Testing a Windows 7 hard drive. Download the latest version of CrystalDiskInfo in Russian

Perhaps the most important component of a PC is the hard drive (HDD), since it contains all the information created by the user. Of course, any HDD needs timely maintenance, namely checking for errors and bad sectors, in order to avoid the loss of important information.

A “bad sector” is an unreadable sector on a hard drive. It can be natural: the factory state of some sectors of any hard drive, an inevitable manufacturing defect, or acquired - a successful power failure, a shock, a leak. Few people are interested in the appearance of bad sectors one by one; this is a routine that SMART successfully grinds up.
The emergence of interest in bad sectors is usually associated with the fact that you have a partially or completely unreadable disk. From this point of view, the classification is simple:

1. Broken sectors are permanent, for example, those associated with surface damage - something that cannot be restored.
2. Broken sectors are temporary, associated with non-fatal errors in logic, which is what you can try to pull out; strictly speaking, the question of the operability of the restored sectors remains open.

The number of bad sectors on the disk can be:

• Constant within normal limits (live hdd). No action required.
• Constantly above normal (usually the consequences of a blow). Sometimes it can be done with manual intervention.
• Growing (crumbled due to age or design). Requires urgent replacement of the hard drive.

Reasons for the appearance of a bad HDD sector

To put it simply, the modern hard drive is a product of the evolution of the gramophone. The record spins, the head reads the record sector by sector, the control unit glues files from the read pieces. The head hovers above the surface of the plate, and when it stops, it falls. There are readable and unreadable sectors on the tracks; a sector itself is the minimum part of the track, Wikipedia will confirm.

This model is sufficient to demonstrate the main problems:

1. Damage to the surface of the disk—mechanical contact of the plate with the head—may cause the disk to shed, or may remain a fixed area.
2. A partial change in the surface properties (magnetization) of a sector (a typical reanimated sector) can be extended by referring to neighboring sectors.
3. Various logic errors, SMART arbitrariness, fs errors (everything corrects itself during operation and based on the results of self-diagnosis).
4. Shedding of the magnetic layer from the surface is known as a sign of old age, but may be a consequence of loss of tightness.

Contrary to popular belief, a blow to the case of a working HDD is not as bad as vibration. The head is held above the surface by such cunning magic that touching the surface requires a significant force, which is unlikely to occur upon impact, but is easily achieved by resonance.

How to check a disk for bad sectors and errors

It is worth remembering that the disk is checked for reading, checking sectors for writing will erase everything that was on the disk! Well, it’s also worth keeping in mind that for a proper test, the disk must be free from other tasks at the time of testing. Checking a hard drive for bad sectors is not a common task; Windows does everything that is necessary automatically.

Windows has long had a utility that checks and corrects hard drive errors, chkdsk. You can find the utility in the disk properties, the button is called “check disk”.
Any self-respecting manufacturer, when releasing a disk, puts on the website a diagnostic utility that not only monitors the condition of the HDD, but can also carry out service actions designed to alleviate its suffering, sometimes even including calibration. Checking hard disk sectors is a must for this class of programs.

In addition, there is a zoo of diagnostic, repair, “professional” tools, in which the devil himself would break his leg for a long time. And quite a large number of truly professional programs for analysis and repair. It is worth noting that most of them are destructive, that is, with their help you can kill a working hard drive in a way that not every master can restore.

Programs for checking your hard drive for bad sectors

For those who do not believe in chkdsk, graphical programs for checking the hard drive, or rather more or less gentle tools that do not punish for the wrong key, are HDD Regenerator, HDD Health. Graphical utilities show a health graph, tell you what parameters are being tested and, importantly, have adequately labeled buttons that make it easy to understand the program. Linux users are less fortunate; most utilities are console-based and require an understanding of the parameters.
Among the utilities from the manufacturer, it is worth remembering Seagate SeaTools - a convenient, powerful program, all its power is manifested only on native hard drives, but checking hard drive sectors is also available for “outsiders”

Checking HDD using Windows 7 and 10

Checking your hard drive for errors using Windows always involves running chkdsk in recovery mode. This launch can be done using the button in the disk properties.
“My Computer” -> “Properties” -> “Tools” → “disk check” “Run check”.

Or, if the button is missing, this occurs in some editions of Windows 10, this check can be easily launched from the command line as an administrator using the command
chkdsk c: /f where c: is the letter of the drive being checked. Checking the hdd for bad sectors in the case of a system partition will begin after a reboot, since checking requires exclusive access to the disk.

You should not run this command often, but the check window that appears at every boot is the reason for the question: “how to check a hard drive for errors” and the answer to this question, since it is usually associated with disk problems.

What to do if you detect bad sectors on your hard drive

Not so long ago, hard drives were released on which it was possible to manually reassign sectors, and this is why many people are convinced that formatting from Bios cures all illnesses. But alas, now calibration is so complicated that it is carried out once at the manufacturer. It should also be understood that most changes in surface condition are irreversible and nothing can be restored. It can often be reassigned without loss of capacity, although it all depends on the condition of the “patient”.

Options for hard drive states and subsequent actions:

• The disk is working, works well, is stable, the percentage of bad ones is not growing - make a backup, forget that there are bad sectors on it and enjoy life.
• The disk is basically working, the number of bad sectors is not growing, but when accessing a certain area there are problems - try to divide it into partitions without affecting the problem area, save for a new one.
• The disk is not working, strong brakes, smart and BIOS warnings - change the hard drive.

Programs for recovering HDD drives

Victoria and Mhdd, any of these programs allows you to conduct a complete diagnosis and save the drive from many problems. They are launched from DOS and require careful study of the manual before starting, as they can irreversibly destroy the data or logic of the hard drive! In general, do not start without knowing what you are doing, especially since such hard drive maintenance has long been entrusted to the shoulders of the controller and in most cases he copes with it. If it's not broken, don't fix it; this old advice is most relevant when it comes to the broken sector.

3 more useful articles:

Many users of computers, smartphones, cameras, cameras and other electronic devices have at one time encountered…

Hard disk (HDD) is the most important element of a computer on which all the necessary information, programs and user files are stored. Like any other component, over time the hard drive wears out, its normal operation is disrupted, and failures begin to occur. Along with physical wear and tear, which leads to the appearance of so-called bad sectors (bad blocks), logical errors associated with the file system, indexes and the main file table often arise.

For the time being, you may not observe any problems with your hard drive, but this does not guarantee that one day the hard drive will not die. Therefore, it is important to periodically (once or twice a year) check your hard drive for errors and bad sectors that require repair. Regular monitoring will allow you to track the condition of the media and respond in a timely manner to changes in its condition. Of course, you should not neglect such a proven method of protecting information as backup. The most valuable data must be duplicated on a backup storage device.

Symptoms of a failing hard drive

In most cases, HDDs operate smoothly for several years without requiring special attention. However, in case of improper operation (physical impact, lack of proper cooling), the resource of the storage medium is significantly reduced. In rare situations, there may be a manufacturing defect or sudden failure.

Failures in the hard drive may be indicated by loading the operating system for too long, the unreasonable disappearance of files and folders, and slow startup of applications. Obvious symptoms of a hard drive losing its functionality are slowdowns in programs and long periods of copying files. If the computer constantly hangs, and nothing but restarting helps, then in the process of identifying the causes, checking the hard drive should be the first point.

Using standard Windows 7/10 tools

You can test the media using standard Windows tools. The easiest way is to select the desired hard drive in Explorer, right-click on it and go to the “Service” tab.

Next, click the “Run scan” button and set the scan parameters in the window that opens. If both checkboxes are checked, Windows will automatically correct all system errors and restore damaged sectors during diagnostics.

The results of the audit can be found in the report.

Command line

You can also audit your hard drive using the utility chkdsk called from the command line. In fact, such a check will not differ much from the above option.

So, launch the command line by selecting the required Start menu item. Then enter the command in the window: chkdsk G: /f /r

• G – name of the hard drive being tested (select the drive you will check);
• f – error checking and correction;
• r – detection and recovery of bad sectors.

All information about errors and bad sectors found will be displayed as the diagnostics are carried out.

Third-party programs for checking your hard drive

There are many programs and utilities for finding bad sectors and fixing HDD errors. We will list only the most famous ones.

Victoria

Perhaps the most popular hard drive checking tool. The program can be launched both in Windows and in DOS mode from a bootable USB flash drive.

The interface provides five tabs: Standard, SMART, Tests, Advanced and Setup. First of all, go to the section Standard, where in the list of devices we select the hard drive we are interested in. The Drive passport area will display basic information about the HDD.

Next, select the tab SMART and press the “Get SMART” button. SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analisys and Reporting Technology) is a hard drive self-monitoring technology. Those. The hard drive monitors its operation during operation, recording information on a set of parameters that allows one to assess the condition of the media. It is this service information that we are trying to obtain.

After clicking “Get SMART”, either the inscription GOOD on a green background or the inscription BAD! will appear to the right of the button. on red. The second option will indicate that the media is in unsatisfactory condition and will most likely have to be replaced. For a more detailed study of SMART statistics, let's pay attention to the list of parameters on the left. Here we are primarily interested in the attribute 5 Reallocated sector count, indicating the number of sectors remapped. If there are too many of them, then the disk has begun to “crumble,” that is, its surface is rapidly degrading and it is urgent to make a copy of all data. In this case, there is no point in restoring the hard drive.

Chapter Tests makes it possible to check the hard drive for bad sectors, as well as try to “cure” or reassign unreadable blocks. For simple testing of the hard drive, set the switch to Ignore and start the test with the Start button. Sector health is assessed by measuring response time. The smaller it is, the better. Each response time range has its own color code. The slowest blocks are marked in green, orange and red. Sectors that could not be read at all are marked in blue. If there are a large number of “slow” and unreadable blocks, the hard drive should be replaced.

The Victoria program allows you to restore bad sectors, but we will not consider all the nuances of the procedure. Moreover, “treatment” often contributes only to a slight extension of the service life of the storage medium. To reassign bad blocks, perform a check with the mode enabled Remap. If the restoration was successful, do not rush to rejoice. Re-diagnostics of the disk after a certain period of operation. The appearance of new bad blocks will indicate that the degradation of the hard drive is irreversible, and it’s time to find a replacement.

HDDScan

This is another handy program for identifying hard drive problems. After launching the application, select the drive that needs to be checked in the Select Drive list.

Below we click on the “S.M.A.R.T.” button and get acquainted with the provided report.

Now let's diagnose the disk surface. Click on the round button to the right of the drop-down list of media and select Surface Tests in the menu that opens.

Click on the Add Test button, thereby adding a test to the list and starting its execution.

You can receive information about the progress of testing in Graph, Map, and Report modes. All blocks are also distributed into groups with corresponding color markings depending on access time.

At the end, a final report is generated.

Perhaps this is all we wanted to tell you about the methods of checking a computer’s hard drive for functionality. We hope the information provided will be useful to you and help you save important data.

Today we’ll talk about such an important computer component as the hard drive.

Sometimes users complain about the slow operation of the system, its frequent freezes, the appearance of blue screens of death BSOD, system errors, missing or damaged files and/or directories, etc., not suspecting that the problem is not at all in buggy Windows, clumsy drivers or viruses.

The problem is the hard drive, which is slowly starting to crumble. This is where a program for checking your hard drive comes in handy.

To understand the further content of the article, first consider the principle of operation of a hard drive.

In addition to error detection, there is also a function to automatically correct them and restore the ability to read and write to the hard drive.

In addition to diagnosing hard drives, the tool can also be used to diagnose removable media (USB, SD cards, etc.).

Before checking the disk, close all programs and applications.

Click Start, write “My Computer” in the program search field, and select the item found by the system. In the central window we see a list of hard drives.

Right-click on the hard drive you want to check and select “Properties”.

Go to the “Service” tab and click the “Run check” button, in the window that opens, check the “Automatically correct system errors” checkbox and click the “Run” button.

For initial diagnostics, these settings are quite sufficient.

For more detailed diagnostics, you need to check another box in the “Scan and repair bad sectors” field.

In this mode, verification may take longer than in the previous one.

If the disk you select is a system one, i.e. an operating system is installed on it, it is impossible to perform a check at this point in time, because When checking, the disk must be disconnected.

In this case, the system will display a warning window and prompt you to perform a scan before the next Windows startup (“Disk Check Schedule”).

If the disk you select is not the system one, there is no need to restart the computer; before checking, the system will prompt you to disconnect it.

You must click “Disable” in the appropriate window, after which the scan will begin.

After the check is completed, we will see a window with its results.

The presence of bad sectors is the first sign that after some time the hard drive will fail.

Therefore, to avoid losing valuable information, we recommend that you do not waste time and immediately copy all valuable data to another physical hard drive.

Review of third-party programs for checking drives

To diagnose a hard drive, there are quite a large number of different utilities of varying functionality and convenience with free or paid types of licensing.

MHDD- a fast, free, compact program for working with low-level drives developed in 2000 by Dmitry Postrigan.

The program is aimed at professionals and has an ascetic DOS interface.

In addition to diagnostics, the program can read/write arbitrary sectors, manage the SMART and password system, noise management system, perform extreme testing, work with the drive’s password system, etc.

Before working with the program, in order to avoid damage to the equipment being diagnosed, the developer strongly recommends that you read the documentation for the program available on the official website.

Advantages:

Free;

Compact;

Fast.

Flaws:

Works exclusively under DOS so is not suitable for beginners;

Has relatively complex settings;

English interface language.

HDDExpert- a free utility whose operating principle is to convert SMART information of drives into data convenient for user perception and analysis.

The program provides complete information about computer hard drives (performance, errors, warnings, temperature) and has the ability to test their performance.

Despite the lack of Russian language support, the program has a simple interface that even a beginner can understand.

The program's capabilities are limited by the parameters of SMART technology, so you can't count on serious diagnostics and testing.

Advantages:

Has a simple interface.

Flaws:

Suitable for primary, shallow diagnostics;

Victoria. For testing hard drives, as well as for eliminating some problems, in 99% of cases the Victoria program is suitable.

It was developed by Belarusian programmer Sergei Kazansky, is absolutely free, has a small size (up to 1 MB) and works with hard drives at the port level, i.e. at the lowest level, which allows achieving high performance qualities.

Due to these characteristics, service center specialists prefer to use the program.

In addition to more complex tasks, the program allows you to perform a number of tasks for the average PC user:

• perform low-level testing,
• determine the average access time,
• control the noise level,
• erase information without the possibility of subsequent recovery and much more.

Among other things, the program can work in Windows and DOS environments.

DOS mode is relevant when the operating system cannot be loaded and it is necessary to check the hard drive.

Advantages:

Free;

Compact;

Has a wide range of functions;

Works in MS DOS and MS Windows;

Has a simple interface.

Flaws:

The project is not being developed and some of the widely used versions of the utility have an English interface and do not support work in 64-bit operating systems.

The problem is solved by downloading alternative versions of the program created by the community.

Hard drive testing program: Victoria

Let's briefly look at the basic steps for checking a hard drive using the Windows version of the Victoria program. Download the program and run it.

We select a disk for the test and make sure that the choice is correct.

Go to the SMART tab and perform SMART testing of the disk by clicking the “GET SMART” button. After testing, we pay attention to the following indicators:

Status - in our case GOOD - everything is in order with the hard drive.

Reallocated sector count - number of bad sectors. If this value is greater than zero, then the hard disk has bad clusters that have been replaced with backup ones.

HDA Temperature - hard drive temperature. Temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius can cause hard drives to fail quickly.

We go to the “Tests” tab, in which we will test the surface of the hard drive.

In the appropriate fields you can specify the starting and ending sectors of the test; this option will allow you to perform selective testing of the hard drive.

Note! If you select the write mode, all data on the hard drive will be lost.

We indicate what the program should do if bad sectors are detected - ignore (ignore, leave unchanged), erase (delete), remap (replace a bad sector with a good one) and restore (perform restoration).

To start, press the “Start” button. During the test, we have access to information about the number of sectors tested in quantitative and percentage terms.

The presence of red sectors or sectors marked Err X indicates the presence of sectors in which the system can write something, but not read it - hence the problem with accessing some files and directories.

Sectors marked in orange may become bad sectors after some time, so if the number of orange and/or Err X sectors is high, you should think about replacing the hard drive.

Victoria - checking and fixing bad sectors of the HDD (hard drive)

Hard drive testing program: how to diagnose an error?

Sooner or later (it’s better, of course, if early) any user asks himself the question of how long the hard drive installed on his computer will last and whether it’s time to look for a replacement. There is nothing surprising in this, since hard drives, due to their design features, are the least reliable among computer components. At the same time, it is on the HDD that most users store the lion's share of a wide variety of information: documents, pictures, various software, etc., as a result of which an unexpected failure of the disk is always a tragedy. Of course, it is often possible to restore information on apparently “dead” hard drives, but it is possible that this operation will cost you a pretty penny, and will cost you a lot of nerves. Therefore, it is much more effective to try to prevent data loss.
How? It’s very simple... Firstly, do not forget about regular data backups, and secondly, monitor the condition of the disks using specialized utilities. We will consider several programs of this kind from the perspective of the tasks being solved in this article.

Control of SMART parameters and temperature

All modern HDDs and even solid state drives (SSDs) support S.M.A.R.T technology. ( from English Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology), which was developed by major hard drive manufacturers to increase the reliability of their products. This technology is based on continuous monitoring and assessment of the condition of the hard drive using built-in self-diagnosis equipment (special sensors), and its main purpose is the timely detection of possible drive failure.

Real-time HDD status monitoring

A number of information and diagnostic solutions for diagnosing and testing hardware, as well as special monitoring utilities, use S.M.A.R.T technology. to monitor the current status of various vital parameters that describe the reliability and performance of hard drives. They read the relevant parameters directly from the sensors and thermal sensors that all modern hard drives are equipped with, analyze the received data and display them in the form of a short tabular report with a list of attributes. At the same time, some utilities (Hard Drive Inspector, HDDlife, Crystal Disk Info, etc.) are not limited to displaying a table of attributes (the meanings of which are incomprehensible to untrained users) and additionally display brief information about the state of the disk in a more understandable form.

Diagnosing the condition of a hard drive using this kind of utility is as easy as shelling pears - just read the brief basic information about installed HDDs: basic data about drives in Hard Drive Inspector, a certain conditional percentage of hard drive health in HDDlife, and the “Technical Condition” indicator in Crystal Disk Info ( Fig. 1), etc. Any of these programs provides the minimum necessary information about each of the HDDs installed on the computer: data about the hard drive model, its volume, operating temperature, operating time, as well as the level of reliability and performance. This information makes it possible to draw certain conclusions about the performance of the media.

Rice. 1. Brief information about the “health” of the working HDD

You should configure the monitoring utility to launch simultaneously with the start of the operating system, adjust the time interval between checks of S.M.A.R.T. attributes, and also enable the display of the temperature and “health level” of hard drives in the system tray. After this, to monitor the status of the disks, the user will only need to glance from time to time at the indicator in the system tray, where brief information about the state of the drives available in the system will be displayed: their “health” level and temperature (Fig. 2). By the way, operating temperature is no less important an indicator than a conditional indicator of the health of the HDD, because hard drives can suddenly fail due to simple overheating. Therefore, if the hard drive heats up above 50 °C, then it would be wiser to provide it with additional cooling.

Rice. 2.Display HDD Status
in the system tray with the HDDlife program

It is worth noting that a number of such utilities provide integration with Windows Explorer, due to which a green icon is displayed on the icons of local drives if they are working properly, and if problems arise, the icon turns red. So you are unlikely to forget about the health of your hard drives. With such constant monitoring, you will not be able to miss the moment when some problems begin to arise with the disk, because if the utility detects critical changes in S.M.A.R.T. attributes. and/or temperature, it will carefully notify the user about this (with a message on the screen, a sound message, etc. - Fig. 3). Thanks to this, it will be possible to copy data from the dangerous media in advance.

Rice. 3. Example of a message about the need to immediately replace the disk

Using S.M.A.R.T. monitoring solutions in practice to monitor the status of hard drives is completely easy, because all such utilities work in the background and require a minimum of hardware resources, so their functioning will in no way interfere with the main workflow.

Control of S.M.A.R.T. attributes

Advanced users, of course, are unlikely to limit themselves to assessing the condition of hard drives by viewing a brief verdict from one of the utilities presented above. This is understandable, because according to the decoding of the S.M.A.R.T. attributes. You can identify the cause of failures and, if necessary, take precautionary measures. True, to independently control S.M.A.R.T. attributes, you will need to at least briefly become familiar with S.M.A.R.T technology.

Hard drives that support this technology include intelligent self-diagnostic procedures so they can “report” their current status. This diagnostic information is provided as a collection of attributes, that is, specific characteristics of the hard drive used to analyze its performance and reliability.

B O Most of the important attributes have the same meaning for drives from all manufacturers. The values ​​of these attributes during normal disk operation may vary within certain intervals. For any parameter, the manufacturer has determined a certain minimum safe value that cannot be exceeded under normal operating conditions. Unambiguously determine critically important and critically unimportant S.M.A.R.T parameters for diagnostics. problematic. Each of the attributes has its own information value and indicates one or another aspect of the work of the medium. However, first of all you should pay attention to the following attributes:

• Raw Read Error Rate - the frequency of errors in reading data from the disk caused by the fault of the equipment;
• Spin Up Time - average time for spinning up the disk spindle;
• Reallocated Sector Count - number of sector reassignment operations;
• Seek Error Rate - frequency of occurrence of positioning errors;
• Spin Retry Count - the number of repeated attempts to spin up disks to operating speed if the first attempt fails;
• Current Pending Sector Count - the number of unstable sectors (that is, sectors awaiting the reassignment procedure);
• Offline Scan Uncorrectable Count - the total number of uncorrected errors during sector read/write operations.

Typically S.M.A.R.T. attributes are displayed in tabular form indicating the attribute name (Attribute), its identifier (ID) and three values: current (Value), minimum threshold (Threshold) and the lowest attribute value for the entire operating time of the drive (Worst), as well as the absolute value of the attribute (Raw). Each attribute has a current value, which can be any number from 1 to 100, 200, or 253 (there are no general standards for upper bounds on attribute values). The Value and Worst values ​​for a completely new hard drive are the same (Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Attributes of S.M.A.R.T. with a new HDD

Shown in Fig. 4 information allows us to conclude that for a theoretically serviceable hard drive, the current (Value) and worst (Worst) values ​​should be as close as possible to each other, and the Raw value for most parameters (with the exception of the parameters: Power-On Time, HDA Temperature and some others ) should approach zero. The current value may change over time, which in most cases reflects deterioration of the hard drive parameters described by the attribute. This can be seen in Fig. 5, which presents fragments of the S.M.A.R.T attribute table. for the same disk - data were obtained with an interval of six months. As you can see, in the more recent version of S.M.A.R.T. the frequency of errors when reading data from the disk (Raw Read Error Rate), the origin of which is determined by the hardware of the disk, and the frequency of errors when positioning the magnetic head unit (Seek Error Rate) have increased, which may indicate overheating of the hard drive and its unstable position in the basket . If the current value of any attribute approaches or becomes less than the threshold value, then the hard drive is considered unreliable and should be replaced urgently. For example, a drop in the value of the Spin-Up Time attribute (average spin-up time of the disk spindle) below a critical value, as a rule, indicates complete wear of the mechanics, as a result of which the disk is no longer able to maintain the rotation speed specified by the manufacturer. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the condition of the HDD and periodically (for example, once every 2-3 months) carry out S.M.A.R.T diagnostics. and save the received information in a text file. In the future, these data can be compared with current ones and certain conclusions can be drawn about the development of the situation.

Rice. 5. S.M.A.R.T. attribute tables obtained at six-month intervals
(more recent version of S.M.A.R.T. below)

When viewing S.M.A.R.T. attributes, you should first of all pay attention to critical parameters, as well as parameters highlighted by indicators other than the base color (usually blue or green). Depending on the current state of the attribute in the S.M.A.R.T. utility output. in the table it is usually marked in one color or another, which makes it easier to understand the situation. In particular, in the Hard Drive Inspector program, the color indicator can have green, yellow-green, yellow, orange or red - green and yellow-green colors indicate that everything is normal (the attribute value has not changed or changed insignificantly), and yellow, orange and red colors signal danger (the worst color is red, which indicates that the attribute value has reached its critical value). If any of the critical parameters are marked with a red icon, then you need to urgently replace the hard drive.

In the Hard Drive Inspector program, let's look at the table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes of the same drive, which we briefly assessed using monitoring utilities earlier. From Fig. 6 it can be seen that the values ​​of all attributes are normal and all parameters are marked in green. The HDDlife and Crystal Disk Info utilities will show a similar picture. True, more professional solutions for analyzing and diagnosing HDDs are not so loyal and often mark S.M.A.R.T. attributes more meticulously. For example, such well-known utilities as HD Tune Pro and HDD Scan, in our case, were suspicious of the UltraDMA CRC Errors attribute, which displays the number of errors that occur when transmitting information over the external interface (Fig. 7). The cause of such errors is usually associated with a twisted and poor-quality SATA cable, which may need to be replaced.

Rice. 6. Table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes obtained in the Hard Drive Inspector program

Rice. 7. Results of assessing the state of S.M.A.R.T. attributes
HD Tune Pro and HDD Scan utilities

For comparison, let’s take a look at the S.M.A.R.T. attributes of a very ancient, but still working HDD with periodically arising problems. It did not inspire confidence in the Crystal Disk Info program - in the “Technical Condition” indicator, the disk condition was rated as alarming, and the Reallocated Sector Count attribute was highlighted in yellow (Fig. 8). This is a very important attribute from the point of view of the “health” of the disk, indicating the number of sectors reassigned when the disk detects a read/write error; during this operation, data from the damaged sector is transferred to the reserve area. The yellow color of the indicator for the parameter indicates that there are few remaining spare sectors with which to replace the bad ones, and soon there will be nothing to reassign the newly appearing bad sectors. Let's also check how more serious solutions assess the condition of the disk, for example, the HDDScan utility widely used by professionals - but here we see exactly the same result (Fig. 9).

Rice. 8. Assessing a problematic hard drive in CrystalDiskInfo

Rice. 9. Results of S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics of HDD in HDDScan

This means that it’s clearly not worth delaying the replacement of such a hard drive, although it may still serve for some time, although, of course, you cannot install an operating system on this hard drive. It is worth noting that if there are a large number of reassigned sectors, the read/write speed drops (due to the unnecessary movements that the magnetic head has to make), and the disk begins to noticeably slow down.

Scanning the surface for bad sectors

Unfortunately, in practice, monitoring SMART parameters and temperature alone is not enough. If the slightest evidence appears that something is wrong with the disk (in the case of periodic program freezes, for example, when saving results, reading error messages appear, etc.), it is necessary to scan the disk surface for the presence of unreadable sectors. To carry out such a media check, you can use, for example, the HD Tune Pro and HDDScan utilities or diagnostic utilities from hard drive manufacturers, however, these utilities only work with their own hard drive models, and therefore we will not consider them.

When using such solutions, there is a risk of damaging data on the scanned disk. On the one hand, if the drive really turns out to be faulty, anything can happen to the information on the disk during scanning. On the other hand, we cannot exclude incorrect actions on the part of the user who mistakenly starts scanning in write mode, during which data from the hard drive is erased sector by sector with a certain signature, and based on the speed of this process, a conclusion is drawn about the state of the hard drive. Therefore, compliance with certain precautionary rules is absolutely necessary: ​​before launching the utility, you need to create a backup copy of the information and during the test, act strictly according to the instructions of the developer of the relevant software. To get more accurate results, before scanning, it is better to close all active applications and unload possible background processes. In addition, you should keep in mind that if you need to test the system HDD, you need to boot from a flash drive and start the scanning process from it, or completely remove the hard drive and connect it to another computer from which you can start testing the disk.

As an example, using HD Tune Pro, we will check the surface of the HDD for bad sectors, which did not inspire confidence in the Crystal Disk Info utility above. In this program, to start the scanning process, just select the desired disk, activate the tab Error Scan and click on the button Start. After this, the utility will begin sequential scanning of the disk, reading sector by sector and marking sectors on the disk map with multi-colored squares. The color of the squares, depending on the situation, can be green (normal sectors) or red (bad blocks) or will have some shade intermediate between these colors. As we see from Fig. 10, in our case the utility did not find full-fledged bad blocks, but nevertheless there is a significant number of sectors with one or another read delay (judging by their color). In addition to this, in the middle part of the disk there is a small block of sectors, the color of which is close to red - these sectors have not yet been recognized as bad by the utility, but they are already close to this and will move into the bad category in the very near future.

Rice. 10. Scanning the surface for bad sectors in HD Tune Pro

Testing a media for bad sectors in the HDDScan program is more difficult and even more dangerous, since if the mode is incorrectly selected, the information on the disk will be irretrievably lost. The first step to start scanning is to create a new task by clicking on the button New Task and selecting the command from the list Suface Tests. Then you need to make sure that the mode is selected Read- this mode is installed by default and when used, the hard disk surface is tested by reading (that is, without deleting data). After this press the button Add Test(Fig. 11) and double-click on the created task RD-Read. Now in the window that opens you can observe the disk scanning process on a graph (Graph) or on a map (Map) - fig. 12. Upon completion of the process, we will get approximately the same results as those demonstrated above by the HD Tune Pro utility, but with a clearer interpretation: there are no bad sectors (they are marked in blue), but there are three sectors with a response time of more than 500 ms (marked in red color), which pose a real danger. As for the six orange sectors (response time from 150 to 500 ms), this can be considered within normal limits, since such a response delay is often caused by temporary interference in the form, for example, of running background programs.

Rice. 11. Running disk testing in HDDScan program

Rice. 12. Results of disk scanning in Read mode using HDDScan

In addition, it should be noted that if there are a small number of bad blocks, you can try to improve the condition of the hard drive by removing bad sectors by scanning the disk surface in linear recording mode (Erase) using the HDDScan program. After such an operation, the disk can still be used for some time, but, of course, not as a system disk. However, you should not hope for a miracle, since the HDD has already begun to crumble, and there are no guarantees that in the near future the number of defects will not increase and the drive will not completely fail.

Programs for S.M.A.R.T. monitoring and HDD testing

HD Tune Pro 5.00 and HD Tune 2.55

Developer: EFD Software

Distribution size: HD Tune Pro - 1.5 MB; HD Tune - 628 KB

Work under control: Windows XP/Server 2003/Vista/7

Distribution method: HD Tune Pro - shareware (15-day demo version); HD Tune - freeware (http://www.hdtune.com/download.html)

Price: HD Tune Pro - $34.95; HD Tune - free (for non-commercial use only)

HD Tune is a convenient utility for diagnosing and testing HDD/SSD (see table), as well as memory cards, USB drives and a number of other data storage devices. The program displays detailed information about the drive (firmware version, serial number, disk capacity, buffer size and data transfer mode) and allows you to set the device status using S.M.A.R.T data. and temperature monitoring. In addition, it can be used to test the disk surface for errors and evaluate the device's performance by running a series of tests (sequential and random data read/write speed tests, file performance test, cache test and a number of Extra tests). The utility can also be used to configure AAM and securely delete data. The program is presented in two editions: commercial HD Tune Pro and free lightweight HD Tune. In the HD Tune edition, you can only view detailed information about the disk and the S.M.A.R.T. attribute table, as well as scan the disk for errors and test for speed in read mode (Low level benchmark - read).

The Health tab is responsible for monitoring S.M.A.R.T. attributes in the program - data from sensors is read after a set period of time, the results are displayed in a table. For any attribute, you can view the history of its changes in numerical form and on a graph. Monitoring data is automatically recorded in the log, but no user notifications are provided for critical changes in parameters.

As for scanning the disk surface for bad sectors, the tab is responsible for this operation Error Scan. Scanning can be quick (Quick scan) and deep - with a quick scan, not the entire disk is scanned, but only some part of it (the scanning area is determined through the Start and End fields). Damaged sectors are displayed on the disk map as red blocks.

HDDScan 3.3

Developer: Artem Rubtsov

Distribution size: 3.64 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000(SP4)/XP(SP2/SP3)/Server 2003/Vista/7

Distribution method: freeware (http://hddscan.com/download/HDDScan-3.3.zip)

Price: for free

HDDScan is a utility for low-level diagnostics of hard drives, solid-state drives and Flash drives with a USB interface. The main purpose of this program is to test disks for the presence of bad blocks and bad sectors. The utility can also be used to view the contents of S.M.A.R.T., monitor temperature and change some hard drive settings: noise management (AAM), power management (APM), forced start/stop of the drive spindle, etc. The program works without installation and can be launched from portable media, for example flash drives.

HDDScan displays S.M.A.R.T. attributes and temperature monitoring on demand. S.M.A.R.T report contains information about the performance and “health” of the drive in the form of a standard attribute table; the temperature of the drive is displayed in the system tray and in a special information window. Reports can be printed or saved as an MHT file. S.M.A.R.T. tests are possible.

The disk surface is checked in one of four modes: Verify (linear verification mode), Read (linear reading), Erase (linear writing) and Butterfly Read (Butterfly reading mode). To check a disk for the presence of bad blocks, a test in Read mode is usually used, which tests the surface without deleting data (the conclusion about the condition of the drive is made based on the speed of sector-by-sector data reading). When testing in linear recording mode (Erase), the information on the disk is overwritten, but this test can somewhat heal the disk, ridding it of bad sectors. In any of the modes, you can test the entire disk or a specific fragment of it (the scanning area is determined by indicating the initial and final logical sectors - Start LBA and End LBA, respectively). Test results are presented in the form of a report (Report tab) and displayed on a Graph and a disk map (Map), indicating, among other things, the number of bad sectors (Bads) and sectors whose response time during testing took more than 500 ms (marked in red ).

Hard Drive Inspector 4.13

Developer: AltrixSoft

Distribution size: 2.64 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/7

Distribution method: shareware (14-day demo version - http://www.altrixsoft.com/ru/download/)

Price: Hard Drive Inspector Professional - 600 rub.; Hard Drive Inspector for Notebooks - 800 rub.

Hard Drive Inspector is a convenient solution for S.M.A.R.T. monitoring of external and internal HDDs. Currently, the program is offered on the market in two editions: the basic Hard Drive Inspector Professional and the portable Hard Drive Inspector for Notebooks; the latter includes all the functionality of the Professional version, and at the same time takes into account the specifics of monitoring laptop hard drives. Theoretically, there is also an SSD version, but it is distributed only in OEM supplies.

The program provides automatic checking of S.M.A.R.T. attributes at specified intervals and, upon completion, issues its verdict on the condition of the drive, displaying the values ​​of certain conditional indicators: “reliability”, “performance” and “no errors” along with a numerical temperature value and a temperature diagram. Technical data about the disk model, its capacity, total free space and operating time in hours (days) is also provided. In advanced mode, you can view information about disk parameters (buffer size, firmware name, etc.) and the S.M.A.R.T attribute table. There are various options for informing the user in case of critical changes on the disk. Additionally, the utility can be used to reduce the noise level produced by hard drives and reduce HDD power consumption.

HDDlife 4.0

Developer: BinarySense Ltd

Distribution size: 8.45 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7/8

Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version - http://hddlife.ru/rus/downloads.html)

Price: HDDLife - free; HDDLife Pro - 300 rub.; HDDlife for Notebooks - 500 rub.

HDDLife is a simple utility designed to monitor the status of hard drives and SSDs (from version 4.0). The program is presented in three editions: free HDDLife and two commercial ones - basic HDDLife Pro and portable HDDlife for Notebooks.

The utility monitors S.M.A.R.T. attributes and temperature at specified intervals and, based on the analysis results, issues a compact report on the condition of the disk indicating technical data about the disk model and its capacity, operating time, temperature, and also displays the conditional percentage of its health and performance, which allows Even beginners can navigate the situation. More experienced users can additionally look at the table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes. In case of problems with the hard drive, it is possible to configure notifications; You can configure the program so that if the disk is in normal condition, the scan results are not displayed. It is possible to control the HDD noise level and power consumption.

CrystalDiskInfo 5.4.2

Developer: Hiyohiyo

Distribution size: 1.79 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/2012

Distribution method: freeware (http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html)

Price: for free

CrystalDiskInfo is a simple utility for S.M.A.R.T. monitoring of the status of hard drives (including many external HDDs) and SSDs. Despite being free, the program has all the necessary functionality to monitor the status of disks.

Disk monitoring is performed automatically after a specified number of minutes or on demand. At the end of the test, the temperature of the monitored devices is displayed in the system tray; detailed information about the HDD indicating the values ​​of S.M.A.R.T. parameters, temperature and the program’s verdict on the state of the devices is available in the main window of the utility. There is functionality for setting threshold values ​​for some parameters and automatically notifying the user if they are exceeded. Noise level management (AAM) and power management (APM) are possible.

Unfortunately, a considerable part of modern HDDs work normally for a little more than a year, then various kinds of problems begin, which over time can lead to data loss. This prospect can be completely avoided if you carefully monitor the condition of the hard drive, for example, using the utilities discussed in the article. However, you should also not forget about regular backup of valuable data, since monitoring utilities, as a rule, successfully predict disk failure due to mechanical faults (according to Seagate statistics, about 60% of HDDs fail due to mechanical components), but they are not able to predict the death of a drive due to problems with the electronic components of the disk.

The data structure on the hard disk may be damaged. This happens for various reasons, but the most common are: program crashes and freezes while writing to disk.

A slightly damaged disk, in general, will not lose its functionality, but over time, if there are more faults, it may lose this very functionality.

And it’s also important that the surface of the disk can be susceptible to various defects - some area can no longer be read, and as a result, all the accumulated information can disappear in an instant. If this is the case, it is necessary to act and take measures.

Program for checking your hard drive - HDD Scan

HDD Scan is a very convenient tool that allows you to test your hard drive, as well as make a statistical report on the work done.

Since the application does not require installation, the Windows registry keys remain untouched. You can also place HDD Scan on an external device and directly run it on any computer.

The main advantages of the HDD Scan program:

1. Control over the noise characteristics of the hard drive;
2. Stopping and starting the spindle motor;
3. Information about S.M.A.R.T.;
4. Three modes for checking the disk surface: Verify, Read, Erase.

On the popular website Softpedia, this utility received 5 out of 5 stars, which is a “bold” plus of the program.

http://www.softportal.com/get-4740-hddscan.html

A few words about the interface HDD Scan programs.

After we unpack the archive with the program and run the HDDScan.exe application, the utility will automatically determine what model our hard drive has, serial number, LBA (number of available physical sectors) and Firmware (firmware version):

In the drop-down menu, which is located in the Select Drive section, select the hard drive with which the program will work.

There are only two buttons in this program: the S.M.A.R.T. button. In short and clearly, SMART is a technology for assessing the condition of a hard drive, as well as a mechanism for predicting the likelihood of hard drive failure:

So, when I clicked this button, the utility produced the following:

Let's describe the columns of this table:

1. Num - attribute number.
2. Attribute name — attribute name.
3. Value—attribute value. This value ranges from 1 to 255. The higher the attribute value, the better.
4. Worst - shows the worst attribute value (low) for the entire existence of the hard drive.
5. RAW(hex) is a hexadecimal number system (the exception is temperature, since the program indicates it in degrees Celsius).
6. Treshold—threshold or acceptable value of the attribute. Used to compare with the Value attribute.

Now let's move on to the color scheme, which means green and others:

• Green color is an attribute in normal state.
• Yellow color (or as in my picture - an exclamation mark) - the attribute is deviated from the norm.
• Red color - the attribute is strongly deviated from the normal state.

As you can see, my 199th attribute is deviated from the norm. But what does the attribute name: UltraDMA CRC Errors mean?

On a data recovery website, I found the following information: UltraDMA CRC Errors are an error in transmitting information in a mode such as UDMA.

As it turns out, this problem can be fixed. It’s just that my interface cable may be twisted unsightly, as shown in the figure below:

The program has one more button that will help us carry out a complete test of the hard drive:

For example, you can find out the temperature of your hard drive by simply clicking on Temperature Monitor. Then an entry will appear in the Test Manager tab, clicking on which will display a widget with the temperature of the hard drive. We can even change the intensity of the color scheme by adding or diluting it with transparency:

At any time, any of the tasks can be stopped or deleted. To do this, we right-click on the desired task and select the required item:

Now you can get down to more serious things. Let's check the surface of the disk.

These test options are found in the Surface Tests section.

Start LBA and End LBA are the sectors from which the scan begins and stops. If you need to check the entire hard drive, this parameter does not need to be changed.

Command - a choice similar to checking the hard drive (Verify - verification, Read - reading sectors, and Erase - writing zeros to all sectors). Selecting an option such as Erase results in the complete loss of all recorded data on the disk! So be very careful!

Start and Stop - start and stop the scan.

Block size — number of sectors in one block. At the very beginning - 256 sectors (it is not recommended to change the value).

When checking a disk, the past time (Process time), the current sector, called Current LBA, and the read speed (Kbytes/s) are always indicated.

If we go to Map, we will find a map of our disk. The most important thing is the colors of the blocks. The blue square shows bad sectors. Also on the right side we will find the number of sectors with access time from 500 to 5 milliseconds. The fewer slowing squares found, the better.

By the way, if we turn off the Disable map dynamic update checkbox, then checking the sectors will be available to us in real time:

To summarize, we can say that HDD Scan is a very powerful and at the same time simple program for checking your hard drive.

2. Ashampoo HDD Control 2

This is an excellent utility that will tell you all the intricacies of the hard drive in a simpler user interface. The only significant drawback is that the program is paid.

Main advantages Ashampoo HDD Control 2 programs:

1. Constant monitoring of the hard drive (or drives);
2. The user interface has been expanded. Tips and information about the health, performance and temperature of the hard drive;
3. Support for external USB and solid-state drives (SSD) has been significantly expanded;
4. Supports SMART;
5. Adjusts the noise level and manages the energy consumption of the hard drive (however, if this function is supported on the hard drive);
6. Recovering deleted data;
7. Fully automated hard drive defragmentation;
8. Online search for results obtained as a result of testing your hard drive model.

You can download the program here: http://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/dld/0165/Ashampoo-HDD-Control-2/

3.Crystal DiskInfo

Another program for checking your hard drive. The program's interface is more user-friendly than HDD Scan, but there are no advanced settings or additional testing tools. It is perfect for ordinary users. Because blue and white will tell you about the condition of the hard drive. This will happen immediately after installing and launching the program.

You can download the program here: http://www.softportal.com/get-6420-crystaldiskinfo.html

As you can see, the choice of software for servicing hard drives is very rich. Here I have considered only those that I counted the best programs to check your hard drive to date. Read, test and choose the best one.