CHKDSK Cannot Open Volume for Direct Access
You may find that you are going through the same trouble as the following person, or a similar annoyance:
I recently attempted to move some files from a storage hard drive to a USB drive. The file transfer never really got going. After waiting about 30 minutes to see if anything was going to happen, I tried killing the transfer. Nothing worked. In my frustration, I just rebooted the PC. Now, the PC is having trouble with the hard drive in question. The PC can’t read it. I ran a CHKDSK to see what is up. When I run CHKDSK, it says “Cannot open volume for direct access.” Help! Thanks. from Geeks To Go
The CHKDSK Command Prompt is a hard drive repair tool that allows you to repair disks like corrupted hard disks, USB drives, external hard drives or Micro SD cards, etc. Certainly, when you can’t read you can try to check and fix it with CHKDSK.
But, sometimes when you want to run CHKDSK on a partition you might get the CHKDSK Cannot open volume for direct access error message. This issue can happen due to a third-party virus checker or disk monitor tool and prevents you from fixing the data storage drives.
What can be done? Don’t worry as this post will offer you solutions that might help.
In the following parts 3 solutions will be listed to fix the issue: CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access. Windows snap-in tools, MiniTool Power Data Recovery, and a free partition manager will be needed.
Quick Video Guide:
Solution 1: Disable Any Third-party Services That May Lock the Partition
The reason why you cannot open volume for direct access might be a third-party application such as a virus checker or a disk monitor tool that is locking the partition which you want to check. As a result you can try the following steps to disable the third-party service.
Step 1: Click the search icon and enter Services into the search box. Then select Services from the search results to open it.
Step 2: In the Services (Local) list find the respective third-party service: for example, the virus checker or the disk monitor tool.
Step 3: Right-click on that specific service and select Properties to have a check.
Step 4: Change the Startup type to Disabled for any third-party applications and click OK.
Step 5: Exit from Services, reboot the computer and try to run CHKDSK again to check if the error massage cannot open volume for direct access disappears.
Solution 2: Uninstall Any Third-party Software
If you still get the error message CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access Windows 10, you can try to uninstall the third-party software that might belocking your partition. The detailed steps are listed below:
Step 1: Right-click on the Start button in the lower left corner of your computer screen (the same icon as Windows) and click Control Panel.
Step 2: Find Programs and then click Uninstall a program under Programs.
Step 3: Select the target third-party software that might lock the partition and then click Uninstall. At this time it will confirm whether or not you really want to do this. Click Yes.
Step 4: Close this window, reboot the computer and run CHKDSK to see if you still get the error massage.
If the solutions mentioned above cannot solve the problem, and you still receive the prompt CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access external hard drive, USB drive or SD card, etc., we suggest recovering data from the drive and then formatting it to its normal state.
The last solution will be offered here focusing on fixing CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access USB, external hard drive, SD card and so on. We will take a USB drive as an example.
Solution 3: Recover Data from The Drive and Format It to Its Normal State
To fix the CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access external drive, CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access USB or other storage devises issue, recovering data from the specific partition and then formatting it is a good way to try solving the problem.
Stage 1: Recover Data with MiniTool Power Data Recovery
To recover data from a hard drive, USB drive, SD card, etc., all you need is just a top data recovery software. Due to its ease of operation and high security MiniTool Power Data Recovery is what we highly recommend for you.
You can first try MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free to see if it can find the needed files for you.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
After installing this software on your computer, you can follow this guide to scan the drive and recover data:
Take a USB drive for example.
1. Connect the USB drive to your computer.
2. Open the software.
3. This software shows you all partitions it can detect under the Logical Drives section. Then, you need to select the connected USB drive and click the Scan button to start scanning.
4. After scanning, you will see the scan results. By default, these files are listed by path. You can go to each path to find your files. On the other hand, you can also use Type to find files by type and use Search to find files by name.
5. If you are sure this software can find your needed files and you want to use it to recover all your files without limits, you can upgrade to a full edition. After that, you can select the files you want to recover, click the Save button, and choose a suitable location to save them. You should not save them to the original USB drive. Otherwise, the lost files can be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
Stage 2: Format Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard
You might know that formatting a partition is a feature which can help you to solve problems like can’t open the partition or some other similar problems. What you should be aware of is that all the data in the target partition will be deleted at the same time.
You don’t need to worry about data problems since MiniTool Power Data has saved data for you first. So, now you can format the partition without stressing. To format the partition you can rely on a third-party partition manager. MiniTool Partition Wizard is a great choice.
This software is a free partition manager. To manage your disk well it provides many functions, such as Converting FAT to NTFS, Copying Partition and so on. Of course, Formating Partition is one of these features and it is available in the free edition of this software.
The detailed steps will be shown later. Before this, click the following button to get the partition magic.
MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Step 1: At first, you need to install this program to your PC. Then connect the USB to the computer.
Step 2: Open the software to enter its main interface.
Step 3: Click the target drive and choose Format Partition from the left action panel.
Step 4: In this part you need to reset the parameters for the USB partition including the partition label, file system and cluster size. Just reconfigure these parameters according to your own needs or you can keep them at the default setting.
Step 5: Welcome to the final step. Now you can see this formatted USB partition on the main interface. If it meets your needs, click on the Apply button to perform the change.
Now the USB drive is formatted successfully. It’s time to check if the issue CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access USB has been solved.
The Final Words
We hope these three methods can help you solve the CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access issue. Should you have any suggestions for the CHKDSK cannot open volume for direct access issue or any questions while using MiniTool software, you can let us know in the comment or send an email to [email protected].
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 7 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery and phone data recovery, YouTube videos download, partition management, and video conversions.