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

For the time being, you may not observe problems at work hard drive, but this does not guarantee that one day the hard drive will not order to live long. Therefore, it is important to periodically (once or twice a year) check HDD for errors and bad sectors that need to be fixed. Regular monitoring will allow you to track the state of the carrier and respond in time to changes in its state. Of course, you should not neglect such a proven method of protecting information as backup. The most valuable data must necessarily be duplicated on a spare custodian.

Symptoms of a failing hard drive

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

The occurrence of hard disk failures may be indicated by too long loading operating system, unreasonable disappearance of files and folders, slow application launch. Obvious symptoms of a loss of performance by a hard drive are program slowdowns and long file copying. If the computer constantly “hangs”, and nothing but restarting helps, then in the process of identifying the causes, checking the hard drive should be the first item.

Using standard Windows 7/10 tools

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

Next, click the "Perform verification" button and set the verification parameters in the window that opens. If both checkboxes are checked, then Windows will automatically fix everything during diagnostics. system errors and repair bad sectors.

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

Command line

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

So let's start command line by selecting the desired item on the Start menu. Then in the window enter the command: chkdsk G: /f /r

• G - the name of the tested hard disk (select the disk that you want to check);
• f - checking and correcting errors;
• r - detection and recovery of bad sectors.

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

Third Party Hard Drive Checker

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

Victoria

Perhaps the most popular verification tool hard drives. The program can be run both in the Windows environment and in DOS mode from a bootable flash drive.

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

Next, select the tab SMART and press the "Get SMART" button. SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analisys and Reporting Technology) is a hard drive self-monitoring technology. Those. the hard drive in the process of operation monitors its work, recording information on a set of parameters that make it possible to assess the state of the media. It is this service information that we are trying to obtain.

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

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

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

HDDScan

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

At the bottom, click on the button "S.M.A.R.T." and get acquainted with the submitted report.

Now we will diagnose the surface of the disk. Click on the round button to the right of the drop-down list of media and select Surface Tests from the menu that opens.

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

You can get information about the progress of testing in the graph (Graph), map (Map) and report (Report) mode. All blocks are also, depending on the access time, divided into groups with the corresponding color marking.

At the end, a final report is generated.

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

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

How to check the hard drive for health, and most importantly, is it possible to remove bad sectors from the hard disk or, as they are called, 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 bads, that is, soft-bads (file system errors).
Before writing to you, I understood this issue for quite a long time and realized that the average user knows superficial and inaccurate information, namely: many people think that all bad sectors or bad blocks are removed by regular formatting, but this is not so. It turns out that it is impossible to remove physical bads at all, but logical ones can only be removed with the help of special programs and only software bad blocks or soft bads (file system errors) can be removed using the usual Windows tools, for example, using or regular formatting. Why am I all this.

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

IN service center a technician checked my hard drive free program HDDScan.

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 is Reallocated Sector Count, which indicates the number of remapped sectors (when the disk detects a read / write error, the sector is marked “remapped”, and data from the damaged sector or in other words, the physical bad block is transferred to the spare area) is almost critical, it is responsible for the physical defects of the hard disk, which can no longer be corrected.

Another parameter, Current Pending Errors Count, which is responsible for the number of sectors that are difficult to read and is very different from reading a normal sector, was also marked in yellow, which indicated its poor condition. The expert’s advice was this: Transfer all important data from the hard drive and “treat” it in this HDDScan program, but since there are a lot of bad blocks, most likely, it will not be possible to fix all of them and it will no longer be possible to install the operating system on it, in Subsequently, you need to use this hard drive as a file storage or, as they say, a file trash can, only in this way, it will live for some more time.

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

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

one of the critical S.M.A.R.T indicators - 197 Current Pending Errors Count-responsible, as I said, for the number of sectors, the reading of which is difficult, has become 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 Reallocated Sector Count indicator, according to him, did not change and remained unsatisfactory, so the conclusion is this: the operating system cannot be installed on this hard disk.

And I have a question for you, explain in detail, how to check hard drive on professional suitability 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, ridding it of bad blocks, and for how long will such hard drive treatment help? Is it still possible to install an operating system on this hard drive or not? And the last question, the unrecoverable parameter S.M.A.R.T - Reallocated Sector Count can still be fixed and whether the physical bads are actually unrecoverable at all, on many forums on the Internet they say that there are proprietary utilities of hard drive manufacturers that can perform low-level formatting at home. Alexander Anatolievich. Tomsk.

How to check hard drive

Friends, they say brevity - sister of talent, one of my friends, after reading this question, answered it like this:- “You can’t fix a scratch with anything, but a soft bad is treated with zero.”

The topic is not simple, but relevant, the article is long, but I tried to make it understandable to a simple user. To make it easier to understand everything, I suggest that during the article, step by step 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 drive freezes from time to time, refuses to boot, giving various errors or just a black screen. The hard drive creaks and clicks, (I will 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 hard drive status? This can be done by 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 for how long (read below).

• But first, very brief information about how a hard drive is built, if you don’t make this digression, you simply won’t understand the principle of operation of the HDDScan program and other similar programs, all the more you won’t 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 hard drive production, 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 drive on the tracks of the hard disk. The minimum 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 occurs only once, friends, and only on special and very expensive factory equipment - called Servowriter. Information written using this formatting will never be overwritten. In any service, friends, such formatting cannot be done. Therefore, my answer to the question of whether it is possible to carry out low-level formatting using the means of the operating system will be the answer - no, it is not possible. Low-level formatting can only be done at the factory, it even destroys tracks, sectors and magnetic servos. For example, in the program, Victoria overwrites 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 either, 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 written to the sectors ( servo-information 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, which is necessary for the heads to correctly hit these tracks and sectors when reading information recorded in them.
  After purchasing the hard drive, user data will also be written to this area later (for example, the first sector of the hard drive will contain the main boot record MBR), but user data can be written and erased, in contrast to service information, which has a much higher magnetization, which is why the read-write heads of the drive can't rub it.

All service information about track and sector numbers will be stored in a special table located in a service area closed and inaccessible to OS and BIOS tools, which is a mini-operating system, together with 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. This SA will also store the disk passport, SMART attribute values, as well as a defect table with information about unrecoverable or reassigned bad sectors (bad blocks).
So we got with you to the physical, logical and software bad sectors.

The fact is friends, if the operating system has 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 a failure, then information is written to the normal sector , located on the backup track, and the problem sector is recognized as a failure and removed from circulation, this is called ( Remapping , in the common people remap).

• Friends, whether to remap or not is decided only by the hard disk controller during operation, and not by 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 that a sector is recognized as bad is entered in the defect table with information about unrecoverable or reassigned bad sectors located in the service area.

By the way, there are two defect tables, one initial P-list (Primary-list) is created after the final factory tests, any friends hard drive already has several reassigned bad blocks when it leaves the factory. Well, the growing G-list (Grown-list) table of defects is filled in as we use the hard disk.

What are 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, such a bad block is undoubtedly subject to reassignment as a normal sector from the backup track. Very often this happens due to an impact caused, for example, by a hard drive falling to the floor, mechanical damage to the magnetic coating of the hard drive, damage to the magnetic heads, the same can happen due to overheating. Vibration of the hard drive is also dangerous if it is not securely fixed. A dusty room, smoking, despite the filter installed in the hard drive, also play a huge role in the formation of bad blocks, tobacco tar and dust stick to the surface of the hard drive and interfere with reading information.
• Physical bad blocks impossible fix it with no formatting, you can only reassign spare sectors from backup tracks, naturally, because of this, performance will drop somewhat, since the magnetic head of the hard drive will have to make many additional movements, looking for information on the reassigned sectors from 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 creaks can be emitted by the hard drive head positioner.

The following reason may also be the cause of clicks and creaking of the hard drive. 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 people say, jump from side to side.

The third reason - as I said above, in the manufacture of a hard drive, a special marking of the magnetic surface of hard drives is made with special servo marks, these servo marks serve for precise positioning of the magnetic head on the tracks of the hard drive, it is with the help of servo marks that the magnetic head of the hard drive moves correctly. Sometimes 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 drive.

• Logic bad blocks(sector logic errors), in turn divided into correctable and incorrigible. In which case logical bad block cannot be fixed? As I said above, each sector carries in itself except user information more 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 marking, with the help of which the magnetic head of the hard drive gets to the desired sector tracks, such marking is applied by low-level formatting at the factory during the manufacture of the hard disk. This information it is almost impossible to remove it because it is highly magnetized, but under certain circumstances, similar to the causes of the appearance of physical bad blocks (shock, vibration, bearing play, and so on), this information is violated and it can be restored only in the factory. Yes, there are special proprietary utilities that overwrite service information, but due to the complexity of their application, this issue is difficult even for narrow specialists and we will not consider it.
• Logic bad blocksthat can be corrected. When writing to the user information sector, a portion of service information is additionally recorded, the so-called ECC checksum (Error Correction Code), this code allows you to recover data if they were read with an error. But sometimes this code is not written, and accordingly the sum of user data in the sector does not match the ECC checksum. One of simple examples why this happens, you can cause a sudden shutdown of the computer due to power failures, because of this, information was written to the hard disk sector, but there was no checksum. The next time the operating system will access 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 get freezes and a bad 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 regular formatting.

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

When formatting by all means 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, such as MHDD or HDDScan, which will not read anything, but simply force overwriting, usually filling the bad sector with zeros, but then it will read what was written and compare the checksum, after which the sector will return to work.

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

And the best thing is 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 can not shoot anything, write down boot 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 complete picture of what is happening with our hard drive, namely, we will find out the S.M.A.R.T of our hard drive and decrypt it, we will also set the number of bad sectors and of course we will try to fix them.
Read more article

Sooner or later, many of us noticed a gradual deterioration in the performance of our computer and a drop in the speed of copying / moving files. This happens for several reasons, the most common of which is a malfunction of the system hard drive. From our new article, you will learn how to independently check the disk for errors, and what this may require.

Unlike today's solid-state SSD drives, HDD drives were developed long before the first personal computer. An interesting fact is that the basic principles of its work have not changed for 50 years. Only the speed of work, the amount of memory increased, the connection interface changed, and the dimensions decreased.

The main nodes of this data drive are magnetized disks driven by an electric motor. Information from the disk surface is read by a movable head, which transmits it to the device controller for further processing. If everything is clear with damage to moving parts (they are easy to notice by the characteristic noise or even a complete failure of the HDD), then problems with the sectors of the magnetized area can be detected only with the help of special programs. An indirect sign of "broken" sectors is a slowdown in data transfer, frequent crashes and errors, the appearance of a BSOD, and partial loss of recorded information.

Themselves with a mustache - run the Chkdsk command

When the first suspicions arise that the disk has begun to “crumble”, it is not necessary to immediately look for the most powerful utility for analyzing the HDD. To get started, the built-in Windows tools will be enough, namely: the Check disk program. If the hard drive fails, it can start automatically when you restart the computer, but this time we use it forcibly.

To check the status of a hard drive:

Put a tick next to "Check and repair bad sectors" and click "Launch".

The duration of the scan depends on the condition and performance of the device, as well as the volume local disk. At the end of the process, the program will mark bad sectors as unused and correct errors in accessing the contents of the drive.

Note! When executing "chkdsk" for system partition"C:" will require a system restart, after which the search will start automatically.

As stated above, scanning the system partition « C:" will not start without restarting the PC, so you will see a prompt to start the action the next time you start it. Enter "Y" to confirm.

In most cases, the regular utility does an excellent job of checking and restoring the hard drive. Its main disadvantages are the minimum information content and the lack of additional features for a complete analysis of the state of the HDD. To determine the degree of wear of the device, temperature regime, the speed of performing individual operations requires specialized utilities, which will be discussed below.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic

Our review opens with a miniature healing utility western digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic from the hard drive manufacturer of the same name. The developers did not show "corporate egoism", and optimized their product for devices from all famous brands, which makes DLGDIAG a universal, simple and affordable tool for any system.

To check the HDD for "broken" sectors with the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic program:

To check the status of the hard drive and get acquainted with the data SMART systems click on the icon under the number 1. The utility will provide comprehensive information about the health and technical resource ("health") of the device. If you have all the values ​​​​marked with green checkmarks - your HDD is in good condition.

To eliminate possible hidden problems, we recommend using a thorough check, in which each cell of the marked area will be polled. During the search process, DLGDIAG will fix errors, block access to slow sectors, and thus extend the life of the device. However, if the report looks like the screenshot below, then an urgent replacement of the hard drive will be required to avoid losing information on it.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic provides the following benefits:

• Quick installation and low memory footprint;
• Recognizes many models from other manufacturers;
• High verification accuracy;
• Automatically “heals” damaged sectors;
• Does not require a paid license and has no user restrictions;
• Laconic interface.

Also, we could not help but mention the shortcomings:

• The official version is not Russified;
• The "Format" action is incorrectly listed as "Erase", which can lead to accidental data loss beyond recovery. Pay attention to this!

HDD Regenerator

Multifunctional combine HDD Regenerator is one of the most advanced automatic systems for diagnosing hard drives on a PC. The program supports all existing HDD and SSD devices, modern interfaces and file systems. It can perform SMART analysis of devices, check and fix bad clusters, restore the health of a badly worn hard drive.

The main feature of this software is real-time operation. HDD Regenerator informs the user about the hard drive temperature exceeding, read and write errors, the need for recovery work, and other important information.

Important! We will warn you right away that fixing damaged areas is possible only after purchasing a license worth $99.99. Only diagnostics is free.

To check the hard drive with HDD Regenerator:

1. We download and install the distribution kit for free on the developer's website http://www.dposoft.net;

The process of searching and fixing looks like this:

Advantages of HDD Regenerator:

• A large number of functions;
• Works in real time;
• Outputs SMART data;
• Restores access to information on the drive;
• Efficiently finds and marks bad sectors;
• Runs under Windows and MS-DOS.

Main disadvantages:

• Paid license with not quite adequate price (subjective opinion);
• There is no Russian language in the official version;
• Sometimes SMART evaluates the latest hard drives incorrectly.

Victoria HDD

The last participant in our review is Victoria HDD. A professional-class utility that has long declared itself uses its own algorithms for finding and recovering a hard drive. The software differs from competitors in the abundance of settings and diagnostic parameters, as well as excellent information content. For troubleshooting, Victoria HDD polls only the hard drive controller without interacting with the BIOS, which has a good effect on the compatibility of the utility and the system.

To start using Victoria:

• Download and unpack the archive with files on the developer's website https://victoria4.ru.

The utility found two bad cells.

The advantages of Victoria HDD are:

• A large number of customizable search options;
• Effective correction of the marking area of ​​worn discs;
• Support for outdated and modern hard drives;
• It is possible to work from under MS-DOS;
• The maximum degree of information content among competitors;
• The basic version is free.

Disadvantages of the utility:

• Too complicated interface for an unprepared user;
• There is no Russian language.

Summing up

The situation when a hard drive suddenly starts to “crumble” is very common, since the quality of most modern magnetic drives leaves much to be desired. At risk are devices with many years of experience, in which wear is indecently high. However, you should not immediately go to the store and choose a new hard drive - there is a chance to restore the existing disk to working capacity using one of the methods we have mentioned above.

Standard Tools Windows are universal, and will fit in all cases. We advise you to always start the check by running Check disk with any of the two options.

If a positive effect has not been achieved, use one of the three utilities from our review. For those who do not want to bother with the settings, Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic is perfect. Those who want to check their drive to the maximum can use Victoria HDD (free) or HDD Regenerator (if you have extra $100).

Do not be afraid to experiment, and you will definitely learn how to check your computer's disk for errors.

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

What are "bad sectors"?

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

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

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

Causes of bad sectors

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

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

Symptoms of bad sectors

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

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

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

The best ways to check your hard drive for bad sectors

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

Method 1. Use the CHKDSK system utility

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Method 4. Checking your hard drive with HDD Regenerator

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All modern houses have desktop computer or laptop. Someone needs it for games, someone - for work or study. In any case, photos, some important records, contact details of people, necessary addresses, etc. are stored on the computer. And the place where all this information is stored is the hard drive.

Not without reason, experienced programmers say that in a situation where a computer has hard error disk, formatting it is a real disaster. After all, formatting is fraught with the loss of all information. But this is the case if you do not take appropriate measures. But if you notice some errors and failures in the disk operation in time and correct them, then this global catastrophe can be avoided.

The main causes of HDD problems are "bad" sectors - segments of disk space that are somehow damaged.

They are divided into physical and logical. The latter appear with software errors and can be corrected, while the physical ones cannot be corrected. In the latter case, you will have to replace the hard drive.

Such damaged areas can appear on both magnetic and standard SSD drives.

Causes of bad sectors and errors

Railway failures depend on the type of damaged sections:

1. brain teaser"broken" - displayed with malware or viruses, as well as with a sudden power outage or power cable during recording;
2. physical"broken" - are found on a completely new product. Then you need to contact the manufacturer with a request for a replacement product.

In magnetic drives, “broken” sectors can appear as a result of wear and tear of the moving parts of the device, when foreign bodies get on the disk mechanism, or when they fall to the floor. In the latter case, the magnetic head of the disk is scratched, which leads to its errors.

SSD drives give errors because they have tried to write any information to them many times.

Checking "hard" for "broken" sectors is quite realistic. Windows has a "chkdsk" (Check Disks) application. You need to open a folder on the desktop or in the Start menu "My computer" by clicking on the drive to be checked. Using the context menu, select "Properties" - "Service". Under the phrase "Check" there will be a button, by clicking on which, you can see the number of "broken" sectors.

During the check, the computer will eliminate errors in logical "broken" sectors, as well as mark areas with physical damage.

Attention! You can start the check system manually, however, if Windows detects "broken" sectors on its own, the utility will start itself when the system starts.

Verification Utilities

Some software does not have a built-in check. For such cases, there are special programs, helping to identify "broken" sectors and errors and, if possible, correct them.

"Victoria"

It is a popular software for finding damaged areas. Apart from various ways analysis and reassignment of problem areas, has the function of searching for damaged contacts in the loop, as well as the function of evaluating the performance of the hard drive. The only "minus" of the program is the lack of official assemblies. Therefore, experts recommend using it separately from the OS.

HDD Regenerator

This utility uses its own methods to restore "broken" sectors (a combination of high and low signals) and supports any drive connection interfaces.

The downside is the high cost of the license ($90).

One of the best and multifunctional utilities for checking the device for damaged areas. Has the following functionality:

• restores and reconfigures sectors;
• fixes partition tables;
• restores files and creates them backups;
• selects files in the table;
• copies data of deleted partitions;
• backs up data.

This utility uses several methods to detect problems, as well as the ability to track SMART attributes and clean up the hard drive.

Important! The program supports everything Windows versions, however it does not scan/test the drive where the OS is installed.

With the help you can check both one and several hard drives at the same time.

Seagate Seatools for Windows

The app supports everything modern systems Windows. With it, you can do both basic and advanced testing. More simple than Seagate Seatools for DOS but less powerful.