External Hard Drives and Check Disk

Question

I have an external NTFS hard drive that for some reason when I go to do an Error-Check with Window's Check Disk feature it says it can't check the disk while it is in use and I then proceed to schedule a scan at start up.
This is an External USB device and it appears you can not do scheduled scans on them.  I restart the computer and nothing happens, no scan.
Can we get some support for scheduled scans on external hard drives?

Answer 1

Did you try the CHKDSK /X option? CHKDSK /? gives you a list of options.
CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]] [/B]
  volume          Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
                  mount point, or volume name.
  filename        FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation.
  /F              Fixes errors on the disk.
  /V              On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file
                  on the disk.
                  On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
  /R              Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
                  (implies /F).
  /L:size         NTFS only:  Changes the log file size to the specified number
                  of kilobytes.  If size is not specified, displays current
                  size.
  /X              Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
                  All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid
                  (implies /F).
  /I              NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
  /C              NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder
                  structure.
  /B              NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume
                  (implies /R)
The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by
skipping certain checks of the volume.
Thanks,
-Saravana