How to remove troubles from a hard drive. How to fix bad sectors on a disk in Windows

05.03.2020 OS

For example, let's take a real hard disk with bad sectors.

Friends, the smallest unit of information on a hard disk is a sector, the amount of user data is 512 bytes, if the information in a sector cannot be read, then the sector is unreadable or, in other words, bad. All operating system freezes occur when reading information from such a sector.

This WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 hard drive (500 GB) is really faulty,

The operating system on it constantly freezes and periodically at boot it starts checking the hard disk for errors. The last straw for the owner of the hard drive was that it was not possible to copy important data to another disk, and even reinstalling the operating system ended with another freeze on unpacking Windows files, replacing the installation disk with the operating system did not work, the freeze was repeated at another stage of the installation.

It was then that the question arose of what to do with this hard drive, because one of the partitions contained important data and had to be copied.

Victoria launch

Launching the Victoria program as administrator... We agree with all warnings about working in a 64-bit system.

We select the initial tab Standard. If we have several hard drives, in the right part of the window, select the required hard drive with the left mouse, in our case WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2

and go to the SMART tab,

press the Get SMART button, the GOOD message will light up to the right of the button and S.M.A.R.T. will open. our chosen hard drive.

5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), denoting the number of reassigned sectors, this means spare sectors on the spare tracks end and soon there will be nothing to reassign bad sectors.

Go to the Tests tab.

Hard disk surface test in Victoria!

In the right part of the program window, check the Ignor item and the read item, then click Start. This will run a simple hard disk surface test without correcting any errors. This test will not bring any good or bad effects on your hard drive, but when the test is over, we will know what state our hard drive is in.

It starts scanning the surface of the hard disk and after a while bad sectors are found. After 40 minutes, Victoria gives us the following result:

A lot of good sectors with good read latency no more than 5 ms - 3815267

There are also sectors with a bad read latency of 200 ms

There are no sectors with an unsatisfactory read latency of more than 600 ms (candidates for bad blocks), but ...

What is really bad, there are full-fledged bad sectors (bad blocks), information from which could not be read at all - 13!

13 bad sectors (bad blocks), all of them start in the area of 6630400, and end at 980,000,000, that is, they are scattered throughout the hard disk. Bad block numbers must be recorded. Friends, it is quite possible that all our problems with the hard drive can be due to these 13 bad ones and we need to get rid of them, but first, let's make a sector-by-sector image of the sick screw.

The victim's hard drive WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (500 GB) was divided into two partitions: drive D: with an operating system of 120 GB and drive E: with data of 345 GB.

Before working with the Victoria program, we will secure ourselves and make a full image of the disk E partition: the volume is 345 GB and we will extract the data from the image. We will make the image in another DMDE program and place it on another physical disk SAMSUNG HD403LJ (400 GB), I will show you how to do it.

Disk management of my computer

Left-click to enlarge screenshot

Important data is located on the New volume (E :) with 347 GB of WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive (total 500 GB), so we will create an image of the partition (E :)

Create a sector-by-sector image of the (E :) partition on the SAMSUNG HD403LJ hard disk (400 GB), there is only one partition without data on it New volume (F :)

The third physical disk in the system is the SSD (120GB) drive (C :), which houses our running Windows 8.1 operating system, which we are currently in.

Creating a sector-by-sector image of the entire hard disk or the desired partition in the DMDE program

Also DMDE is a very good tool for making sector-by-sector copies of a failed hard disk.

We go to the DMDE program website http://dmde.ru/download.html and download the program, click the GUI for Windows.

DMDE is downloaded in the archive, unzip it and run the file dmde.exe.

Then we select the language Russian.

We accept the terms of the License Agreement. In the initial window of the program, we need to select either a Physical device (that is, a completely hard disk) or a data partition to create an image.

We only need the volume (E :), so we mark our WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive with the left mouse, then we mark the item Logical drives

and the (E :) section, then click OK.

Menu. Create Image / Clone ...

Place for recording, click Disk.

New volume (F :) and OK. It is necessary that the partition on which the sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard disk (or a partition with unreadable data) will be created should be at least as large as this disk.

All data will be deleted on the new volume (F :), agree Yes.

The creation of a sector-by-sector copy of the partition (E :) of a sick WDC WD5000AAKS hard disk begins on a new volume (F :) of another healthy SAMSUNG HD403LJ hard disk, which lasts 6 hours (the image is removed from especially "bad" screws for several days) and hangs tightly at 83 percent, after waiting a couple of hours, I clicked on the Abort button!

Friends, if we interrupt the creation of the image of the sector-by-sector section at the very end (after all, 83%), then we will have two options, as Suvorov used to say - "either the chest is in crosses, or the head is in the bushes."

After interrupting the operation, we go to the New volume (F :) and see if there is any data on it and ... they are, all the main things that we needed the DMDE program managed to transfer to the disk (F :), almost all the data read without errors. This means that our case is not complicated and the beds are mostly software-based.

But in some cases, not everything will be so rosy, and when you try to enter a section with a sector-by-sector copy, this error will be waiting for us: Access to F: \ is denied. The file or folder is damaged. Reading is impossible.

Access to F: \ is denied. The file system is not recognized. Make sure all required system drivers are loaded and the volume is not damaged.

But even in this case, we will not give up and will do so.

What to do if creating a sector-by-sector image goes wrong

Friends, the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy does not always end successfully even after several hours, but if you stop creating a sector-by-sector copy, the data in it may be unreadable.

Or, in the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy, such an error will appear " The request was not completed due to an I / O error on the device"(see screenshot below) indicating that DMDE could not read the information in the bad sector (the sector number is indicated in the error) in this case, click

"Retry", there will be a repeated attempt to read information from this sector and it may end in success. If this error with the same sector appears again, then press

"Ignore" and the creation of the sector-by-sector image will continue, but we will lose information in this sector and as a result, a single file will not open in a sector-by-sector copy. If the error "The request was not completed due to an I / O error on the device" appears too often, you can select

"Ignore everything" and similar errors will be skipped, but you can press the button

"Options" and adjust DMDE accordingly for such a difficult case. Click the Options button in this window.

"Reverse", sometimes it brings results.

And press again "Options".

In this window, check the box "- Is always"... If you select this option, the operation will continue even

in case of an error related to the lack of readiness of the device. If this option is not checked, then on some "bad" hard drives a warning will be displayed with the expected response of the user, that is, the image will not be created on the machine.

Auto retry count on CRC error - 0

Fill bad sectors (hex)

Then OK and OK, the creation of a sector-by-sector image begins.

Left-click to enlarge image

This option of settings also proved to be workable.

Skip I / O Errors - Always

Don't wait if your device isn't ready - Is always

Retry count on CRC error - 0

The number of auto retries if the sector is not found - 0

In general, I would advise you to study the manual for the DMDE program http://dmde.ru/manual.html or http://dmde.ru/docs/DMDE-manual-ru.pdf, you can also wait for our article on creating a sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard drive with various programs, in which we will even consider creating a bootable USB flash drive with the DMDE program.

If DMDE does not help you, then you can try other programs, for example. Of course, there are still ways with which you can make a sector-by-sector image of a bad screw, for example, boot from some Linux-based operating system, for example Ubuntu, but I will not describe the process itself and I’d better write a separate article. You can also run the safecopy utility under Linux.
What to do if, nevertheless, you cannot make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard disk, you choose. You can contact a good and proven service for data recovery and a sector-by-sector copy from your hard disk will be removed using special expensive equipment by specialists, for example, using the same PC-3000 complex. If you do not feel sorry for your data, then you can take a chance and run algorithms in the Victoria program that rid the surface of your hard disk of bad sectors (bad blocks), as described below, the hard disk after this operation can come back to life.
Important: Kazan(the developer of the program Victoria) promises that the most innovative algorithm for hiding bad blocks BB = Advanced REMAP is NOT destructive for data, but in some cases it can be destructive for your files, since even the most advanced algorithm of Victoria Advanced REMAP hiding defects (remap), this is for any change in the translation of the screw, which means the loss of user data (details below. I want to say that sometimes it happened that Victoria will cure the hard disk of bad drives and you will even be able to copy the information from such a hard drive, but unfortunately not all information is readable ...

So, in our case, the DMDE program managed to make a sector-by-sector copy of a sick hard disk, namely a new volume (E :), although in some places DMDE hung a little, but everything ended successfully. A sector-by-sector copy of the new volume (E :) is an exact copy and is located on volume (F :). All available data is successfully read and copied.

The main task has been solved and user data has been saved, now we proceed to the procedure for treating the hard drive.

How to get rid of bad sectors (bad blocks) using the Victoria program

Friends, now let's imagine that we did not manage to make a sector-by-sector image of a hard disk with bad blocks and we did not think of anything else and decided to rid our hard drive of bad blocks in the Victoria program, in the hope that after hiding the bad sectors we will be able to read and copy the information to your hard drive.

Note: it is difficult to get rid of the screw from bad blocks in a running Windows, especially if, for example, you have a laptop with one hard drive and an operating system is installed on the same hard drive and you want to cure the same operating system from bad blocks. In such cases, they create a bootable USB flash drive with Victoria, boot a laptop from it and get rid of bad sectors. I propose to create a bootable USB flash drive in the next article, and now we will find out how this is done right in a working operating system, I will demonstrate everything to you.

Remap

In the main window of Victoria, check the Remap item, which denotes the algorithm for reassigning bad blocks to sectors from backup tracks during scanning. The test is in Read mode, that is, from beginning to end and press the Start button.

While the scan is in progress, let's talk about this.

1. What happens with this Remap algorithm? An attempt is made (several times) to forcibly write information to the bad sector of the hard disk if the attempt is successful, then the sector becomes healthy and is removed from the list of bad blocks (no remap occurs). If the write attempt is unsuccessful, then the diseased sector is reassigned to the healthy sector with a reserved track of the hard drive specially designed for such cases.

2. Remap is the reassignment (replacement) of a sick sector, assigning its LBA number to another physically healthy sector from the backup track. Information from the sector (at the time of reassignment) hangs in the RAM of the screw, and as soon as the sector is reassigned, it is written back.

Remap is basically not destructive for information, if your data is lost, then only in one bad sector, but you must admit that the data in the bad block was already unreadable. In the second case, the data will simply be transferred to the sector from the backup track.

Result. As I said, it is difficult to fix anything in a running Windows and Victoria cannot perform a remap. After 20 minutes, the same result, 13 bad blocks, and you and I will have to make a bootable USB flash drive with Victoria and work in DOS.

How to scan a specific area on your hard drive in Victoria

Most often, you come across software (software) bads, which are removed most quickly by zeroing - using the Erase algorithm, and even if writing to the zeros sector is unsuccessful, Remap may well occur, since the hard drive's firmware may consider such a sector to be bad. If Erase does not help, then you can choose Remap, but as we know, the chances of Remap being produced on a running Windows are slim.
In some cases, soft (software) bads can be removed even by simple formatting using Windows itself. The whole difference between the existing bad blocks: physical and software, read our article. In a nutshell, I will explain that physical bads (physiologically destroyed sector) cannot be restored (only remap, reassignment is possible), and logical (software, sector logic errors) can be restored.
Friends, we can, but then our article will be even longer, we will also do this in the next article.

I do not want to experiment on our WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive, since in the next article I plan to cure it of bad blocks in DOS mode using a bootable USB flash drive with the Victoria program and still return the hard drive with intact data to the owner of the hard drive cured of bad blocks.

I'll just show you on another hard drive how to run this test on a running Windows.

In the main window of Victoria, select our hard drive and go to the Tests tab, check the Erase item (be careful, in some cases your data on the hard drive will be deleted)- when an unreadable sector is detected, it forcibly overwrites the entire block of 256 sectors with zeros, of course, information is completely lost in the whole block of sectors, but if overwriting occurs, the block returns to work (becomes healthy).

The test is in Read mode, that is, from beginning to end and press Start.

Often, when "zeroing" in a running Windows, the following errors will appear:

Block (bad sector number) try Erase 256 sectors... Failed to overwrite block of sectors.

Algorithm Write

The Write mode does not look for any bad sectors, but simply immediately overwrites all the information on the hard disk by filling all sectors with zeros, this is in the jargon of the repairmen "Writing across the entire clearing", this algorithm is able to cure the hard disk of bad read latency, but n After such a test, it will be impossible to restore data on the hard disk, so copy all important files to the portable hard disk beforehand.

We launch our program and see the following window:

Select "start process under windows" from the "regeneration" menu. To start scanning bad sectors or bad blocks, we first need to "explain" to the program what exactly we want to do.

In the next window, we need to select the hard drive for scanning. In our case, it is one, select it and press the inscription "start process".

Let's continue. In the next window we will be asked to indicate the option to scan the disk. I advise you to choose the first option "scan and repair" right away. Just enter the number "1" from the keyboard, as shown in the screenshot.

And in the last window, before the actual scanning of bad sectors, we are "asked" from which sector to start scanning? I advise you to leave the number "0". This will scan the entire disk.

Press the "Enter" key and start scanning for bad blocks. We will look at the whole process using an example of a disk that contains bad sectors. Pay attention to the screenshot below, on it we see the scanning progress (white bar) and on it - three bad sectors found by the program.

Let's take a closer look at this screenshot: at the top right, we see the time elapsed since the start of the bad block scan and the time remaining until the process is completed. When bad sectors are found on the disk, the program marks them with the English letter "B" and immediately tries to "cure" them. If she succeeds, then the letter "R" appears in place of the letter "B", which indicates the successful "restoration" of the bad block. In the lower left corner, we see statistics on scanned megabytes, as well as the number of bad sectors found "B" and "cured" "R".

Upon completion of the scan, we will see the following window:

Here, the three bad sectors found by the program are indicated and on the right is the already familiar statistics, which says that all the bad blocks found have been eliminated.

Also keep in mind that if bad sectors are found, it is highly advisable (immediately or after a few days) to run the check procedure again. The fact is that (with a serious disk defect) bad blocks can appear repeatedly and their number can only increase.

This is what the following inscriptions in the screenshot above "tell" us: "4 new bad sectors appear" and "18 bad sectors appear" - these are bad areas that appeared on the hard disk and were found during the rescanning. Such a disk can still be very successfully used for some time as an additional one and it can store various (not very necessary) information and temporary files. But as a reliable storage medium or - the system disk, it does not suit us unambiguously!

Actually, I described the whole simple testing process :) The very logic of what happens "behind the scenes" of the work of any program for recovering bad sectors, we discussed with you in the previous article, which is called "".

In addition to what has been said, I would like to point out one more very useful function of the HDD Regenerator program. It can burn its bootable image to a CD.

Why is this needed? Imagine a situation: you have problems with your hard disk (God forbid! :)) and the operating system simply does not load because of this. How do we run our program so that it scans for bad sectors of the hard drive? In this case, the function of creating a bootable version of the program comes to our aid.

Let's take a look at this possibility. At the very beginning, after starting the program, in the "regeneration" menu, select the "create bootable CD / DVD" item (create a bootable CD or DVD disk).

In the next window, select our recording device installed on the system.

Press the "OK" button, insert a blank disc into the device and go to the last window just before burning the disc. Here we are offered to choose the recording speed. Select and click the "Burn CD" button.

After the end of the recording, we take our (now a bootable disk) with the "HDD Regrenerator" program, insert it into the computer on which we want to check for bad sectors. We expose it to boot from CD and see a menu in which the program shows us the hard disks of the computer found by it.

As you can see, we have two of them. Select (for example) the second (enter the number "2" from the keyboard) and press "enter". Next, we see the next window.

It has several options for scanning the hard drive for bad sectors:

Scan, but do not fix found bad blocks
Scan to fix such sectors
View information about the program itself

Enter the number "2" from the keyboard (choose the second option). We see such a window.

Here we indicate that we will scan immediately with the restoration of bad sectors. We press the number "1", then - "enter" and then the already familiar testing process will start.

Also keep in mind the following point: poor power supply (failures caused) or the use of various adapters may be the reason that the recovery program will signal the detection of a large number of bad sectors.

There were such cases in my practice. The SATA hard drive was connected via a "molex to sata" adapter:

The diagnostic program found a lot of bad blocks on it, but as soon as we installed the appropriate one (which had Sata power connectors), the problem disappeared. So remember firmly - any adapters are a necessary evil and if you can do without them, get rid of them immediately!

That's all I wanted to tell you today about how to find and fix bad sectors on a disk. At the end of the article, as agreed, I give a link to the program itself "". Download, use.

For those who are poorly familiar with a computer and do not know what DOS is, it is better not to repeat everything that will be described in this article, since here we will talk about how to restore damaged HDD sectors.

And so you found out that you constantly have a disk check at boot, or the hard drive began to slow down a lot. You are talking about scanning with some utility in read mode (read) or any program from this article. Thus, you made sure that you have slow sectors that respond longer than 500 ms, or BAD sectors, then this article is for you.

How to fix broken sectors

If your disk periodically disappears or does not see each other at all, then this is already a problem with the controller, cable (loop) or power supply, but we will talk about bad sectors and very slowly read cells, in general about hard disk software errors ...

So you found (HDD checker program) that you have slow sectors on your hard disk (usually red or brown). The decision to apply low-level formatting (Erase), we do it with the program MHDD and just, forget the programs that work from under windows, they will not help you like HDDscan and Victoria.

Attention!!! All the operations described below can lead to partial or complete deletion of information on your hard disk drive (HDD).

So we boot from the boot disk where this MHDD program is, these are the collections of STEA Live, Hiren boot cd, or make your own boot disk or USB flash drive.

Stage 1. Getting rid of slow (red) sectors

Launch MHDD, type the command Erase, the list of all commands can be viewed by the F1 command, the program will ask you to specify the scan range, do not change anything, press Enter by default, wait. If the red sectors remain, then you will have to run the command Erase waits

Stage 2. Getting rid of bad sectors

We launch MHDD, type the Remap command, and the program will automatically scan the hard disk and replace bad sectors with spare ones, I do not recommend running this program with a large number of red and bad sectors in the hard disk partitions.

You can also clean the HDD from bad sectors manually, while not the entire hard drive, but partially along the range of addresses.

We execute the command SCAN, as soon as the BAD sector appears, we remember its number, stop the ESC process, run the command Erase and we indicate the range in this case, if there is one bad sector, then its number and the next, that is, we add one, then we run the command again Scan and we look at the appearance of new broken sectors, we repeat the procedure.

The video shows the whole process well:

If scanning takes a very long time for you, then no program will help you. And you will have to buy a new hard drive already.

P.S .: I am attaching a link to a video showing the operation of the MHDD program for general information

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18 comments to write How to recover damaged bad (BAD) sectors of HDD

Well, you give a hint. booted from MHDD wrote how you have it in the first paragraph of Erase and erased all Windows did not help even restore through the archive right now I put on a new Windows.

Dear yura200, if you would carefully read the article, then it says that Erase- this is low-level formatting, well, I hope the word formatting, do you understand what it does?)

So what for to write the first point, write erase well that after installing Windows it could roll back right now all the way. The most interesting thing is that I wanted to start this business from disk D and there are family vidyashka pictures that would have grabbed grief, but it's good that MHDD did not see disk D and only formatted the C disk. I push here so that others do not rub the whole screw. And where in what place in the text do you say that Erase is formatting? When I used Mhdd, I used erase when grouting block troubles. Correct the text.

yura200, I am very sorry that you have experienced such difficulties, but all that you do is your personal desire. In the text, the third paragraph:

So you found (HDD checker program) that you have slow sectors on your hard disk (usually red or brown). Decision to apply low-level formatting (Erase)

P.S .: And for interest you can look at the translation, it also says a lot erase- erase, delete (from memory).

Good afternoon.

Can you tell me how to make the program work on a laptop? Neither MHDD nor Victoria can see my hard drive.

Danila Are you sure you have an HDD in your laptop? and not SSD, because with the second disks, the MHDD and Victoria programs do not work.

Dear! If you see orange or red on your disk during the test, or even an X in a square, then do not torment him, he is finished. These people are just trying to somehow support them with a stroke, and then you see what they then become, and the pieces of iron, after you have thrown off the pictures, are one way to a well-deserved rest. And don't listen to or read the recovery bullshit.

Indeed, on the ASUS X552EA laptop, the MHDD program does not see a 500 GB WD HDD (not an SSD, and not a hybrid, normal one).

I played with the BIOS - this way and that ... alas, the MHDD program opens from the bootable USB flash drive, but does not see the disk, no matter how hard I tried.

It is necessary to set the HDD operation mode SATA Standart IDE INSTEAD OF SATA AHCI

I want to check and fix the bad sectors in dos (I checked it in winows before with Victoria) But I can't switch from AHCI to IDE in BIOS, there is nothing similar. Hp laptop (they wrote that they removed this function) How can you help?

Put this hard drive in the system unit and run it there and, if necessary, configure the BIOS.

Respect and respect to the author! The user does not have funds for a new hard drive, but a system engineer is vital ..., so I found along the above trajectory that in addition to the first 42 gigs of crosses, there are two more thirds of the working space .., and the person is grateful!

Thanks a lot for the article!

It was necessary to restore the functionality of the old disk. I scanned its state with the MHDD program (I found it on an old CD-reanimator), found several dozen "red" sectors, but did not know that the ERASE command was exactly what I needed. I thought it was a simple erasure of information.

Now, after processing the disk with ERASE, I scanned it again. Result - not a single BED!

The question is if there are bads in the first 4 gigs and the last 4 gigs, and there are 2047 of them, is there any reason to strain to recover?

Andrey unless you need to pop the leftover data from the hard drive, but I wouldn't use such a drive in the future.

Is 653 bads really bad? Erase won't help?

Max yes this is really bad

Hello bortvlad. Is it worth bothering with the treatment of bad? Windows so monitors and corrects cells as much as it can. And it will not write down the info in the bed. The loss of speed is negligible. And replacing cells from the spare area changes the desired table, which, in my opinion, will only speed up the death of the HDD. If it's really a very tight low-level formatting and use the disk for archiving movies, games .... What can you say about this software: Low Lewel Format Tool?

We have found out the reasons for the appearance of bad blocks. We realized that this phenomenon is far from the most pleasant one. And with troubles it is usually customary to fight. Therefore, today, we will talk about what means and how it should be done, and whether it is actually necessary.

Filesystem errors

The first and simplest type of errors that we will treat are file system errors. As already mentioned, this is just a mislabeled sector in the file system. The conclusion suggests itself - it must be marked correctly.

Method one: logical thinking prompts - you need a tool that can create a normal file system on the disk. Such a tool is available to everyone in the operating system - the format utility. You need to boot into MS-DOS and perform a full (exactly full) disk formatting (command format x: / c, x is a disk with an incorrect FAT, c is a key that enables checking clusters marked as damaged). Quick formatting is not suitable here, since it only clears the table of contents and saves information about badges. Formatting can also be performed from Windows, although the methods of its operation still remain a mystery to me and the result is sometimes unpredictable (I was faced with the fact that the defective status was removed even from physically damaged sectors, which leads to more complex problems. It seems that "Windows "just dump the defective status in the FAT, without going into details, although not always).

This was not the case with the usual format. This method is simple and affordable, but its disadvantage is the destruction of all information on the disk. And if there is a small number of such sectors on the disk, it is like firing a cannon at sparrows.

The second method is to purchase the Power Quest Partition Magic program, which has the Bad Sector Retest function. It will check exactly the marked bad sectors, and will leave untouched information on the disk.

More advanced users can use Norton Disk Editor or any other disk editor and manually mark / unmark the desired sectors. It is not difficult to write a program for these purposes on your own. But there is no need. How to find out that the existing defective block is of this type? No way. You can only try (if you are not sure, I strongly recommend using the first two methods, since the last two can put into circulation a faulty or unstable block, thereby making yourself a big problem). If this is his type, he will disappear and no longer appear. If not, try other methods.

The second type of recoverable bad clusters is logical, in which the data does not conform to ECC. The methods of dealing with this species are somewhat more complicated. This type of defects cannot be fixed by software using standard BIOS commands and tools. The fact is that when using such tools, before writing to disk, a preliminary check of the recording area takes place to make sure that everything is in order with it, and since there is an error there, the recording is rejected (such a check is not only wasteful, since the data will not written immediately, their writing will become possible only on the second pass (apparently this is one of the reasons why the write speed is usually slightly lower than the read speed).

It would be more logical to make a record with verification (check in Russian) instead of such a mechanism. At the same time, in the block of magnetic heads, it is possible to write and check by reading in one pass, which would give a guarantee of correct data recording. And in principle, if it did not exclude the occurrence of bad sectors of the type in question at all, then, in any case, it significantly reduced it, since in the case of an immediately detected error, the recording could be repeated.

And although we figured out a little more with what caused the error, it did not get any easier, since we found out that it cannot be corrected by conventional means. Unusual means are programs that access the drive not through the OS and BIOS functions, but through the I / O ports. There are actually a lot of such programs, in most cases they force writing some content to the sector (usually zeros), the drive counts and writes ECC. After that, you need to check after reading the sector - there is no error - well, the sector turned out to be exactly as we expected and was successfully healed. No - alas ... Apparently, since this is not a FAT error and has not been cured, it seems to have a physical nature.

The utilities that perform this function are wdclear, fjerase, zerofill, there is such a function in the DFT. In most cases, these utilities are universal, since they do not use any specific functions of the drive. Working with them also does not require special skills. Often, such nullifiers are distributed on manufacturers' websites as low-level formatting programs, although they have nothing to do with it. Manufacturers recommend using them in case of problems before contacting a service center. Apart from the destruction of information, they are harmless.

In addition to hard drive manufacturers, third-party companies and just enthusiasts are engaged in the release of service programs. So a very useful program unwritten by our programmer is available for free - MHDD (you can download it. At the time of this writing, version 2.9 was available), which can help in this situation. The scheme of actions is as follows: we write the program to the system floppy disk and boot from it. We study the state of SMART using an external SMART monitor (free SMARTUDM for example) and without relying on our memory, we save the results to a file.

Load MHDD and initialize the desired disk by pressing F2. In the console, enter the erase or aerase command (they use different algorithms, aerase works slower, but sometimes it copes with what erase did not cope with, so I recommend using erase first and then, if aerase fails). Previously, it was necessary to save all the information from the hard drive, since it will be destroyed (with experience, you can reset the necessary part without destroying the rest of the data, but it is assumed that we do not have it).

Upon completion, we check the disk surface - press F4 and select and in the top line select our operating mode (most likely it will be LBA, but you know better), and press F4 again (you can enter the SCAN command in the console). We are looking for the presence of our bads.

Then we study the SMART readings. If the number of reassigned sectors remained the same, the bads disappeared, they were logical and were cured. If not, their nature is not logical. MHDD will be discussed in detail in another article.

It may well be that you have a question, why can't you use, as in the previous case, the format command with the / c switch, which performs bad checks? The answer was already in principle: this program uses standard BIOS tools and cannot write to the bad. Apparently, the developers from Microsoft did not want to bother themselves especially. An attempt to restore such a sector, which is reported by the format, is simply a multiple attempt to read it (no matter how many times it is read, it will not be read, the controller has already recognized this fact!). Format cannot perform a full check of such a bad, since it cannot write to it. The only thing it is good for is recovering bad sectors that are file system errors.

This is perhaps the end of the part of the article that everyone could read and use the information provided. Everything described before was simple and harmless. What is described below does not have these properties. Be careful.

Physical damage to the HDD

If none of the methods described helped, then we are probably dealing with the worst case - physical injury. Such sectors can be hidden or reassigned. As you know, modern hard drives have a backup surface. You can "move the arrows" to it when accessing the bad sector, i.e. when it is necessary to refer to a sector that is recognized as faulty, in fact, the call will occur to the sector from the reserve surface designated for replacement.

There are various methods. The spare sector method implies placing a sector inaccessible in the usual mode on each track of the drive. If a defective sector is found on this track, it is possible to use the sector located on the same track instead. The advantage of the method is that it practically does not affect performance in any way. The disadvantage is that the disk capacity is used too wastefully, since regardless of whether there is a bad sector on this track or not, the spare sector is still present. Secondly, it is ineffective with more than one bad sector on the track (there are other modifications of the method in which a spare sector is allocated per cylinder, but nevertheless, this does not make them effective).

The spare track method implies that there are a number of spare tracks outside the working area. If defects are found on the track, the entire track is excluded from work, and the reserve track is turned on instead. The disadvantage of this method is that again, the space is used wastefully, since even with one bad sector, the entire track is excluded from circulation and a new one is completely occupied. Also, to access the spare area, the head needs to make a significant movement, which negatively affects performance.

In the method of skipping a defective track, as in the previous one, it is assumed that a certain number of tracks are outside the working area. But the nature of the use is different. In this method, when determining the actual number of the track, its calculated number is added with the number of defects encountered before it, obtained from the defect sheet, and the work area is shifted to the center. The advantage in comparison with the previous one is that there is no need to move to the reserve area, hence the increase in productivity.

The method of skipping a defective sector is similar to the method of skipping a defective track with the only difference that it operates with sectors instead of tracks, and can only be applied to hard drives using a translator. The sector's physical address is calculated from the translator table. The first three methods have a number of disadvantages and are almost never used for factory hiding of bads (and due to the peculiarities of new hard drives, some cannot be applied at all). As a rule, the last fourth is used, it allows you to hide almost any number of bad sectors, and use space economically.

Factory testing of hard drives to identify bad areas occurs on special equipment in a special technological mode, a list of all sectors that are not suitable for use is compiled. It is entered into the service area, where it is stored all the time the drive is used. The factory defect list is called P-list (Primary-list). After receiving the defect list, a translator is formed that establishes a correspondence between the logical numbers of the sectors following continuously and in order and their physical address, while skipping the found bad sectors and using the next worker.

This process is called internal formatting, it takes place without external participation under the influence of the hard drive program. In addition to the factory P-list of defects, the drive also has a G-list (Grown-list) - it contains information about bad sectors detected during operation. At home, the only thing that can be done is to reassign the detected defect to the reserve area with all the ensuing consequences (performance drop).

Let's make a few reservations right away. The size of the G-list is not large and remap (remap, i.e. reassignment) cannot occur indefinitely: only as long as there is room in the G-list. Or until the reserve surface is exhausted. You also need to remember that the more sectors are reassigned, the more often positioning will occur in the spare area, the slower the work will be. It is worth seriously thinking about whether it is necessary to do this: is it worth the small loss of space and a beautiful picture in Scandisk, not spoiled by the letters B, tangible (depending on the number of performed re-values) performance. It might be better to just leave it explicit and enjoy life. The remap process is irreversible. If something does not suit you, you will not be able to return the change.

If the answer is no, you need to stock up on one of the following programs: HDD Speed, HDD Utility, or again MHDD. In addition, you need some kind of SMART attribute viewer: this is part of HDD Speed, but you can take a third-party one (SMARTUDM). It is assumed that you have already tried to treat logical problems, attempts have failed, and we are now trying to hide the physical ones. Consider the MHDD example again. The mechanism of action will be almost the same as last time. Starting from a floppy disk, we examine the SMART state. Then we launch MHDD, select the desired drive.

You do not need to save information from the hard drive (but you can), since it will not be destroyed. We initialize the drive by pressing F2. Pressing F4, select the desired parameter in the upper line LBA or CHS, and turn on the remap function, and start checking the disk surface by pressing F4 again (or enter the SCAN command in the console).

We are looking for the presence of our bads. In those places where the badges were reassigned, an inscription appears. After the first check, in which the reassignment was performed, we run another check. If the reassignment was not reported, you do not need to start up a second time. Then we study the SMART readings.

The following options are possible: the indicator of the reassigned sectors has increased, the bads have disappeared - this means that we have achieved what we wanted, the bad sectors have been replaced by the reserve ones; the number of reassigned sectors remains the same, the bads have not disappeared: this may be for the following reasons - the nature is not what we assumed, or the sector cannot be replaced; the controller did not see that this was a really bad sector (and there is no way to point it directly to it when the hard drive is operating in user mode, you can only try to hint it in every possible way, making attempts to write and read the desired sector), the G-list is full (by SMART readings should be visible), the hard drive cannot be remap ..

In the first case, it remains only to dig further. If the G-list is full, then you can either put up with non-reassignable sectors, or contact the specialists who can start the internal formatting: then the existing bads will be added to the P-list, and the G-list will be clean. This is the best option as there are no side effects of remap. At home, it will not be possible to start it, and the probability is high to ditch the screw if the formatting process is interrupted (the hard drive will simply remain without a translator, this is fixable, but still) - the power will disappear, for example, or it will crash (after all, according to the law of meanness, this always happens at the most the right moment), so disk manufacturers try not to give such functions to the layman .. If the hard drive does not lend itself to remap, nothing can be done about it, but if the remap function is disabled in it, then you just need to enable it using a proprietary utility (look for them on the manufacturer's website you need).

The solution for dealing with badges that comes to the mind of most users, who have read / heard something, is a low-level disk formatting. There is a legend that this special type of formatting allows them to be cured, and every now and then on various forums questions pop up, such as "please tell me a hundred where you can get a utility for a low-level hard drive, otherwise the bads have appeared" Including ours recently. Let's see what it is and whether it is really that useful.

Low-level formatting is associated with the ATA standard 50h command, which came there from the ST506 / 412 interface. It must format the track with the specified physical parameters. However, at a low level, all modern screws differ greatly, since this level is entirely developed by the manufacturer independently. The translator hides the internal structure, and therefore there is no point in this command. Most modern hard drives support it for compatibility. But since its original function is no longer relevant, they react to it in not completely different ways. Firstly, the command can be completely ignored. Secondly, in some old drives, the command is capable of overwriting service data areas (obviously, this is where the rumors about its destructive Low Level Format effect come from). And besides this, thirdly, it can write all zeros to the user data area, or, fourthly, reassign the sector, which is important for us in the context of this article. Conversations about the miraculousness of such formatting are apparently due to the fact that sometimes it is possible to treat logical badges with its help or to make a reassignment for physical ones. This is the essence of such formatting-treatment. No more. But we already have the necessary funds. Why seek adventure?

Perhaps these are all the operations that an unprepared user could carry out. For some types of manifestation of defects, you can come up with a different way to eliminate them. For example, if the bads appear in one continuous block in the middle of the disk or at the beginning, you can split it in such a way that it would make up a section that will be inaccessible, with bads at the end, you can use special programs (the same MHDD for example) to cut off the tail of the hard drive: the capacity will decrease, but at the same time the bads will go out of circulation, with supposedly bads caused by a break in the head, it can be turned off (although this is no longer a user operation). In general, there is a lot of room for creative imagination. True, do not get fantasized and do not forget to contact specialists sometimes.

The article contains a lot of information not only about the Victoria program, but also about the DMDE program, with which we will create a sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard disk, this also needs to be done correctly so that user data does not disappear.

Hard disk test in Victoria program and how to fix bad sectors (bad blocks).

Friends, if you are reading these lines, then you have some kind of problem with a hard drive, and how to choose a hard drive was discussed earlier in the article.

When do we think that something is wrong with our hard drive?

It is impossible to copy the necessary information from the hard disk to another drive; when copying, the operating system freezes and only reboot saves.
Windows may freeze unexpectedly at any stage of operation.
The operating system cannot be reinstalled, the installation process freezes on unpacking Windows files, or the installer reports the error "Installation cannot continue ...", or Windows takes a very long time to install, for example, several hours.
When you turn on the computer, the Chkdsk utility starts immediately and checks the hard disk partitions for errors.
The hard drive emits extraneous sounds (clicks, squeaks) and is periodically not detected in the BIOS.
Download the Victoria program to work directly in the operating system Windows XP, 7, 8, 10
We go to the official website of the program and select the version for Windows. I advise you to download the Victoria 4.3 beta version, as Victoria 4.46 beta does not always work correctly.

Victoria to work from a boot disk

We go to the official website of the program and choose.

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

So, let's go, firstly, in the Victoria program, we will precisely set the numbers of bad sectors (bad blocks), then we will make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard disk and this will save the user data, and then we will hide the bad sectors of the bad blocks (remap) in the Victoria program. We will also learn how to do "Recording across the entire clearing" (Erase test), that is, when a bad sector is detected, overwrite the entire block (256 sectors) of the hard disk with zeros.

For example, let's take a real hard disk with bad sectors:

This WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 hard drive (500 GB) is really faulty,

It was then that the question arose of what to do with this hard drive, because one of the partitions contained important data and had to be copied.

Victoria launch:

We run the Victoria program as administrator. We agree with all warnings about working in a 64-bit system.

We select the initial tab Standard. If we have several hard drives, in the right part of the window, select the required hard drive with the left mouse, in our case WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2

and go to the SMART tab,

press the Get SMART button, the GOOD message will light up to the right of the button and S.M.A.R.T. will open. our chosen hard drive.

S.M.A.R.T. this screw was not the best one. Why? Read our first article in the series about the Victoria program. Here I will only say that as many as four S.M.A.R.T. light up red, including the most important parameter, attribute

5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), denoting the number of reassigned sectors, this means spare sectors on the spare tracks end and soon there will be nothing to reassign bad sectors.

Go to the Tests tab.

Hard disk surface test in Victoria program

It starts scanning the surface of the hard disk and after a while bad sectors are found. After 40 minutes, Victoria gives us the following result:

A lot of good sectors with good read latency no more than 5 ms - 3815267

There are also sectors with a bad read latency of 200 ms

There are no sectors with an unsatisfactory read latency of more than 600 ms (candidates for bad blocks), but ...

What is really bad, there are full-fledged bad sectors (bad blocks), information from which could not be read at all - 13

The victim's hard drive WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (500 GB) was divided into two partitions: drive D: with an operating system of 120 GB and drive E: with data of 345 GB.

Disk management of my computer

Important data is located on the New volume (E :) with 347 GB of WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive (total 500 GB), so we will create an image of the partition (E :)

Create a sector-by-sector image of the (E :) partition on the SAMSUNG HD403LJ hard disk (400 GB), there is only one partition without data on it New volume (F :)

The third physical disk in the system is the SSD (120GB) drive (C :), which houses our running Windows 8.1 operating system, which we are currently in.

Creating a sector-by-sector image of the entire hard disk or the desired partition in the DMDE program

Also DMDE is a very good tool for making sector-by-sector copies of a failed hard disk.

We go to the DMDE program website http://dmde.ru/download.html and download the program, click the GUI for Windows.

DMDE is downloaded in the archive, unzip it and run the dmde.exe file.

Then we select the language Russian.

We only need volume E:, so we mark our WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive with the left mouse, then we mark the Logical drives item

and the (E :) section, then click OK.

Menu. Create Image / Clone ...

Place for recording, click Disk.

New volume F: and OK. It is necessary that the partition on which the sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard disk (or a partition with unreadable data) will be created should be at least as large as this disk.

On the new volume F: all data will be deleted, agree Yes.

After interrupting the operation, we go to the New volume F: and see if there is any data on it and ... they are, all the main things that we needed the DMDE program managed to transfer to the drive F:, almost all data is read without errors. So our case is not difficult and

bads are mostly software

But in some cases, not everything will be so rosy, and when you try to enter a section with a sector-by-sector copy, this error will be waiting for us: No access to F: \. The file or folder is damaged. Reading is impossible.

Access to F: \ is denied. The file system is not recognized. Make sure all required system drivers are loaded and the volume is not damaged.

But even in this case, we will not give up and will do so.

What to do if creating a sector-by-sector image goes wrong

Friends, the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy does not always end successfully even after several hours, but if you stop creating a sector-by-sector copy, the data in it may be unreadable.

Or, in the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy, the following error will appear "The request was not executed due to an I / O error on the device" (see screenshot below) indicating that DMDE could not read the information in the bad sector (the sector number is indicated in the error) in this case click

Repeat, there will be a repeated attempt to read information from this sector and it may end in success. If this error with the same sector appears again, then press

Ignore and the creation of a sector-by-sector image will continue, but we will lose information in this sector and, as a result, one file will not open in a sector-by-sector copy. If the error "The request was not completed due to an I / O error on the device" appears too often, you can select

Ignore everything and all such errors will be skipped, or you can press the button

Parameters and adjust the DMDE program accordingly for such a difficult case. Click the Options button in this window.

You need to be careful in the parameters, as you can configure a lot of things here. For example, force DMDE to create a sector-by-sector image from the hard disk not from the beginning, but from the end, for this you need to check the item

Reverse, sometimes it works.

And again click Options.

In this window, check the Do not wait if the device is not ready - Always checkbox. If you select this option, the operation will continue even

Auto retry count on CRC error - 0

The number of auto retries if the sector is not found - 0

Fill bad sectors hex

Then OK and OK, the creation of the sector-by-sector image begins.

Left-click to enlarge image

This option of settings also proved to be workable.

Skip I / O Errors - Always

Don't wait if device is not ready - Always

Retry count on CRC error - 0

In general, I would advise you to study the manual for the DMDE program http://dmde.ru/manual.html or http://dmde.ru/docs/DMDE-manual-ru.pdf, you can also wait for our article on creating a sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard disk with various programs, in it we will even consider creating a bootable USB flash drive with the DMDE program.

If DMDE does not help you, then you can try other programs such as Acronis True Image. Of course, there are still ways with which you can make a sector-by-sector image of a bad screw, for example, boot from some Linux-based operating system, for example Ubuntu, but I will not describe the process itself and I’d better write a separate article. You can also run the safecopy utility under Linux.
What to do if, nevertheless, you cannot make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard disk, you choose. You can contact a good and proven service for data recovery and a sector-by-sector copy from your hard disk will be removed using special expensive equipment by specialists, for example, using the same PC-3000 complex. If you do not feel sorry for your data, then you can take a chance and run algorithms in the Victoria program that rid the surface of your hard disk of bad sectors (bad blocks), as described below, the hard disk after this operation can come back to life.
Important: Kazansky (the developer of the program Victoria) promises that the most innovative algorithm for hiding bad blocks BB = Advanced REMAP is NOT destructive for data, but in some cases it can be destructive for your files, since even the most advanced algorithm of Victoria Advanced REMAP hiding defects (remap), this is for any change in the translation of the screw, which means the loss of user data (details below. I want to say that sometimes it happened that Victoria will cure the hard drive of bad ones and you will even be able to copy the information from such a hard drive, but unfortunately not all information is readable.

So, in our case, to make a sector-by-sector copy of a sick hard disk, namely a new volume E: the DMDE program managed to make it, though in some places DMDE hung a little, but everything ended successfully. A sector-by-sector copy of the new volume (E :) is an exact copy and is located on volume F: All existing data is successfully read and copied.

The main task has been solved and user data has been saved, now we proceed to the procedure for treating the hard drive.

How to get rid of bad sectors (bad blocks) using the Victoria program

Remap

While the scan is in progress, let's talk about this.

1. What happens with this Remap algorithm? An attempt is made (several times) to forcibly write information to the bad sector of the hard disk, if the attempt is successful, then the sector becomes healthy and is removed from the list of bad blocks (remap does not occur). If the write attempt is unsuccessful, then the diseased sector is reassigned to the healthy sector with a reserved track of the hard drive specially designed for such cases.

How to scan a specific area on your hard drive in Victoria

If you know the exact addresses of bad sectors, you can set the exact scan parameters in the Victoria program. For example, we know that our bad blocks start from sector 770,000,000, then in the Start LBA item: set this number here and the Victoria program will start scanning and fixing the hard disk surface from sector 770,000,000, also if you set the one you need number in End LBA: then Victoria will end the scan on the sector you need.

Erase Algorithm

Friends, you may ask me, what will happen if you apply the Erase test or still have Write?

Erase upon detection of an unreadable sector forcibly overwrites the entire block of 256 sectors with zeros (be careful, in some cases your data on the hard disk will be deleted).

Most often, you come across software (software) bads, which are removed most quickly by zeroing - using the Erase algorithm, and even if writing to the zeros sector is unsuccessful, Remap may well occur, since the hard drive's firmware may consider such a sector to be bad. If Erase does not help, then you can choose Remap, but as we know, the chances of Remap being produced on a running Windows are slim.
In some cases, soft (software) bads can be removed even by simple formatting using Windows itself.

I'll just show you on another hard drive how to run this test on a running Windows.

In the main window of Victoria, select our hard disk and go to the Tests tab, mark the Erase item (be careful, in some cases, your data on the hard disk will be deleted) - when an unreadable sector is found, it forcibly overwrites the entire block of 256 sectors with zeros, of course the information is in the whole block sectors are completely lost, but if overwriting occurs, the block returns to work (becomes healthy).

Read test

That is, from beginning to end and click Start.

Often, when "zeroing" in a running Windows, the following errors will appear:

Block (bad sector number) try Erase 256 sectors. Failed to overwrite block of sectors.

Algorithm Write

The Write mode does not look for any bad sectors, but simply immediately overwrites all the information on the hard disk by filling all sectors with zeros, this is in the jargon of the repairmen "Writing across the entire clearing", this algorithm is able to cure the hard disk of bad read latency, but after such a test, it will be impossible to recover data on the hard disk, so copy all important files to a portable hard disk beforehand.

How to remove troubles from a hard drive. How to fix bad sectors on a disk in Windows

How to fix broken sectors

Filesystem errors

Physical damage to the HDD

Hard disk test in Victoria program and how to fix bad sectors (bad blocks).

Victoria to work from a boot disk

For example, let's take a real hard disk with bad sectors:

Victoria launch:

Hard disk surface test in Victoria program

Disk management of my computer

Remap

How to scan a specific area on your hard drive in Victoria

Erase Algorithm

Read test

Algorithm Write

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