How to check a removable hard drive for serviceability. Programs for checking the hard disk for bad sectors

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What is the check for?

It is necessary to check the operation of the internal storage medium then:

1. When you bought a new hard drive for your PC.
2. If the computer is not working properly. This can be: loss of folders and files, lengthy copying and transfer of files from one storage location of the hard drive to another, frequent freezing of applications.
3. If noisy occurs when working with a computer.

The internal memory storage is checked by means of special programs. The most effective of them are scanning utilities - HDD Scan and Victoria. The first program is able to check the hard disk in full and give a result, which will indicate the assessment of the state of all storage media:

• IDE / SATA / SCSI;
• USB / Firewire (external drives);
• RAID arrays;
• flash cards.

HDD Scan will tell you the series and firmware number of the hard drive installed on the PC. The utility is able to scan and find flaws and damages on the internal memory of your PC. Also, HDD Scan will determine how full the hard drive resource is.

How to check a hard disk for operability with the HDD Scan program is available to every student to know. This is the easiest way to identify damage to the hard drive. You need to download the program to your computer and download the check. The utility offers a simple menu that requires no further explanation.

You can download the program by clicking on the "Download Version" button. After downloading the utility to your computer, unzip the files. Now go to the program folder by launching the executable file. This program does not require mandatory installation, and the file with the multifunctional utility takes up scanty space on the hard disk.

Method for diagnosing and cleaning the hard drive (Victoria)

In the process of using the hard disk of a computer, their performance characteristics are lost over time. In this regard, so-called "beaten sectors" can form on hard drives.

This process foreshadows the aging of the internal storage resource and is relentless. These problems are characterized by reduced performance of the hard drive and loss of information from the disk. Having identified the problem, it is necessary to solve it.

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Most of the older hard drives contain erroneous entries, etc. ... Some of them lead to dire consequences; when it happens to your hard drive is a matter of time.

Windows OS offers tools for finding errors on HDD, however, they are not intended for diagnostics and testing. We invite you to familiarize yourself with much more effective tools.

So how can you check your hard drive for errors? Here is a list of recommended programs:

HDD Regenerator - a program for testing hard drives and treating bad sectors

HDD Regenerator is a utility for checking the hard drive, a professional tool for diagnosing, finding and fixing errors. The word "Regenerator" clarifies: the program is not only capable of detecting possible malfunctions, structure errors and bad sectors, but is also suitable for correcting them.

HDD Regenerator interface

HDD Regenerator is a program for checking the hard drive and fixing errors. It can also be used as a complete tool for. If the information is not readable, regeneration will allow you to bypass bad blocks and read problem files.

In order to determine the state of the HDD, you need to pass a special test. Additional information can be retrieved. There is a corresponding toolkit in HDD Regenerator.

Other features of the program:

• FAT and NTFS file systems are supported, but the system type does not matter for testing
• Display of detailed statistics on the work and state of the hard disk
• Creating a bootable regenerating flash drive or CD / DVD-disk based on HDD Regenerator
• Prescan mode: fast diagnostics of the hard disk (surface scan)
• Real-time HDD monitoring
• Data security: the program works in read mode (except for overwriting bad sectors)

The cost of the PRO version of HDD Regenerator is $ 79.99 / year. There is a free trial version that allows you to recover 1 bad sector for free.

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test (WinDFT) - a program for testing and checking the health of the hard drive

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test is a program for diagnosing the hard drive and finding read errors. The utility allows you to quickly check the status of internal and external hard drives with support for G-Technology.

Seagate Seatools for Windows: Drive Health Testing

Seatools from Seagate is a free HDD diagnostic tool for Windows and DOS. The utility will allow you to identify some problems on the HDD before contacting the warranty service for disk repair (In our reality, instead of repairing, you will be offered to replace the device, as a result of which you will lose all saved data).

Note... The program is not compatible with all HDD models, it is relevant only for hard drives from Seagate.

Problems that the program can detect:

• Violation of the structure of the HDD file system
• Bad sectors and read errors
• Windows driver errors and system problems
• Hardware incompatibility
• Damaged Windows Boot Loader (MBR) on disk
• The presence of viruses, keyloggers or other malicious applications

Seatools works as follows: the user selects tests for diagnostics, runs them - as a result, he receives a detailed report. If the test passes, the PASS mark will be displayed, otherwise FAIL. Please note that HDD testing can take up to 4 hours. In order to save time, you can choose one of three test modes.

Also Seagate Seatools can be used to "cure" a hard drive. That is, the program is able to detect bad blocks and try to recover or overwrite with zeros (this method allows you to later ignore problem blocks when reading / writing the disk structure).

HDD Health program: check disk and read SMART attributes

HDD Health is another free hard drive testing and health monitoring program. The utility checks the hard disk for errors (SSD / HDD) and makes a prediction (Health indicator as a percentage).

Pre-check disk for errors using baseline SMART. HDD Health interface

The following information is displayed in the main window of the program:

• manufacturer, model, firmware version
• current temperature of HDD (SSD) (accessible via notification area)
• general condition of the disk structure
• other attributes (via the Extended info menu)

Like other diagnostic tools, HDD Health reads S.M.A.R.T scores, which allows you to clarify the current hardware performance. There are no other tools for calculating errors or checking for bad blocks in the program.

HDD Health 4.2: Checking SSD Status

Thus, the HDD Health toolkit will be useful to those for whom S.M.A.R.T.-indicators are enough to check the state of the hard disk (and if the state of the device is not critical). Fortunately, the latest HDD / SSD disks feature S.M.A.R.T. implemented.

HDDScan - a program for checking a hard drive for bad sectors

HDDScan is a free program for hard drive diagnostics, reading S.M.A.R.T. and other parameters. After testing, you will receive a detailed log file detailing the state of the disk.

HDDScan supports various types of storage devices:

• RAID arrays
• HDD drives with IDE / SATA interface
• SATA / ATA SSD
• USB sticks

Let's note the most useful functions of HDDScan:

• Checking the hard disk for errors that are not detected by standard Windows utilities: bad blocks and bad sectors
• Hard Disk Test (Read / Clean)
• Temperature check for all hard drives connected to the PC
• Export any information as a custom report

CHKDSK - Windows utility for checking errors and fixing bad blocks

You can check your hard drive for errors without installing third-party programs. The Windows operating system allows you to do this through the Check Disk utility.

The CHKDSK utility dates back to DOS. It not only looks for, but also fixes basic file system errors. It should be clarified that it is not designed to search for all types of errors and is not a diagnostic tool for HDD.

However, using CHKDSK, you can fix errors on various storage devices: not only on the hard drive, but also on a USB flash drive and on an sd card. Starting with Windows NT, it fixes bad blocks (physically bad sectors) by marking them appropriately. Subsequently, these areas are bypassed by other programs when reading / writing.

HDDLife - a program for monitoring the state of the hard disk

Typically, the heart of a computer is the processor or motherboard. But they serve faithfully for several years, and then a hard drive suddenly fails. In terms of the amount of loss, no component can be compared with it.

The hard drive is the computer memory, which, of course, needs to be protected. In order to prevent sudden loss of data, you need to regularly back up data to another HDD or storage media. However, if you want to anticipate the failure of a hard drive in advance, you need to determine its current state. The HDDLife program will help you with this.

HDDLife has several very useful features. First of all - monitoring the state of the hard disk. HDD health is shown as a colored bar. If everything is in order, the scale is green, if the disk has worked a decent amount of time, the color is yellow. The red scale is already a signal of a pre-emergency state: the hard disk has worked and is ready to retire. In this case, it is better not to risk it and replace the component promptly. In the pro version of HDDLife, you can configure notification about the pre-emergency state of hard drives by email. If there are a lot of computers on the network, then the diagnostic option will come in handy. Also, the status graph informs how long the disk has worked. This is worth paying attention to, especially if you are buying a used disc or just want to make sure it is new.

The second important section is the display of the disk temperature. Any electronics works, or rather wears out faster at elevated temperatures. And too high a temperature, as a rule, leads to disastrous consequences. If the indicator text is green, then everything is in order and the disk is in good thermal conditions. Otherwise, you need to buy special cooling or check the ventilation of the slot in which the disk is located. On some HDDs, the program allows you to adjust the noise level and performance. This is done using a slider that determines the ratio between the characteristics. Either this is a special version for a laptop, or a limitation of the trial version - however, the option was not available for us. Some of HDDLife's features are not unique: the available space indicator, for example. If there is not enough space on the partitions, a familiar warning is displayed. Free space control is there in Windows, as in almost any OS, so the message is more annoying than informing.

The program is distributed in three versions: free, HDDLife Professional and HDDLife for Notebooks. Differences can be found on the page http://www.hddlife.ru/rus/compare.html.

Answers to readers' questions

I often resort to system restore due to a crash. Often hangs, processor overload is constant, has already removed unnecessary programs. I closed all background programs as best I could. Experts say that it is necessary to change the hard disk, they say, there are many damaged (broken) sectors. I want to try this program for checking sectors. How do I check my hard drive for errors?

Answer... Indeed, if the problems described by you in the question are observed, checking the hard disk for bad sectors will not hurt. At a minimum, we advise you to scan the drive using applications such as HDD Regenerator and Victoria. You can find out how to check the hard disk for bad sectors directly in the documentation. Whether it is worth it or not, the wording is not very correct. You should check the HDD for errors regularly if the data is of at least minimal value to you.

Letter. A difficult question for the site administrator and a request to answer in simple language, so that it would be understandable to a simple user.

How to check a hard drive for performance, and most importantly, is it possible to remove bad sectors from the hard disk or what is their name-bad-blocks, which, as it turned out, are of several types:
- physical (crumbling magnetic layer of working plates, chips, etc.),
- logical (sector logic errors), logical bad blocks, can also be attributed software bad, that is, soft-bads (file system errors).
Before writing to you, I understood this issue for a long time and realized that the average user knows superficial and inaccurate information, namely: many believe that all bad sectors or bad blocks are removed by normal formatting, but this is not the case. It turns out that it’s impossible to remove physical badges at all, but logical bad blocks only with the help of special programs and only software bad blocks or soft bads (file system errors) can be removed using usual Windows tools, for example, using or regular formatting. Why am I all this.

I recently had to contact a service center about the strange behavior of my computer. First, there were periodic freezes, lasting for several seconds, and sometimes for good, you had to restart the computer with the Reset button. Occasionally, strange clicks and squeaks were heard from the hard drive. Strange folders without names were found in the system. The simple process of copying a file from one partition of the hard drive to another took an awfully long time. Also, the operating system often checked the hard disk for errors when turning on the computer, and the last time it issued BOOTMGR is missing on a black screen, this error was restored using the installation disk of the seven, but a day later, when booting, the computer just gave a black screen, I thought that's enough and contacted the service center.

At the service center, a technician checked my hard drive with the free HDDScan program.

Unfortunately, the master did not explain anything when checking, he showed me only after checking the presence of 12 bad blocks (English bad sector, bad block, bad sectors-damaged) marked in blue by the program. Another 90 sectors were marked in red, they were not bad blocks yet, but their response time was not good, more than 500 ms.

The wizard also showed me the SMART of my hard disk and recognized it as not very good, since the most important parameter of Reallocated Sector Count is the number of reassigned sectors (when the disk detects a read / write error, the sector is marked “reassigned”, and data from the bad sector or in other words, the physical bad block is transferred to the spare area), is almost critical, it is responsible for physical defects of the hard disk that can no longer be fixed.

Another parameter, Current Pending Errors Count, which is responsible for the number of sectors, the reading of which is difficult and very different from reading a normal sector, was also marked in yellow, which indicated its poor condition. The expert advice was as follows - Transfer all important data from the hard disk and "heal" it in this HDDScan program, but since there are a lot of bad blocks, most likely, all of them will not be able to be fixed and the operating system will no longer be installed on it. then you need to use this hard drive as a file storage or, as they say, a file garbage can, only this way, it will live for some more time.

I listened to the master and left the Winchester in the service for "treatment" until the evening, and in the evening I was shown the result.

Not a single bad sector (bad block), but there were 12. The number of sectors with a response time of more than 500 ms, became less (it was 90, and now it is 23),

one of the critical indicators of S.M.A.R.T - 197 Current Pending Errors Count-responsible, as I said, for the number of sectors, the reading of which is difficult, became normal, the parameter 198 Uncorrectable Errors Count- the number of uncorrected errors when accessing the sector also became within the normal range, but the most important indicator of Reallocated Sector Count, according to him, has not changed and remained unsatisfactory, so the conclusion is this: the operating system cannot be installed on this hard disk.

And now I have a question for you, explain in detail, how to check the hard drive for aptitude on my own, how to determine how many bad sectors I have and what are they? How to use programs like HDDScan, and most importantly, how to get rid of bad blocks with it. What exactly does the program do with the hard drive, relieving it of bad blocks, and how long will this hard disk treatment help? Is it possible to install an operating system on this hard disk or not? And the last question, the unrecoverable S.M.A.R.T parameter - Reallocated Sector Count can still be fixed, and is it really unrecoverable physical problems, many forums on the Internet say that there are proprietary utilities of hard drive manufacturers that can perform low-level formatting at home. Alexander Anatolyevich. Tomsk.

Friends, they say brevity - a sister of talent, a friend of mine, after reading this question, answered it like this:- "You can't fix a scratch with anything, but the software bad is treated with zero."

The topic is not easy, but relevant, the article is long, but I tried to make it understandable for a simple user. To make everything easier to understand, I propose to check the MAXTOR STM3250310AS hard drive installed in the computer that was brought to our service for repair with the free HDDScan program. The operating system installed on the hard disk freezes from time to time, refuses to boot, showing various errors or just a black screen. The hard drive creaks and clicks (I'll explain why below). Reinstalling Windows did not help the case and the owners of the computer do not know what to do.

so how to check the status of a hard disk? This can be done using various tests in the HDDScan program, first we will check the S.M.A.R.T indicators of this hard drive, then we will test the surface of the hard drive, we will find no less than 63 bad sectors and our program will fix them all, another question is for how long (read below).

• But first, there is a very brief information about how the hard drive works, if you do not make this digression, you simply will not understand the principle of operation of the HDDScan program and other similar programs, all the more you will not understand what SMART is, as well as bad sectors (bad blocks) and why some of them cannot be fixed.

The hard disk is made of aluminum or glass plates coated with a layer of ferromagnetic material. A hard disk is primarily a device that works on the principle of magnetic recording. Magnetic heads that read, write or erase information from a hard disk hover above its surface at a height of 10-12 nm and never touch the surface of a magnetic disk, which is easily damaged.

• At the final stage of production of the hard drive, low-level formatting, that is, tracks are applied to the working plates of the hard disk, each track is divided into sectors. Also, special magnetic servo marks are applied to the magnetic surface of the hard disk, they are needed to accurately hit the magnetic head of the hard disk on the tracks of the hard disk. The smallest unit of information on a hard disk is a sector, the amount available to the user is 512 bytes of data. Low-level formatting in the life of a hard disk happens only once friends and only on special and very expensive factory equipment - called Servowriter. Information recorded using this format will never be overwritten. Friends in no service, such formatting cannot be done. Therefore, my answer to the question whether it is possible to carry out low-level formatting by means of the operating system will be the answer - no, it is impossible. Low-level formatting can only be done in the factory, it even destroys tracks, sectors and magnetic servo marks. For example, in the program, Victoria erases all information on the hard disk by filling all sectors with zeros, this cannot be called low-level formatting, but it cannot be called formatting, it is something in between. After the Write mode, all sectors of the hard disk are filled with zeros and do not contain any errors and it can be formatted into the file system using Windows tools.
• At the factory, only service information is recorded in the sectors ( servo service, for example, the physical address of the sector and the address marker that determines the beginning of the sector), this information can be called markup, it is needed for the normal operation of the hard disk, this is information about the numbers of tracks and sectors necessary for the error-free hit of the heads on these tracks and sectors when reading information recorded in them.
  After purchasing a hard disk, user data will also later be written to this area (for example, the first sector of the hard disk will contain the MBR master boot record), but user data can be written and erased, in contrast to service information, which has much higher magnetization, which is why the read-write heads of the drive can't erase it.

All service information about track and sector numbers will be stored in a special table located in a service area, which is a mini-operating system, which is closed and inaccessible to OS and BIOS tools, together with the Firmware they control the operation of the hard disk. Sometimes they ask the question - Do I sometimes need to update the firmware of the hard drive, the answer is no, modern hard drives do not need to be updated. Also, this service area will store the disk passport, the values ​​of the SMART attributes, as well as a defect table with information about irrecoverable or reassigned bad sectors (bad blocks).
So we got to the physical, logical and software bad sectors with you.

The fact is, friends, if the operating system is having problems reading data from any sector, then the hard drive controller makes several additional attempts to read the data, if they are also unsuccessful, this sector is recognized as bad, then the information is written to the normal sector , located on the backup track, and the problem sector is recognized as bad and taken out of circulation, this is called (Remapping, in the common people, remap).

• Friends, whether to remap or not, only the hard disk controller decides during operation, and not any programs for working with the hard drive (Victoria, MHDD). These programs can only hint with their tests (for example, Advanced REMAP in the Victoria program - an improved algorithm for hiding bad blocks) to the hard drive controller that a remap needs to be done.

The fact of recognizing a sector as bad is entered into the defects table with information about unrecoverable or reassigned bad sectors located in the service area.

By the way, there are two defect tables, one is the initial P-list (Primary-list), created after the final factory tests, any hard disk friends already have several reassigned bad blocks upon leaving the factory. Well, the growing table of defects G-list (Grown-list), is filled with the use of the hard disk already by us.

What are the bad sectors and how to fix them?

• Physical bad sectors are mechanical defects in the magnetic coating of the hard disk surface (crumbling magnetic layer of working plates, chips, etc.). That is, the sector structure itself is physically faulty, undoubtedly such a bad block must be reassigned by the normal sector from the backup track. Very often this happens due to an impact, caused for example by a hard disk falling to the floor, mechanical damage to the magnetic coating of the hard disk, damage to the magnetic heads, the same can happen due to overheating. Vibration of the hard disk is also dangerous if it is not securely fixed. A dusty room, smoking, in spite of the filter installed in the hard disk, also play a huge role in the formation of bad blocks, tobacco tar and dust adhere to the surface of the hard disk and interfere with the reading of information.
• Physical bad blocks are impossible no formatting can be fixed, you can only reassign the spare sectors from the backup tracks, of course, because of this, the performance will decrease somewhat, since the magnetic head of the hard drive will have to make many additional movements, looking for information on the reassigned sectors from the backup tracks.

Why does the hard drive creak and clicks sometimes when working

When the operating system encounters a bad sector, the hard disk controller makes several attempts to read information from it, while clicks and squeaks can be produced by the hard disk head positioner.

Also, the reason for the clicks and squeaks of the hard drive may be the following reason. When reassigning a bad sector to a normal one from a backup track (which is not always nearby), the magnetic head naturally has to change direction, as many say to jump from side to side.

The third reason is that, as I said above, when making a hard disk, a special marking of the magnetic surface of hard drives is made with special servo tags, servo data is used to accurately position the magnetic head on the tracks of the hard drive, it is with the help of servo tags that the magnetic head of the hard drive moves correctly. Sometimes the servo tags are destroyed for the same reasons that physical bad blocks are formed and the magnetic head cannot take and hold the position it needs, while clicks and creaks are heard from the hard disk.

• Logic bad blocks(sector logic errors), in turn are divided into correctable and incorrigible... In which case logical bad block cannot be fixed? As I said above, in addition to user information, each sector also carries service information (servo information, for example, the physical address of the sector and the address marker that determines the beginning of the sector), in simple words, the markup with which the magnetic head of the hard drive enters the desired sector tracks, such markup applied by low-level formatting at the factory during the manufacture of the hard drive. This information is almost impossible to delete since it is highly magnetized, but under certain circumstances, similar to the reasons for the appearance of physical bad blocks (shock, vibration, bearing play, etc.), this information is violated and can only be restored in the factory. Yes, there are special proprietary utilities that overwrite service information, but due to the complexity of their use, this issue is difficult even for narrow specialists and we will not consider it.
• Logic bad blockswhich can be fixed... When writing to the user information sector, a portion of service information is additionally recorded, the so-called ECC sector checksum (Error Correction Code-Error Correction Code), this code allows you to recover data if it was read with an error. But sometimes this code is not recorded, and accordingly the sum of user data in the sector does not coincide with the ECC checksum. One of the simple examples of why this happens is a sudden shutdown of the computer due to power outages, because of this, information was written to the hard disk sector, but the checksum was not. The next time the operating system will turn to this sector and try to read data from it, but they will not match the ECC checksum, an attempt will be made to read the data again and again unsuccessfully (here you have freezes and a bad block).
• Software bad blocks(file system errors - for example, an incorrectly marked sector belonging to two files) can be removed by means of the operating system - more reliably by ordinary formatting.

You will say that all this is good and understandable, but how to get rid of bad blocks, can transfer data from the hard drive and format it in the operating system installation program?

When formatting in all ways available to the operating system, the same attempt will be made to read information from the bad sector, then compare them with the ECC checksum, but it does not match, which means that incorrect information will not be overwritten and the bad sector will remain bad even after formatting. So it turns out that you need a special program, for example, MHDD or HDDScan, which will not read anything, but simply forcibly overwrite, usually fill the bad sector with zeros, and then it will read the written record and compare the checksum, after which the sector will return to work.

For example, the HDDScan program has the Erase function -Test in the linear recording mode (sector-by-sector data erasure), carefully all your data will be deleted. Unfortunately, without deleting the data, nothing will work, therefore, before this test, they must be transferred to another storage medium.

And it is best to completely remove your hard drive and connect it to another computer that has the HDDScan program, then run the Erase test and check your entire hard drive. You don't have to remove anything, burn bootable disks with MHDD or Victoria programs, boot from them and run these programs with the Advanced remap function, but we will do this in other articles.

Now friends go directly to working with the HDDScan program, with the help of this program, we will see the full picture of what is happening with our hard drive, namely, we will recognize the S.M.A.R.T of our hard drive and decrypt it, also set the number of bad sectors and, of course, try to fix them.
We read the article further.

Despite the fact that recently solid-state drives have been more and more confidently conquering the niche of the main memory module in computers and laptops, their market share is not that great. The good old mechanical hard drives are much cheaper and are still popular today. However, they have the ability to fail just like any other technique. This article is devoted to the question of how to check a hard drive for serviceability at home without resorting to the help of service centers. Moreover, here will be given options, thanks to which it will be possible to restore the functionality of a partially damaged hard drive.

A little about the hard drive itself

The classic hard disk of a laptop or computer is a few so-called "pancakes" with a ferrimagnetic coating, on which information is written with the help of heads, and with their help it is read. These discs rotate at high speeds ranging from 5400 to 10,000 rpm. For comparison - the same rotational speed of the industrial cutting tool, in the common people referred to as "grinder". Impressive?

It is during rotation that reading or writing occurs. But if the hard drive is hit or pushed during operation, the heads can make an almost imperceptible scratch on the surface. And although it is small, the clusters in this area become unreadable, and the computer tries to access them again and again. As a result, after unsuccessful attempts to read information, it freezes. How can I check my disk for such areas?

Victoria testing program

One of the popular hard drive testing utilities is Victoria. Although it can be run from under the operating system, today we will learn how to check the hard drive for serviceability through the BIOS. The website of the manufacturer of this utility has information on how to make a bootable disk or a USB flash drive with it. In the BIOS of a laptop or computer, you must set the boot from removable media, after which, after turning on your device with the connected bootable media, you will see the interface of this program. Select your hard drive by pressing the "P" key on your keyboard and start scanning it using the "F5" key.

Now you can go and mind your own business. Depending on the size of the disk, the scan will take 1 to 3 hours. As a result, on the right side you will see the legend of the disk map, which will indicate the number of sectors of each type. If there are sectors that are read for more than 1.5 s, or bad sectors in the frame at the bottom, it means that the hard disk is defective, it needs to be restored or changed. So, in your arsenal there is already one way to check the health of a hard drive on a laptop or computer.

Testing via HDD Regenerator

You have to prepare the bootable media in the same way by downloading the utility from the developers' site. This utility is easier to use, but takes a little longer. It is believed that this is the best way, since it is easier to check the hard disk for serviceability with it, moreover, it gives more information.

To start checking, select your disk by entering its number from the list. After that you need a menu item called Normal Scan. In the next submenu, select Scan, but do not repair. Then everything follows the standard scheme: you can go about your business. After a while, you will receive a hard disk map on which you can see exactly which areas are damaged. If the disc is in order, the entire card should be white, without the letters "D" or "B". What test can you still check the hard drive for?

One of the tricky options is MHDD

Working with this utility is very similar to the previous version. As in other cases, you must first prepare the bootable media in order to start it without starting the operating system.

After starting, you have to select the required hard drive, if you have more than one. The choice is made by entering the desired number from the list. After that, initialize the disk using the "F2" key and enter the SCAN command. It starts scanning the surface of the hard drive. If necessary, you can scan not the entire surface, but a specific area of ​​the clusters.

The interface of the program resembles the Victoria already known to us. As in the case with it, as a result, there should be no sectors that could not be considered by the program or have been read for too long.

Now you know all the common ways to check the health of your hard drive. It makes no sense to install these programs on a computer, a bootable flash drive is enough.

Hard drive recovery via Victoria

Of course, knowledge of the malfunction is not enough, you need to fix it. But it is physically impossible to cure problem sectors. Programs simply block the hard drive from accessing problem areas, so that they are completely deleted from the map, and it does not access them.

In the case of the Victoria program, before starting the scan after pressing the "F5" key, you just need to set one of the recovery options in the fourth line of the window. As a result, not only scanning will occur, but also the re-partitioning of problem sectors, and you will put your disk in order if it has not completely failed. Now you know not only how to check a hard drive for serviceability, but also how to restore it.

Recovery with HDD Regenerator

The very name of this program says that it is adapted to treat problem discs, and in fact it is. In order for the sectors to be re-partitioned during scanning. At startup, in the last menu, instead of Scan, but do not repair, select Scan and repair. This operation will take a little longer, but all problem areas of the surface will be erased.

It is worth noting that if the recovery lasts more than 5-6 hours, then, most likely, the disk is completely out of order and it will not be possible to restore it. This applies to all recovery programs.

Scanning with BIOS without utilities

Some laptops and computers are able to check the hard disk and RAM without additional utilities. Therefore, in the question of how to check a hard drive for serviceability through BIOS, you can not complicate your life by preparing bootable media, but use standard tools.

However, they may not always be designed for recovery. In fairness, it is worth noting that they will still allow you to make an initial diagnosis without unnecessary problems, which means that you should definitely not neglect them.

What about removable hard drives?

Drives of this type are also mostly mechanical devices packed in a special pocket. So how do you check if your external hard drive is working properly? All the same methods work for them, except for the Victoria program, since it will not be able to detect it. The main thing is to connect it to the USB port of a computer or laptop before turning it on, so that it can correctly recognize it. After that, the order of actions does not change, you can just check it. Or run a script for recovering damaged clusters.

Now you know all the ways to check a hard drive for serviceability without the help of professionals. This information will help you save a lot of money on trips to service centers, because hard drive faults are one of the most common in computer technology.

A hard disk is a storage device that stores all information on a computer. It is for this reason that it is important to monitor the status of the HDD and regularly carry out diagnostics in order to fix problems in a timely manner. This is ideal, but before encountering problems with the drive, users often do not even think about how the hard drive is diagnosed, and why it is needed at all. If your computer and the information on it are of any value to you, take the time to read the manual, which will help you learn how to test your hard drive using software without spending a lot of time on it.

We check the performance with the built-in Windows tools

If you do not have the time or skills to use the special software needed to diagnose the HDD, you can use what is built into Windows initially. The actions are simple:

Go to the HDD through the explorer or the shortcut "My Computer".

Right-click on the drive icon, then select "Properties" in the menu that opens.

On the page that appears, go to the "Service" tab located at the top. Click "Check".

Wait for the firmware to finish checking your drive's health.

Unfortunately, this method is not as effective as diagnostics using special software - it can only indicate some errors and push the user to a more serious sector scan. A more serious approach is needed to thoroughly scan and troubleshoot faults and damage.

Scanning HDD in third-party software

There are a lot of programs with the help of which you can find out about the presence of errors in the hard drive, as well as deal with their removal, and it is very long and difficult to analyze the instructions for using each of them. For this reason, below you can familiarize yourself with a method that involves using the popular Victoria program. When choosing other software, remember that the operating principle of disk diagnostic applications is practically the same from program to program. Here is a guide to Victoria:

Run the application as administrator by calling the menu using the RMB on the program shortcut.

In the application window that opens, at the top, find the Standard tab and click on it.

On the new page, you will see a list of the media detected by your system - they are listed in the upper right side of the application. Select your HDD and then click the Passport button. If you have done everything correctly, and the media is available for use, Victoria will immediately inform you about it.

Navigate to the SMART tab, usually located next to the previously opened tab. Here you need to select Get SMART and wait for approval from the application.

Go to the TEST section, then press the START button to start diagnostics of your HDD.

During the check, Victoria will display the status of the HDD with a grid of squares. Gray squares indicate that everything is good - for the equipment to work properly, either all or the vast majority of all sectors should be like that. Red squares are damaged sectors that hang like a dead weight and interfere with the drive's operation.

If you have blue squares - unreadable sectors, they must be re-scanned in Victoria with Remap enabled.

Now you know how to check the status of the media.

Remember that over time, there are more and more unreadable sectors on the disk - they appear as a result of mechanical deformations, intensive memory use, and also for numerous other reasons. This is normal and can be compared to the aging of the wearer.

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