The hard drive is an important, but far from perfect, component. personal computer. For some users, it works unreliably, “crumbles”, data from it is lost or is significantly damaged. One of the most common hard drive problems is the appearance of so-called "broken" (bad) sectors on it, which become a "headache" for many users. In this article, I will talk about the reasons for the appearance of bad sectors on the hard disk, list a number of programs that allow you to recognize them, and also explain how the hard disk is checked for bad sectors on your PC.

What are "bad sectors"?

As you know, the traditional HDD consists of several rotating magnetic disks, over which magnetic heads move, magnetizing any part of the disk and thus writing information to it (in the form of zeros and ones).

The disc itself is divided into tracks, and the latter, in turn, are divided into sectors, which are recorded required by the user information.

Due to certain reasons (I will list them below), information from a number of sectors cannot be read by the hard drive. Such sectors receive the status of "bad sectors" (bad sector), and the system tries to either restore the operability of such a sector (restore), or reassign the address of such a bad sector to the reserve sector (remap), or carry out its total cleaning of the bad sector (erase). In the case of remapping, spare healthy sectors are usually located at the end of the hard disk, and the hard drive spends additional time accessing them, which inevitably affects the speed of the hard disk, loading various applications and programs. Next, I will tell you how you can check your computer's hard drive for bad sectors.

Causes of bad sectors

What are the reasons for the appearance of bad sectors on HDD drive? Usually they are as follows:

• Gradual “shedding” of the surface of the hard disk due to its wear, due to which there are more and more bad sectors on the disk;
• Physical impact on the hard drive due to various kinds of external shocks;
• Power surges in the network that directly affect the integrity of data on the hard drive and lead to the appearance of bad sectors;
• Incorrect shutdown of the computer (improper operation), as a result of which bad sectors appear on the hard drive.

Symptoms of bad sectors

Due to the described reasons, there are more and more bad sectors on the hard disk, which begins to directly affect the work operating system. In particular, you may notice the following:

• The system boots slowly;
• The system slows down (freezes) when reading and writing data from the hard disk;
• The system generally refuses to boot (quite often - in the middle of the process);
• The computer sometimes restarts for no reason;
• During the operation of the OS, various errors regularly occur.

After we have described the symptoms and causes of bad sectors, let's move on to a description of how to check your hard drive for bad sectors.

The best ways to check your hard drive for bad sectors

So how to check bad sectors (and fix them)? Below I will describe a number of methods that have proven their effectiveness in working with various hard drives.

Method 1. Use the CHKDSK system utility

The easiest and most convenient way to find and fix bad sectors on an HHD hard drive is to use the system utility CHKDSK.

1. To use its capabilities, launch Explorer, right-click on an inactive volume (which does not have an installed operating system), select "Properties" in the menu that appears.
2. In the window that opens, go to the "Service" tab, there click on the "Perform verification" button.
3. Check the boxes next to the two verification options, click on "Run", and wait for the process to finish.

The same can be done for the system volume (on which the OS is installed). The only thing is that this may require a system reboot, but after the system reboots, it will start checking the disk for bad sectors.

You can also run CHKDSK through the console. To do this, run a command prompt as an administrator, and in it enter:

chkdsk c: /f /r - (instead of with: if necessary, specify a different letter of the problematic drive) press enter and wait for the process to finish.

Method 2. We use the Victoria HDD program to analyze and treat the disk

Victoria HDD is probably the most popular program to check the hard disk for bad sectors (and to restore the latter). It effectively checks and recovers bad sectors, has good feedback from specialists, and can be used both in classic graphics mode and in DOS mode.

One of the Wiki's bonuses is the ability to read the SMART indicator of your hard drive, which allows you to monitor in sufficient detail the degree of its performance (the "SMART" tab of the program). In addition, the Victoria program performs "remapping" (reassignment of damaged sectors), resets bad sectors, conducts a detailed test of the hard drive surface, ranking sectors into different groups depending on the speed of reading information from them.

1. To use this program, download and run it.
2. Then go to the "Test" tab, select "Ignore" there and check the surface for bad sectors.
3. If such are found, it is worth choosing the “Remap” mode in the same tab, this will allow you to reassign addresses from bad sectors to backup ones.
4. If bad sectors remain after remapping, you can try to restore them using the “Restore” function, while the “Erase” function completely erases data in bad sectors by writing zeros there.

In general, the functionality of "Victoria" is quite extensive, and in order to familiarize yourself with its full description, you need to go to the material specifically about using the program.

Method 3. We use the HDD Scan program to check the hard drive for bad sectors

Another program that can check the hard disk for bad sectors is HDD Scan. This is a fairly popular utility that offers several different tests (Surface Test, Smart Offline Tests, etc.). Let's select Surface Test, check the box next to "Read" on the right and start checking the surface of the disk.

The program will analyze the response time of the available sectors, and give us the result in graphical mode.

Method 4. Checking your hard drive with HDD Regenerator

Program HDD Regenerator allows you to check and recover data on your hard drive, the same applies to bad sectors. I note that the program is paid, but those who wish can search the net for its free options.

1. To take advantage of the program's capabilities, you need to run it, select the disk to work with, decide on the scan mode (I recommend Normal Scan), and then select the "Scan and repair" option (scan and repair).
2. Then it will be necessary to specify the boundaries of the scan (starting from sector 0) and monitor the scanning process itself.
3. Depending on the response speed, the sectors will be marked with different letters and colors.

Method 5. Scan the disk with the HDD Health program for bad sectors

Another program for checking the disk surface is bad sectors. HDD Health analyzes the general state of the disk, provides detailed statistics on existing partitions (using SMART technology, including the general state of the structure, disk rotation temperature, bad sectors, and so on).

Icon running program located in the system tray, the program itself, as necessary, notifies the user of any problems in the hard drive.

Hard disk recovery, removing BAD (bad) sectors [video]

Usually, a hard disk check for bad sectors is carried out using special software tools, the Victoria HDD or HDD Regenerator level. The most effective of all the programs listed in the article - Victoria HDD allows you not only to check the surface of the hard disk for bad sectors, but also to restore them, remap and clean them. If bad sectors began to appear on your hard drive, then I recommend using the functionality of the above programs, they have proven their effectiveness in working with the hard drives of many users.

In today's article:

1. How can I find out the state of my hard drive or solid state drive SSD, how long will it live. How to find out the health status of a used hard drive or SSD. What is S.M.A.R.T and what do its indicators say: Value, Worst, Raw, Threshold?

2. What are bad blocks? How to install - how many bad sectors (bad blocks) are on my hard drive, can they be fixed, and most importantly, how to fix it?

3. What to do if the operating system does not boot or freezes even after reinstallation, and the hard drive makes clicks and extraneous sounds? Why every time Windows boot running chkdsk disk check utility?

4. How to create bootable flash drive with the Victoria program and check the hard drive of a computer, laptop for bad blocks, even if it does not boot, and so on...

I welcome you friends on our site site! Today's article is about the Victoria program. I can say with confidence that this program is the best among diagnostic and treatment utilities. hard drives. This creation was developed by the sorcerer of the first category Sergey Kazansky.

I have been preparing for this article for a very long time and feeling grateful for this program. Victoria used to save seemingly already lost data on the hard drives of my clients, friends and acquaintances (often the master does NOT have the task of returning a faulty hard drive to normal operation, but only to save the data on it), and sometimes brought the hard drive itself back to life!

• I really wanted to write an article that would help novice users figure it out, and most importantly, they are not afraid of this program, but they are afraid of something, if you use the program carelessly, for example, start a thoughtless scan in Erase mode or even worse Write, then you can delete all the data on the screw, even if you come to your senses in time, you still bang the MBR boot record and you will not be able to boot into the operating system next time.

Friends, it is impossible to put everything that I want to tell and show about the Victoria program in one article.. As a result of my efforts several articles:

1. Today's article. How to download and run the Victoria program directly from a running Windows. What is S.M.A.R.T. or how to determine the health status of your hard drive or SSD in a couple of seconds. More articles...
2. How to fix a hard drive.

Firstly, there are two main versions of the Victoria program:

The first version will allow us to diagnose and repair hard drives directly in running Windows, but I want to say that it is possible to diagnose a hard drive using this version, but fixing bad sectors (remap) often ends in failure, and the likelihood of errors when working with Victoria directly "from Windows" is present, so many experienced users and professionals prefer the second version of the program.

The second version of the Victoria program will be located at boot disk or flash drive this disk(flash drives) we will upload our desktop computer or a laptop and also carry out diagnostics and, if necessary, treatment of the hard drive.

Note: The second version is very useful to many, since most users have one hard drive in a computer, or even more so in a laptop, in this case, you can boot from the Victoria disk (flash drive) and work with one single hard drive.

1. Victoria on the boot disk is very useful if you cannot start the operating system due to bad blocks.

2. If you have one hard drive and an operating system is installed on it and you run Victoria in the same operating system, then it will most likely refuse to fix bad sectors (bad blocks).

Many users will notice that often even Victoria will not fix a good bad, which can be answered like this - not all bads are of a physical nature (a broken sector on the hard disk), many bads are of a logical nature and can be easily fixed by this program.

Briefly, I will only say that physical bads (a physically destroyed sector) cannot be restored, but logical ones (software, sector logic errors) can be restored.

Friends, you can talk a lot, but there is a good proverb in life: "It is better to see once than hear a hundred times", so I will give you a few examples of the work of the Victoria program.

Victoria to work from a boot drive

We go to the official website of the program and select the Victoria 3.5 Russian ISO image of the bootable CD-ROM.

We also need Victoria on the boot disk, but we will consider working with this version in the second place. If you do not have a floppy drive, then we will make a bootable USB flash drive with the Victoria program.

Victoria to work directly in the operating room Windows system XP, 7, 8, 10

We also download the version for Windows on my cloud.

We click on the downloaded archive of the program with the right mouse and select Extract files.

The files are extracted to the created vcr43 folder. We go into this folder and be sure to run it as administrator executable file victoria43.exe program.

Main program window Victoria

In the main window of the program, let's go through all the tabs superficially, and then in detail.

standard

Select the initial tab Standard. If you have several hard drives, then in the right part of the window, select the hard drive you need with the left mouse and immediately the passport data of our hard drive will be displayed in the left part of the window: where you were born and married, model, firmware, serial number, cache size, and so on. At the bottom is a log of our actions.

What is S.M.A.R.T.

Then we select the hard disk we need in the right part of the window, if you have several of them, and select it with the left mouse. Let's take a hard disk as an example. WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2(volume 500 GB).

Go to the SMART tab, press the button Get SMART, a message will appear to the right of the button GOOD and S.M.A.R.T. will open. hard drive of our choice.

S.M.A.R.T.(from the English self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology) - an improved technology for self-monitoring, analysis and reporting of a hard drive developed in 1995 by the largest hard drive manufacturers.

In other words, friends, if you look at this window, you can find out what condition your hard drive is in.

Pay attention to the program Victoria highlighted in red (alarm!) the number 8 on the Raw value, the most important attribute for the health of the hard disk

5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), indicating the number of remapped sectors.

Note: the value of the Raw attribute is very important, read why .

In simple words, if the firmware built into the hard drive detects a bad sector (bad block), then it will reassign this sector as a sector from the backup track (the process is called remapping). But there are not an infinite number of spare sectors on the hard disk, and the program warns us that soon there will be nothing to reassign bad blocks, and this is fraught with data loss and we need to get ready to change the hard disk to a new one.

Looking ahead, I will say that in the next article we will try to heal this hard drive.

9 Power On time 14810, not highlighted in red, but I want to say that approaching the figure of 20,000 operating hours in most cases is associated with diseases and unstable hard drive operation.

Attributes are also highlighted:

196 Reallocation Event Count - 3 . The number of operations for reassigning bad blocks to sectors from backup tracks (remapping), both successful and unsuccessful operations are taken into account.

197 Current Pending Sector - 1 3. An indicator of the number of unstable sectors of real contenders for bad blocks. The hard disk firmware plans to replace these sectors in the future with sectors from the reserve area (remap), but there is still hope that in the future one of these sectors will be read well and will be excluded from the list of applicants.

198 Offline scan UNC sectors - 13 . The number of non-reassigned bads actually existing on the hard disk (possibly fixable having a logical structure - details later in the article).

199 UltraDMA CRC Errors - 63771. Errors that occur when transmitting information over external interface, the reason is a possibly twisted and poor-quality SATA cable and it needs to be replaced or a loose SATA connector on motherboard or on the hard drive itself. Or maybe the Winchester SATA interface 6 Gb / s is connected to the connector on the motherboard SATA 3 Gb / s, you need to reconnect.

S.M.A.R.T attributes and their meanings. It's very important to know!

Attribute values

Val - the current value of the attribute, it should be high (up to 255), if the value of Val is equal to the critical Tresh or even less than it, then this corresponds to an unsatisfactory assessment of the parameter. For example, in our case, on a WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 hard drive (500 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II), the Reallocated Sector Count attribute has the value Val-199 and the attribute Tresh(threshold) has a value of 140 , which is bad, but Val -199 is not yet equal to Tresh (threshold) 140 and we have time to copy data from this disk and retire it.

Wrst - the lowest value of the Val attribute for the entire time of the hard drive.

Tresh - the threshold value of the attribute, this value must be much lower than the value of Val (current value).

Raw - the "raw value" that will be converted to a value value the smaller this value, the better. An important indicator for evaluating the attribute , represents a real number, on the basis of which the Value value is formed, but exactly how the process of generating the Value value takes place is a proprietary secret of each hard drive manufacturer!

Decoding S.M.A.R.T.

Let's look at all the attributes of S.M.A.R.T, but I want to say that most often on "bad" hard drives, this Reallocated Sector Count attribute will be unsatisfactory. This is already a reason to be wary and test the surface of a hard drive or SSD (we will learn how to do this later in the article).

Friends, for an instant assessment of the health of the S.M.A.R.T hard drive, I use one more a simple program in Russian CrystalDiskInfo, be sure to download and install it yourself. In it, all the attributes are indicated in Russian!

http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

Select Shizuku Edition (exe).

In this window, you can select the language of the program Russian.

As you can see, CrystalDiskInfo directly indicates to us (confirming Victoria's fears) that on the WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 hard disk (capacity 500 GB) bad values ​​​​of the attributes responsible for Reassigned sectors, Unstable sectors, Uncorrectable sector errors, highlighting them in yellow and indicating those . hard drive status in one word "Alarm"

What does the S.M.A.R.T of a failed hard drive look like?

But S.M.A.R.T of a failed hard drive WDC WD500BPVT laptop, which was brought to me for repair.

Victoria from Windows. Pay attention to the attribute:

5 Reallocated Sector Count (reassigned sectors), it has a value of Val -133 , and the attribute Tresh (threshold) has a value of 140 , this is unsatisfactory, since the value of Val -133 should not be less than the threshold value Tresh (threshold) 140 , that is, the number of bad sectors will grow, and there is nothing to reassign them, the spare sectors on the backup tracks have already ended.

197 Current Pending Sector - the indicator of the number of unstable sectors of real contenders for bad blocks has exceeded all possible limits.

And most importantly, self-assessment SMART status=BAD (unfit).

Program CrystalDiskInfo(download link above). We see the same thing, the Reallocated Sector Count attribute has a value of Val (current) -133, and the Tresh attribute (threshold) has a value of 140, the program rated those hard disk states as Bad.

this laptop is terribly slow, data cannot be copied from it, Windows cannot be reinstalled, the hard drive periodically disappears from the BIOS, that is, such a hard drive must be replaced without hesitation, even ours Victoria will not be able to completely cure such a screw, since healthy sectors on the backup tracks are over and there is nothing to reassign bad sectors, and copying data from it will be a real adventure for a week (I will definitely write an article about this).

Looking ahead, I’ll say that the test of this screw in the Victoria program showed the presence of 500 unrecoverable bad sectors (bad blocks).

DOS - version of the program Victoria.

Note: To make life easier for you, some hard drive diagnostic programs map each attribute, good or bad, to an icon color.

Green - the attribute of the hard disk corresponds to normal.

Yellow - indicates a slight discrepancy with the standard and it is better not to store important data on this screw, if you have Windows on such a hard drive, transfer it to an SSD.

Red - indicates a significant discrepancy with the standard and the hard drive had to be changed yesterday.

S.M.A.R.T of the same hard drive WDC WD500BPVT in the program HDDScan

Attributes

001 Raw Read Error Rate- error rate when reading information from a disk

002 Spinup Time- time to spin up disks to working condition

003 Start/Stop Count-total number of starts/stops of the spindle.

005 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap) indicates the number of remapped sectors. If the firmware built into the hard disk detects a bad sector (bad block), then it will reassign this sector as a sector from the backup track (the process is called remapping). But there are not an infinite number of spare sectors on the hard disk, and the program warns us that soon there will be nothing to reassign bad blocks, and this is fraught with data loss and we need to get ready to change the hard disk to a new one

007 Seek Error Rate- the frequency of errors in positioning the block of heads, a constantly growing value, indicates an overheating of the hard drive and an unstable position in the basket, for example, it is poorly fixed.

009 Power-on Hours Count- the number of hours spent in the on state.

010 Spin Retry Count- the number of repeated spins of the disk to the operating speed if the first one fails.

012 Device Power Cycle Count-Number of complete disk on-off cycles

187 Reported Uncorrectable Error- Errors that the hard drive firmware could not recover using its own methods of fixing errors with hardware, the consequences of overheating and vibration.

189 High Fly Writes- the recording head was above the surface higher than necessary, which means that the magnetic field was insufficient for reliable recording of the media. The reason is vibration (shock).

For laptops, this figure is slightly higher.

190 Important parameters regarding temperature. It is important that the temperature does not rise above 45 degrees.

194 HDA Temperature- temperature of the mechanical part of the hard drive

195 Hardware ECC Recovered-number of bugs that were fixed by the hard drive itself.

196 Reallocation Event Count- The number of operations for reassigning bad blocks to sectors from backup tracks (remapping), both successful and unsuccessful operations are taken into account.

197 Current Pending Errors Count- unrecoverable sector errors, too important parameter, the number of sectors that are difficult to read and are very different from reading a normal sector. That is, the hard disk controller could not read these sectors the first time, usually soft bads belong to these sectors, they are also called software or logical bad blocks (sector logic error) - when writing to the user information sector, it is also written service information, namely the ECC sector checksum (Error Correction Code), it allows you to recover data if they were read with an error, but sometimes this code is not written, which means that the sum of user data in the sector does not match the ECC checksum. For example, this happens when the computer is suddenly turned off due to power failures, because of this, information was written to the hard disk sector, but there is no checksum.

• Logical bad blocks cannot be fixed by simple formatting, since when formatting, the hard disk controller will first try to read information from the bad sector, if it fails (in most cases), then no rewriting will occur and the bad block will remain bad block. You can correct the situation in the Victoria program, it will forcefully enter information into the sector (heal the sector), then read it, compare the ECC checksum and the bad block will become a normal sector. More details about all types of bad blocks in our article How to check a hard drive.

198 Offline scan UNC sectors- The number of unreassigned bads actually existing on the hard disk (possibly fixable having a logical structure - details later in the article).

198 Uncorrectable Errors Count- the number of uncorrected errors when accessing the sector, indicating surface defects.

Reported Uncorrectable Errors- shows the number of uncorrected bad sectors.

199 UltraDMA CRC Errors- the number of errors that occur when transmitting information via the external interface, the reason is a twisted and poor-quality SATA cable, it may need to be changed.

200 Write Error Rate- the frequency of errors that occur when writing to a hard drive, this indicator is usually used to judge the quality of the surface of the drive and its mechanical part.

202 Data Address Mark Errors- I haven’t seen a decryption anywhere, literally an address marker data error, it can mean something that only the manufacturer of this hard drive knows.

How to quickly check the hard drive or SSD for suitability for work?

Victoria

Hard drive surface test!

In the right part of the program window, check the Ignor item and the read item and click Start. This will run a simple hard disk surface test without error correction. This test will not bring any negative and positive effects on the hard drive, but at the end of the test you will know what condition your hard drive is in ..

The test results are excellent. Not a single block with a delay of more than 30 ms!

CrystalDiskInfo

SAMSUNG HD403LJ hard drive (372 GB) from a recent article

It had bad blocks and I had to transfer Windows 8 from it to an SSD, after a successful transfer, the owner (my classmate) gave me this screw and Victoria soon brought it back to life after "writing all over the clearing" (Write algorithm). The former owner refused to take the cured hard drive.

The test results are slightly worse. 3 blocks with a delay of more than 200 ms and 1 block with a delay of 600 ms (possibly a bad candidate).

Not quite serviceable hard drive MAXTOR STM3250310AS (250 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II) it is 8 years old (veteran) and it still works, though I save it, I store only files of unimportant data on it.

Although there are no obvious bads on it, we see that the attribute 5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), denoting the number of remapped sectors critical and soon there will be nothing to reassign bads.

9 Power on time - total number of hours worked by the hard drive 23668 , this is a lot, usually problems with hard drives begin after 20,000 hours of working.

Also, the unimportant attribute 199 UltraDMA CRC Errors - 63771, errors that occur when transmitting information via the external interface, the reason is a low-quality SATA cable and it needs to be replaced (this is not always the case).

The test results are even worse. 71 blocks with a delay of more than 200 ms and 1 block with a delay of 600 ms (possibly a candidate for bad).

HDD ST3200826AS(200 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA). The screw is about three years old and the flight is still normal.

Test results. 6 blocks with a delay of more than 200 ms.

New SSD SSD SPCC SSD162

At the end of the article, check out my oldest solid state SSD drive - ADATA S510 60GB (60GB SATA-III)

He is already in his third year, but he works perfectly, it's a pity that the volume is only 60 GB, but when I bought it there was no more, and it cost about two hundred bucks.

Let's move on to the next article.

In this article we will talk about the recovery of bad sectors hard drive and the reasons for their occurrence. Step by step instructions will help you prepare for this procedure and cope with it yourself.

What are bad sectors

Let's take a quick look at the structure of the hard drive. It consists of several separate disks, above which there are magnetic heads designed for reading and writing information. When storing data, the heads magnetize certain areas of the disk, divided into tracks and smaller components - sectors. It is in them that units of information are stored. If the sector becomes unreadable, it is called "broken".

There are several signs of this problem:

• squeaks, rattle, tapping during disk operation;
• heating of the HDD surface (in the normal state, this should not happen);
• frequent errors during operation and startup of the operating system.

Typical Causes

The main reasons for the appearance of broken hard drive segments are:

Also, failures in the hard drive may appear due to mechanical damage. They are often caused by dropping the hard drive or computer, resulting in damage to the magnetic surface (for example, during transportation). Non-working parts also appear due to factory defects. In this case, they may not appear immediately, but “crumble” over time, quickly increasing their number to a critical level.

Important! If you suspect mechanical damage or marriage, you should immediately contact a specialist or exchange the hard drive under warranty.

Recovery of bad HDD sectors using Victoria

If the appearance of broken segments is associated with software failures, then they can be restored using specialized software. One of such programs for recovering bad sectors of hdd is Victoria. The utility is available in two versions - for Windows and DOS. Recovery through DOS will be the most effective, since when the OS is running, some sectors may be occupied, which means they are not available for scanning.

Victoria HDD - diagnostic program

Scanning

To get started, we need to do a little preparation. First, you will need a disk with the program image recorded on it or a bootable USB flash drive. If everyone can handle recording an image, then creating a flash drive can be difficult.

Let's take a closer look at this step:

Note! The program takes up very little space, so after installing it, the drive can be used to store other information. In order not to accidentally delete the files necessary for the utility to work, it is recommended to allocate a separate folder for them.

Let's start the scanning process:

Here we need an item "Reallocated sector count", which displays the number of fragments in the reserve zone, as well as "Current pending sectors", where parts that cannot be read are displayed. If their number is not very high, then the disk is recoverable.

Hard drive recovery

Let's take a look at exactly how this process happens. Problem segments can be divided into two types. The first ones are not readable due to a mismatch between the information stored in them and its checksums.

This error occurs during power outages, when new data has already been written, but the checksums remain old. They simply cease to be recognized and are restored quite easily - by formatting them and recording the correct amounts.

The second type occurs as a result of mechanical damage. In this case, recovery is more difficult, but still possible. The resumption of operability of such parts is carried out through the use of spare areas that are on each hard drive.

Let's start recovering each of these types of errors.

Video: HDD - "treat" bad sectors

First, let's try to fix bad sectors by erasing the information stored in them:

• press F4 and get into the check menu;
• in the menu for selecting operations with unreadable sectors, specify "BB: Erase 256 sect" and press "Enter".

A long process of scanning and repairing bad sectors of the HDD will start. If the program finds a bad sector, it will try to erase it, thereby correcting the error. If a mechanical defect is present, an error will be reported. In any case, you need to wait complete completion checks and then separately fix sectors with physical malfunctions.

For this:

Now the recovery operation will work according to a different principle, trying not to erase bad sectors, but to replace them with space from the spare area.

Important! If there are a lot of such sectors, then the reserve space may run out. This will be reported special message, and further recovery will be impossible.

After successfully recovering bad sectors on the hard drive, it is recommended to perform a full scan file system for errors.

This can be done using the CHKDSK utility or in the following way:

Photo: checking the disk for errors

Attention! So that the system not only finds, but also fixes problems, before starting the scan, select "Automatically fix system errors».

The methods described above will help you easily deal with non-critical cases of problem sectors, find and fix them. By strictly following our instructions, any user will be able to do it on their own, even without a computer education. We hope that this information was helpful to you.

Even on the highest quality and most reliable HDDs, after some time after installation, bad sectors begin to appear in the PC. When the number of bad blocks becomes large, the hard drive stops working and needs to be replaced. However, often the hard drive can be restored using third-party software. This article will describe programs for treating a hard drive and provide instructions for working with them.

Broken sectors

HDD is recording user information on the magnetic disks. Their surface is divided into tracks and sectors. If it is not possible to extract data from a sector, then it is called bad or bad. Restoring bad blocks, although difficult, is quite realistic.

Remember that after treatment, information from the HDD should be copied to another drive, and over time, the hard drive should be replaced. If bad sectors began to appear on the hard drive, then even after the repair their distribution will not stop. Another failure of the device can happen at any time.

VictoriaHDD

VictoriaHDD - treatment program hard disk, is considered one of the most effective and absolutely free. The application runs in DOS mode, so it requires some preparatory actions. For starters, you should

• Download the VictoriaHDD utility image in ISO format.
• Also download the WinSetupFromUSB application and run it.
• From the drop-down menu, select the USB drive that will later become bootable.
• Check the box next to "Autoformat".
• Check the box "Linux ISO" and show the full path to the VictoriaHDD program image.
• Click on the "Go" button to start the file burning process.

BIOS settings

Since hard drive cure programs work in DOS mode, you need to run BIOS setup.

• Restart your computer.
• After power on, press the "DEL" or "F8" button several times to enter the "Setup BIOS" utility. On some devices, other keys are set to launch BIOS settings. To find out which one is responsible for entering the "Setup BIOS" on your computer, read the information at the bottom of the screen immediately after turning on the machine.
• Go to the "Main" section and find the item "SATA Mode". Press "ENTER" and select "IDE".
• In the field "First boot device» Set to USB.
• Press the "F10" key to save the settings changes.
• The computer will then restart.

Check and restore

If all the above actions are performed correctly, VictoriaHDD will start automatically after rebooting the PC. To start hard recovery disk:

• Press the key with the English letter "P" on the keyboard.
• In the menu that opens, select the port to which the HDD is connected. Today, almost all drives work through the “SATA” socket, so you need to set the switch to the “Ext PCI ATA / SATA” position.
• Press "F9", the screen will display information taken from the SMART table. Pay special attention to the "Current pending sectors" column. It is here that the number of sectors from which data is not read is indicated. Remember or write down this number.
• Press the "F4" key and start scanning in the "BB: Erase 256" mode. The utility will try to find all bad blocks and restore them. In this case, the information stored in them will be deleted.
• Reopen the SMART table and look at the number of bad sectors. If some of them could not be restored, it is worth scanning the HDD in another mode.
• Press the "F4" button and select "BB: Classic Remap". Now the application, when it finds a bad sector, will not restore it, but will mark it as non-working. This approach will stop the spread of bad blocks.
• When VictoriaHDD finishes checking, restart your PC.

Programs for treatment tools built into the OS

After scanning the drive with the VictoriaHDD utility, it is worth checking with the utility installed in the operating system by default.

• Open "My Computer".
• Right-click on the local disk icon.
• Go to the "Service" tab.
• Select "Perform verification".
• In the window that opens, check the box next to the inscription "Automatically correct errors."
• Click on the "Start" button and wait for the program to finish.
• Never turn off your PC until the verification process is complete.

HDD Regenerator

HDD Regenerator- free program to treat the hard drive. The main advantages of the utility include a friendly interface. Many users choose HDD Regenerator for this very reason.

• Close all applications and start HDD Regenerator.
• Open the "Recovery" menu and click on the inscription "Start processing".
• If a window with a warning about BIOS settings appears on the screen, click on the “No” button.
• Select the drive that needs to be treated.
• After that, a command line will open on the screen, where you will need to enter a number from 1 to 4.
• Type "2" and press "ENTER".
• The utility will ask you to specify where to start scanning. Just click on the "Enter" button.
• The application will scan the HDD and give you information about bad blocks.
• When the check is completed, enter "2", now the utility will not only check the hard drive, but also try to recover bad sectors.

It must be said that the program for the treatment of hard Windows disk 7 is very slow. Sometimes the process is delayed for 2-3 days. However, it really tries to restore the blocks' ability to store data, and does not just mark them as unused, which explains the long scan time.

MHDD

The functionality of MHDD is almost completely similar to VictoriaHDD. The application runs in DOS mode. With it, you can view the SMART table, diagnose and treat the hard drive. The program is not presented in Russian.

• Create a bootable flash drive, as for the VictoriaHDD utility.
• Perform BIOS setup and restart your computer.
• Press "F2" and select the device you want to work with.
• To scan the hard disk surface, type the word "SCAN" or use F4. The screen will display settings in which all destructive functions (erasing, deleting bad blocks) are disabled.
• Press "F4" again. Scanning will start, and the display will show a table in which the colors of the cells will change during the scan: white, gray, green - the sector is operational; yellow - there is a risk of damage; red - the block is damaged.

If there are bad blocks on the drive:

• Copy all information to another HDD.
• Enter the ERASE command, which will completely erase the data from each sector. This will get rid of soft-bad blocks.
• If this does not solve the problem, press the "F4" key and enable the REMAP option. Now the utility, like the programs built into Windows for treating a hard drive, will simply mark bad sectors, and they will no longer be used.

Often, while working on a laptop, the user notices that the whole system suddenly freezes, a buzzing is heard, and after a few seconds the heart of the computer starts working again. Five minutes later, the laptop freezes again and the user's heart stops with it.

In fact, this is not a laptop problem, it's a user's problem - to decide what is more important for him, saving battery power or keeping the disk safe. This vile thing - stopping the disk - was supposedly invented smart people..., but who do not care how quickly your hard drive is covered.

The fact is that when the laptop is running on battery, the energy saving profile is automatically enabled. It turns out that after five or ten minutes of inactivity, the hard drive stops and then starts spinning up again when the user resumes activity. For many people who are not even very nervous, this simply drives them into a panic. To be honest, here it is necessary to decide once and for all - a battery or a disk, energy saving or a healthy HDD.

Let's deal with this problem.

To do this, go to the menu Start > Control Panel > Performance and Hardware , and then select the component "Power supply".

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Unlike a desktop computer, either a standard tab will start Windows Power Options (with added items from the laptop manufacturer for more fine tuning all components), or the utility responsible for the power supply. In my Acer laptop, for example, this Acer ePower Management, included in the utility package Empowering Technology.

In the utility window that opens, select Disk Turn Off hard drive) and set the value not to five minutes after downtime, but as long as possible or even "never" ("never") . This means that the laptop hard drive will not turn off at all. This will help increase the life of the hard drive, reduce its wear. However, this will shorten the laptop's battery life.

What can be done here? If you went to some conference where there is nowhere to connect network adapter, that is the easy way out. Carry a fully charged spare battery with you.

Carrying a laptop.

Many users who need to change their location simply take a laptop and transfer it to another room without turning it off, and often even while some programs are running. Should not be doing that .

The best thing save all information, turn off the computer, and only after that transfer it and keep working. Because during the “move” there is a risk of hitting the shoulder on the door jamb, shaking the laptop and ruining the hard drive. It is not necessary that he will immediately take it and break, but this will be the first step towards failure.

By the way, if during startup on a black screen an inscription is displayed on English language, where it says that you need to replace the hard drive, it means that you read the article in time and your hard drive can still be saved. There is no need to panic.

If the computer starts to boot when you press the F1 key - all is not yet lost. It's just that some parameters of the disk have already been violated and someday it will be covered. It won't happen in forty-five seconds.

What needs to be done?

Firstly, make regular system backups and save your important information to any other media.

For inexperienced users, I note that you may have been taught to save information on drive D, in order to avoid losing it when reinstalling the operating system. But if the hard drive fails, this will not save . There is only one Winchester, and C and D are just logical partitions of one physical disk. That is, if S.M.A.R.T. gives you a message about an impending disk failure, then the hard drive will fly completely, not just one of its logical partitions. And you risk losing all data, both from drive C and from drive D.

So, based on the data from S.M.A.R.T., we have two options.

The first, as mentioned above, is to backup system and regularly upload information to external media. Best Option carrier is external hard drive.

The thing is as fragile as the internal one, so you need to handle it with the same care: do not drop it, do not pour sauces on it, disconnect it from the computer without pulling the cable out of the port, but through the dialog box Windows - "Safe Shutdown" (remember that in Windows XP and in Windows Vista the icon of this service is different, but its essence is the same).

The second way out is to replace the hard drive . If it is not yet possible, then you have to choose option number one. The main thing is not to panic.

How to extend the life of the hard drive

In order to extend the life of your hard drive, you need to regularly check the logical drive on which the OS is installed for presence of errors.

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This is done simply.

Entering "My computer", in the properties of the disk, select the tab "Service" and click on the button "Perform check".

In the window that opens, be sure to check the boxes "Automatically fix system errors" and "Check for and repair bad sectors" . Then press "Launch". Further agree so that the check will be performed on the next reboot.

Keep in mind, the procedure is long, takes about half an hour and requires a system reboot. Subsequently, it makes sense to check other partitions of the disk. This program Windows is good at dealing with minor damage, but not with situations where the OS reports that the hard drive is damaged and needs to be replaced (as described above).

However, it is possible to call this command from command line and then she begins to literally work miracles.

So let's press "Start" > "Run..." > chkdsk /f /r > "OK" (In Windows Vista there is no "Run..." option by default - open the Start panel customization menu and add it).

And what is it - chkdsk /f /r ? Chkdsk- this is a command to check disks for errors (to remember, remember the English chek disk - only without spaces and vowels) /f /r is a command to fix damage in any areas, correct data without asking the user.

In the vast majority of cases, the hard drive will be cured . If not, then for deeper treatment it is worth using utilities from the hard drive manufacturer. By the way, the first sign that there are bad sections on the hard drive is when the defragmentation breaks off in the middle.

So, we figured out the hard drive. Let me remind you the most important thing:

• do not move the computer directly during operation;
• if your laptop often runs on battery, you should change the settings in the Power Options component;
• be sure to regularly check the disk for errors.

There is nothing complicated about this, and if you do not forget about these conditions, then the hard drive will serve you faithfully for quite a long time.