When your PC is getting slower and slower, you may opt to run chkdsk to check and fix disk errors for better performance. If your computer’s operating system is Windows 8 or Windows 10 and you have run chkdsk, you may have encountered a frustrating situation where it seems like chkdsk has stopped working. The progress percentage has been stuck for a long time, so long that you can’t tell if the whole thing has crashed.

In most cases, chkdsk is still running. The problem is that in Windows 8 and Windows 10, Microsoft changed the look of the chkdsk display. It no longer shows what is happening exactly, as previous versions did.

The short solution to this problem is one that can be frustrating: Wait it out. This wait can be quite long, even hours. Some people who have encountered this problem and waited, trusting that the system would sort itself out, have been rewarded with success after 3 to 7 hours.

This requires a lot of patience, so save yourself the stress of having to run chkdsk by doing it when you won't be needing your computer for an extended period of time.