes of the file means its a Jpeg image.

However, there are some more tricky ones to identify such as executable files have MZ at the
start, but so do DLL files, screensavers, some font files, driver files and a few more. It therefore
might not be a simple case of renaming a file with MZ at the start to .exe. A similar problem
happens with ZIP archives because although it has a simple PK at the start of the file, this
could easily be a Word DOCX or Excel XLSX file because they are also simply renamed Zip
files. Even game levels can sometimes be archived with Zip.

If you want to try and identify a file that has gibberish characters or something not easily
recognizable at the beginning, a useful manual way is:

1. Open the file in a Hex editor such as HxD .

2. Highlight and copy the first 8 bytes or so of hex to the clipboard.
3. Go to a website resource that lists the signatures for hundreds of different files, such as Gary
Kesslers File Signatures Table . Another one is Filesignatures.net . Then use your browsers
search function (Ctrl+F) to look on the page for the hex value. If its not found simply delete a
byte at a time from the search until it is found.

As you can see, the file was identified as a Windows Media file although it didnt say which type
exactly. At least we now know that trying the extensions of .WMA, .WMV or .ASF will most
likely get the file to work. This method is quite useful if you want to learn how to quickly
identify unknown files by simply looking at the first few bytes of them.

You might also like:

 5 Ways to Check for Recently Created or Modified Files and Installed

Software 3 Methods to Spoof Fake File Extensions in Windows 6

Ways to Repair and Extract Invalid ZIP Files for Free 3 Ways to Split and Join Big

Files 3 Ways to Safely Delete Unused MSI and MSP Files from Windows Installer
Folder

31 Comments - Write a Comment

1. andre ug 1 MONTH AGO

raymond raymond u r the best
thanks alot,u saved my a..
Reply

2. Hugo Napoli 1 MONTH AGO

Many thanks for the articles content.
Its serious, effective and well drafted.
Ive tried all software that you recommend here, and the best result obtained was with CHK-
 Mate.
Brilliant. Thanks again.
Reply

3. John Schonewille 2 MONTHS AGO

Thanks for this, I found CHK-Mate to be the only program to work 1st.
*.chk files never really bothered me, I have always just deleted them. Out of curiosity I
decided to play.
Thanks again
Reply

4. AK47 5 MONTHS AGO

Thanks BRO!!!
Reply

5. Anjo Altamirano 8 MONTHS AGO

thanks! you saved my files!!
Reply

6. FranKitime 9 MONTHS AGO

Thank U so much,U guys saved my files
Reply

7. Mjduniverse 9 MONTHS AGO

Thanks for the information, it was very helpful.
Reply

8. Dvorak 11 MONTHS AGO

Thanks a lot man :) you saved me
Reply
9. Zacchaeus 1 YEAR AGO
THanks .. it helps a lot :D
Reply

10. yudha 1 YEAR AGO

thank you very much this is realy help me

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