How to disable automatic CHKDSK of new drives at Windows 7 startup?

Windows 7 seems to automatically performs a CHKDSK of any new hard-drive installed in a computer at startup (before login screen).

There is a way to skip that by pressing a key but you have to be fast (it will automatically proceed with disk repair after a few seconds if nothing is done).

The problem is that CHKDSK of Windows 7 is not compatible with NTFS drives formatted in Windows 10 : it will consider hibernation data as error, will try to repair it (it take ages) and by doing so it will corrupt the disk (Windows 10 won't boot anymore).

This is a major issue as I use a Windows 7 machine to repair / inspect some old harddrives. Is there a way to prevent Windows 7 to not automatically perform any CHKDSK at startup ?

1 Answer

Windows 7 and 10 do not have compatible formats, especially as regarding hibernation and fast startup. These two features should be disabled in Windows 10 if you intend using the disk under Windows 7.

If disabling the above is not possible, you could use in Windows 7 thechkntfs commandoption of \x:

/x <Volume>
Specifies one or more volumes to exclude from checking when the computer is started, even if the volume is marked as requiring chkdsk.

Note that each chkntfs command overrides the previous one.

Example: chkntfs /x c: d: e:.

Use chkntfs /d to restore chkntfs default settings.