The program was first introduced in MS-DOS 6.2[1] and succeeded its simpler predecessor, CHKDSK.

It included a more user-friendly interface than CHKDSK, more configuration options,[2][3] and the ability to detect and (if possible) recover from physical errors on the disk.

This replaced and improved upon the limited ability offered by the MS-DOS recover utility.

[4] Unlike CHKDSK, ScanDisk would also repair crosslinked files.

versions of Windows; for the purpose, a newer CHKDSK is provided instead.