Hard drive problems. Basic hard drive malfunctions and their elimination

Any malfunction of the computer itself is an unpleasant thing, especially if problems arise with, which is directly the main storage of long-term information. And here 50/50 that personal data is saved, not to mention the operability of the operating system. But what can cause damage hard disk, we will analyze with you below ...

Causes of hard drive failures

Of course, the malfunctions considered below are of a local nature, since they relate only to familiar hard drives and do not affect the rest of the computer's devices. In this concept sSD drives, although they are an order of magnitude higher in cost, but have more stable performance indicators, as well as proven performance in practice.

There are several main factors that one way or another lead to the inoperability of the hard drive. Almost all of them are physical in nature. And this is natural, since the hard disk has physical device, consisting of usually a pair of metal disks and a magnetic read head. Disks rotate at a certain speed, which is maintained from starting the computer to shutting it down. And the head, in turn, is a microscopic needle that moves in the direction of the surfaces of the disc and magnetizes or demagnetizes certain parts of the discs, that is, it either writes "one" or erases - "zero".

Most often, the appearance is accompanied by problems with the system loading or its performance (the appearance of a blue screen of death).

Of course, it is often possible to fix the "broken" sectors, and the hard drive can work for some time, but after recovery, you should think about purchasing a new drive, since the problem may recur!

« Broken "sectors can be corrected using special utilities such as MHDD or Victoria, or standard windows tools - checking hard drives. In the last article I described the launch system check and fixing errors using the command line tools, but you can run the diagnostics of the hard drive through the usual system interface:

Note! There are "broken" sectors that cannot be restored, so it is not a fact that in your case it will be possible to correct the errors!

Other fatal hard drive failures

Short circuit

As I said, there is also damage to the hard drive, which often end in failure of the drive. One of these is a short circuit, while the hard drive is not recommended to be used in the future, even if you managed to start the computer. It would be best to copy the information to a new drive using the services!

Overheating hard drive

Like any computer hardware, a hard disk has temperature regime work, violation of which can lead to. To prevent this from happening, it is worth taking care of good ventilation in system unit or laptop case. More often, after overheating, it is undesirable to use the disk, it is also worth copying the data to a new storage device and abandoning the damaged hard drive!

Physical deterioration

Any device, even an electronic one, has a working life or shelf life, not to be confused with storage or warranty period! With physical wear and tear, the hard disk starts to work slower (due to the large number of sectors with delays!), And also emit a characteristic noise that is distinguishable in the normal operating sound of ventilation. In this state, the hard drive can work stably for quite a long time, but you should think about buying new equipment to avoid the loss of personal data!

P.S.

Of course, it is difficult to cover all the factors affecting the performance of hard drives, but it is quite possible to save your computer from possible malfunctions... Try to perform periodic preventive maintenance on your computer (or laptop), do hardware diagnostics, monitor the physical parameters (temperature, voltage) and the stability of the operating system.

I'll start crying from afar. My hard drive crashed. Summing up, in a relatively short period of time, one hard drive died, another works after resuscitation, the third is ready to follow the first two. I have a nervous tic for any misunderstandings with the HDD.

Out of three HDD disks one died a long time ago - 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200. I never liked the barracuda - a hot infection. Compared to the green WD series, the barracuda was hotter by almost 10 degrees Celsius.

The second 750 GB WD Green HDD had a failure and SMART showed that the bobby was dead and the G-list table of the reassigned clusters was full and the disk had to be thrown out. A friend, an electronics engineer, revived him by some unknown miracle and now the disk is in service. Well, as in the ranks. When the computer starts, the BIOS yells: "save the data", but the disk has been rooting for a couple of years. By the way, earlier, in the era of my unbridled experiments with the btrfs file system, this disk was in btrfs and, only many years later, I formatted it in ext4.

The third WD Green 1 TB HDD has recently failed in hardware. The game started to lag. I quit the game, but they write to me ... there is no disk \u003d (. There are a lot of mentions in the logs about the disc that has fallen off. After such things I start to twitch and freak out. What could I do? I cleaned the whole computer from dust. Replaced SATA with new blue SATA 3. Judging by forum.ubuntu.ru, this shamanism helps out more than once.

I was told that it is desirable good block power supply (PSU), but it has long been replaced from one good to another good PSU from a friend of Vitaly, who fumbles in electronics and distinguishes Watts from Millivolt-Amperes and understands other buzzwords. Add to this situation that I have a Source Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), that is, power failures do not threaten me.

The hardware error seems to be gone. SMART, whose parameters I never fully understood and do not know how to interpret, says that everything seems to be in order. I checked all disks using fsck through the order: sudo touch / forcefsck && sudo shutdown -r +0. Errors were fixed, judging by the fsck report.

And then my synchronizer with the Ubuntu One cloud "broke". I unrolled the problem and it turned out that after a failure I had a folder on the disk that I could not delete and it was causing the problem. What's strange is that I can override a folder, I can change the owner, I can rename the parent folder, but I can’t delete the "bad folder". So far I renamed the parent folder and UbuntuOne re-created what it needed and worked.

Here I sit, scratching my turnips, googling - how to remove an unremovable one? There are no additional attributes on the folder, I know this trick with my ears. The folder may have special attributes such as the -i (immutable) bit, and even the admin will not be able to delete a file or folder while this bit is set. But the bits are not set and the lsattr command does not lie.

Format the entire disk, keeping the files, while just broke. So far, there is only one thought, to find the time and start an oh-oh-oh-oh-very long procedure for finding bad areas using the non-destructive badblock test, or take out the disk and drive it out at Vitalik's stand through the Victoria utility.

Friends, having heard this story, unanimously say: "What did you want? If the discs are older than 3-5 years, then you should prepare to replace them." I may say heresy, but I am not ready mentally and physically to buy discs every five years. My first 1 GB hard drive has served faithfully for many years. Yes, of course, earlier the HDD recording density was not the same as it is now and, perhaps, the new disks are more "capricious".

Logically, the file system shouldn't bother with faulty hardware issues. But my situation showed me that in ext4, apart from its own journal, there are no technologies that will help out in such unpleasant situations. From what I know, Google uses ext4 without a journal and does not bother with data recovery, since everything is stored in Google in several places. For Google, it is easier and faster to redeploy the node by removing the disk after a failure.

From what I read, ZFS is good because it does not trust hardware and was created under the gun that SATA drives may throw errors. But ZFS was at one time not our filesystem due to the difference in its license and the Linux kernel license. ZFS first appeared as a filesystem via FUSE, but this is a quiet horror of poor performance. Then ZFS came into the kernel through some kind of legal kernel module interlayer trick. Admittedly, though, ZFS is not a clean filesystem. It also touches the underlying layer at which Linux RAID and LVM also work. Maybe try ZFS?

An unpleasant prospect looms ahead. The system is installed at 32 GB SSD disk OCZ "Onyx" OCZSSD2-1ONX32G with an Indilinx Amigos controller with ext4, since at one time I got into trouble with btrfs unnecessary problems for me. Three HDDs, like the stages of a rocket, are ready to fall off, so that I am left with one SSD and flew further into a bright, dark future.

Do not be lazy and unsubscribe so that you would advise to do, what to check and what to prepare for?

Elimination malfunction hard disk is a serious business that does not always end with complete success. The matter is further complicated by the fact that in most cases the hard disk contains important information that was not copied at the right time to a more reliable place.

Not all faults can be eliminated. So, controller malfunctions, for example, chip failure or head breakage, cannot be corrected at home. In this case, at least knowledge is needed, not to mention the details and tools, and the conditions should be as close as possible to the factory ones. At the same time, with some knowledge and skills, at home you can deal with bad blocks and deal with the data of the system, or, as it is often called, engineering, data domain.

Before embarking on the difficult task of troubleshooting, you need to decide in which direction to move. Namely, you need to understand whether you can cope with the malfunction that has arisen.

The first step is to disconnect the data cable from the hard drive. It also does not hurt to disconnect the power from installed devices data storage. This will ensure that you hear all sounds made (or not) hard disk when voltage is applied to it.

After turning on the computer, you should listen to work hard disk. Serviceable hDD when power is applied to it, it should unwind, initialize and remove the heads from the parking zone. This usually takes up to 5 seconds. After that, there should be no sounds, except for the sound of disc rotation. Based on what we have heard, we get several basic situations.

The disk has completed all the necessary actions and is awaiting further instructions. This signals that at least the disk controller, motors and heads are operational.
The disc does not spin up and no sound is heard. This means that there is a malfunction in the power supply of the hard disk (possibly also damage to the motor). Maybe the power regulator on the controller is damaged or there is a more serious breakdown, for example, most of the controller's components are out of order. In this case, the motors and heads can remain working. It is difficult to recommend anything in this situation. If you are an experienced radio amateur, have the opportunity, knowledge and conditions, then you can try to find faulty components and replace them with analogues. However, this is a very difficult task, especially if you have to solder and solder the microcircuits. Many controllers cannot be removed from the pallet. This makes it much more difficult to heat the desired section of the board in order to unsolder the desired component. That is why it is best to include such a hard drive in service center, where, firstly, they will tell you for sure whether it is subject to repair, and secondly, they will rewrite from it important information.
The disc spins, with a grinding sound and strong vibration. This means that there has been a displacement of the plate block, or, in other words, the roll of the disc spindle. Such a malfunction cannot be eliminated at home. Moreover, such a disk should not even be turned on, since the plates may be destroyed. In this situation, even the service center will most likely not help you, because after almost impossible alignment of the spindle, the head positioning system will fail due to a violation of the location of the servo tags.
The disc spins, knocks are heard. This can mean a lot, from a faulty positioning system to a malfunctioning head. Another option is bad blocks appearing in the boot area. You can correct this situation yourself.

The next step is to connect the data loop. In this case, you can not only listen to the sounds emitted by the hard disk, but also see various messages and errors during its operation. The following basic situations are possible.

Tina's messages popping up Invalid Drive Specification. This means that the BIOS contains incorrect information about the parameters of the installed hard drive, or the hard drive is incorrectly recognized. The latter option indicates the destruction of information in the system area of \u200b\u200bthe disk or damage to the heads. It is also possible that the interface contacts are broken both on the controller board and in the data loop itself.
Appearance of messages like DiskBootFailure. This clearly indicates that the MBR is damaged - the master boot record.
Appearance of messages like BootDiskFailed. The most likely reason is the presence of bad blocks on track 0, which prevents the disk from starting to boot.
The hard disk is recognized fine by both the BIOS and the operating system, however no disks are visible in the operating system itself. If we exclude the fact that the disk is simply not partitioned into logical drives, then the main reason for such a malfunction is the presence of bad blocks in the system area or the destruction file systemcontaining information about the current disk configuration. In this case, either a new partition of the disk into logical components with its subsequent formatting, or the use of low-level utilities for the purpose of a more detailed troubleshooting can help.
The hard drive is recognized normally, but the system stops booting or does not boot at all. This fact indicates that there are bad blocks on the surface of the disk that stores the operating system files. In this case, low-level utilities that can perform sector reassignment, that is, the so-called remap, will almost certainly help.
When launching some applications, messages about reading errors... As in the previous case, there are bad blocks in those parts of the disk where they place their data application programs... In this case, checking the disk will help, followed by reinstalling the selected applications.

Hard drive malfunctions can be of a different nature and manifest in different ways. It all starts with the fact that operating system more and more often offers to perform a disk check or reports that work with the system was completed incorrectly. One "fine" day, the verification program reports the "good" news of the discovery of the first bad block, and a month later you find that the hard drive acts as a pop drummer, rhythmically tapping its heads against the surface of the plate. The consequence of this behavior is the loss of important data and an attempt to repair the hard drive, which, by the way, does not always end successfully. All this can be avoided if the problem is localized in time.

A hard drive failure can be classified into several categories:

logical malfunction;
malfunction controller hard disk;
loss or destruction of service information;
physical malfunction.

Logical fault

With such a malfunction, booting from disk is impossible and connecting it to another port of the controller will have no effect. At the same time, a hard disk with such a malfunction is correctly recognized in the BIOS, and no messages about any physical damage appear during the check.

Such a disk cannot be repaired by various verification utilities like Scandiskincluded in the standard set of operating system utilities. Moreover, the use of such utilities is highly discouraged, since during the scan they can write to disk, which can lead to the loss of important information.

This malfunction can be eliminated only by applying specialized utilitieswhich at a low level restore partitions and file structure disk.

Hard disk controller failure

This category includes physical malfunctions of the disk controller components, for example, burned-out microcircuits, damaged heads, a torn interface cable, etc. This is aggravated by the fact that there are two options for determining such malfunctions.

The first of them is simple, when an external examination shows clear signs of destruction - holes on microcircuits, etc. In this case, before starting any action, burned-out components change, if at all possible.

The second method is more difficult when there are no obvious signs of damage, but the hard drive is not behaving as it should. Some of these situations are described below.

The disc motor does not spin up, no sounds are heard. If the described situation is observed after a year of power supply to the hard disk, it is possible that the spindle motor is jammed or the read / write heads "stuck" to the surface of the disk. In this case, if you try to turn the spindle, you can damage not only the surface of the disk (accordingly, the information will disappear), but also the head control mechanism and the heads themselves.
Engine does not spin, vibration or quiet ticking occurs. This situation - a possible continuation of the previous one. In this case, the disk management system assumes that the heads are "stuck" to the surface of the disk and tries to free them using its own methods. It tries to perform an emergency unparking of the heads using a series of electrical pulses applied to the head positioner. As a rule, this action does not bring any results. The most likely reason for this behavior is a failure of the output circuit of the engine rotation generator or a short circuit in the coil of the engine winding. If a short circuit occurs, then it may be accompanied by strong heating of the controller microcircuits.
The engine spins and a click is heard. This click is a consequence of the unparking of the heads, or rather, its absence. The most likely cause of this malfunction is a failure of the spindle motor generator or head positioning system. It is also possible damage to the positioning coil, which is located on the head assembly.
The engine spins up, the disk is not detected or is detected incorrectly. The reasons for such a malfunction may be the failure of the controller interface microcircuit or mechanical damage The terminal block to which the data cable is connected, such as a bent or broken metal lead.
After some time of operation, the engine stops spinning, a knocking or grinding sound appears. This malfunction is associated with overheating of the control microcircuits, which were originally manufactured with deviations.
Periodic knocking is heard. This malfunction is caused by overheating of the switch, which serves to switch the heads and amplify the signal coming from them.

Loss or destruction of service information

This category of hard drive malfunctions occurs most often. The positive side of such malfunctions is that they are corrected exclusively by software methods, that is, using special low-level utilities. If the task is to simply restore hard work disk, it is quite easy to fix this kind of malfunction. However, if you need to restore both the working capacity of your hard drive and the information on it, you will have to spend a considerable amount of time collecting information practically from pieces.

As we said, on hard disk there is a special area where important information is entered. So important that its performance completely depends on it. In particular, it contains information about defective and unstable disk sectors. This is the so-called defect table. If the data in this table undergoes a random change, then the controller simply will not know where to write data, and where not. Moreover, he will not know where some of the information transferred when a defective block is found is located.

Such malfunctions are most often caused by voltage drops. For example, if at the moment of recording information in the service area, power is lost, then it is not known what will be written into it and whether it will be written to the right place. Very often the cause of such failures is testing and diagnostic technology. hard drives S.M.A.R.T., which, when switched on, constantly monitors state of tough disk and stores information about it in the service area. That is why the BIOS defaults to this technology disabled.

Malfunctions of this category can manifest themselves in different ways. More often than not, it looks like a misidentified hard drive. As a result, the disk switches to safe mode and the hard disk can be used only in technological mode.

Another common symptom is the appearance of messages like PrimaryMasterDiskFail the very beginning of the computer boot. This usually means that track 0 is damaged on the hard disk.

Physical malfunction

Physical failure, at least in the form of bad blocks, is the most common problem with plated hard drives. In addition to bad blocks, there are malfunctions of heads, motors, etc.

Bad blocks. Bad blocks are called sections of the disk - sectors that, for one reason or another, become unusable for further use. No one is immune from the appearance of bad blocks. Moreover, such blocks are present on disk platters from the very beginning.

The reasons for the appearance of bad blocks can be different. The most common are:

destruction of the magnetic layer of the disk due to manufacturing defects:
the formation of a microrelief due to the loss of its properties by the magnetic layer;
malfunctions of the head control unit, which cause mechanical shock against the plate;
controller malfunctions;
damage from impact or fall of the hard drive;
software crashes.

Bad blocks appear and manifest in different ways. Most often it looks like a write or read error message. Another manifestation is obvious when the surface of the disc is checked special utilities... In this case, the utility puts a special mark on the block and enters information about it into the so-called defects table.

The main principle for correcting such a malfunction is sector reassignment, which will be discussed later.

Displacement of the disc block due to strong shock or shock to the hard drive. The result of this displacement is the impossibility of positioning the heads according to the servo information recorded in the system area. Consequence - the appearance of all sorts of grinding, knocking, etc. "Bring to life" such a hard disk is possible, but not always. If the offset is insignificant, then you can use low-level utilities, but in this case, as a rule, all information on the hard drive disappears.
Failure of the heads. Faults in the heads are directly related to a malfunction of the positioning system: a few hits on the surface or limiter - and the head is faulty. The temperature in which it operates also has a great influence on the state of the head. Since the head is very fragile due to the design and size, all these destructive factors are immediately reflected on it. And since there are many such heads in a modern hard disk, the probability of one of them failing is quite high.

A head breakage is manifested in read or write errors that continually occur during the operation of the operating system. In the worst case, reading or writing becomes impossible altogether. Another reason for the appearance of a malfunction of the head can be a violation of the location of the support on which it is attached. This support, or as it is often called the slider, is designed to create conditions conducive to the appearance of an air cushion, with which the head floats above the surface of the disc. Initially, the slider is attached in such a way that its lower part rubs against the surface of the disc. Over time or as a result of an impact, its lower part may wear off, causing it to sink. Accordingly, the head will also go down, which can lead not only to damage to the working surface of the disk, but also to breakage of the head.

Failure of engines. This happens quite rarely, but no one is safe from this. This can be due to mechanical factors such as a crumbling bearing.
Scratches on the surface of the disc. Most often, concentric scratches appear. They are the result of a failure of the positioning system or a broken head. If there is a scratch, then the information that was in these sectors cannot be saved. In addition, the appearance of such scratches signals the imminent failure of the hard drive, if urgent measures are not taken.

As a rule, the consequences of a scratch appear as loud sounds when removing heads from the parking zone or when reading information from bad areas.

If you still have questions about malfunctioning hard drives - leave your comments on this article.

According to statistics hard drives are the least reliable devices in a computer because they contain mechanical, software and electronic parts. In our laboratory, all work with the HDA is performed in a special "Clean Room", so data recovery is of a high quality level!

Recovery of information from HDD consists of several main stages:

Winchester is being temporarily repaired to the point where it can read the information;
From a semi-working hard drive using a professional software a sector-by-sector copy is made to another absolutely serviceable HDD;
Further, if necessary, the logical structure of user data is analyzed on a working disk and, if damaged, it is corrected;
Then the information is written in its pure form to the customer's new drive.

Cases in which it is physically impossible to restore files:

when information is completely overwritten on top of other information.
when the disk's magnetic platters are physically damaged (bent or scratched by their heads)
when the plates are demagnetized by the information destruction system.
after strong heating (for example, in a fire), when the temperature reaches the Curie point and the ordering of the magnetic domains is destroyed due to strong thermal vibrations of atoms inside the ferromagnet (the substance covering the HDD plates).

Logic glitches

Consider the reasons and the number of percentages attributable to data recovery after logical failures:

Accidental file deletion or user erroneous disk formatting... This usually happens as a result of erroneous or inept actions. The most common case is when people format a hard disk, reinstall the operating system and a bunch of programs on it, and then remember that they had an archive of documents and photographs on this disk before. file recovery, carried out using special software, usually allows you to recover most of the information.
Damage to the disk file system... In this case, usually a logical disk disappears in the explorer or there is no access to it. This can be caused by many factors: operating system failure, exposure to viruses, incorrect removal of the drive (in the case of portable drives). Very often this happens on Flash cards in cameras, in this case the card asks to format it, of course it is not worth doing this, and the percentage of data recovery in such cases is usually 90-95%.
Unsuccessful merging or moving disk partitions using Partition Magic. Not only is this program itself far from always successfully completing such operations with the movement of a large amount of information, it can also turn off the light in an apartment or office, and then all the contents of the disk partitions over which manipulations were performed will become inaccessible. Data recovery allows you to return only part of the information, because in partition program Magic does not keep logs and, accordingly, there is no way to rollback.
Dynamic disks... Periodically, there are times when after reinstall Windows users lose logical markup on hard disk... On such disks there is a binding of a logical structure to a specific operating system, and after reinstalling it, this binding does not give new windows see logical drives from old. file recovery allows you to restore information 100%, for this you need to rewrite all files and folders to another disk using special software, recreate the partition on the old disk and write back all the information to it.
The so-called LBA 48 problem, usually it occurs due to the lack of support by the operating system for hard drives larger than 137GB. The error lies in the fact that the operating system, not understanding the volume of the disk over 137GB, does not continue to write further, but begins to write to the beginning of the disk, thereby overwriting it. Support for hard drives over 137GB in Windows 2000 and Windows XP is provided only with the corresponding Service Pack installed. Service Pack3 is required for Windows 2000, Service Pack1 for Windows XP. Do not connect a large partitioned hard drive to systems that do not support 48bitLBA, as this will result in file system corruption and loss of information.

Unfortunately, error 301, which at startup computer system gives a failure to initialize the hard drive - the problem is quite serious, and for some reason it is found mostly on HP laptops. Of course, the appearance of this failure may indicate the beginning of the failure of the hard drive, but in some cases the error can be eliminated without replacement hard disk.

HP Notebook PC: Error 301. What does it mean?

So, before proceeding with the direct solution of the problem that has arisen, you need to find out what its essence is.

The hard disk error 301 indicates that there are so-called bad sectors on the hard drive itself, which is why, when accessing them, the system begins to catastrophically slow down and freeze, sometimes giving out even blue screen... But this only applies to the operating mode when the OS is already loaded.

When the OS starts, after checking the hardware in the BIOS, when it loads the components necessary for its operation, accessing the bad sectors in the same way leads to the fact that the system cannot read information from them. At first, as the feedback from many users testifies, you can get used to the constant appearance of the message when loading. But it is possible that error 301 will manifest itself in a fatal way in the future, when the old hard drive will simply have to be thrown away. Therefore, you need to fight it.

The causes of the failure and its consequences

But, regardless of how to fix the 301 error, all HP laptop owners are primarily interested in the question of why bad sectors appear on the hard disk.

It is impossible to answer it unequivocally. But most often this is due to errors on the hard drive, which usually appear due to incorrect operation of the cooling system.

There are cases when the processor temperature when trying to access bad sectors reached about 90 degrees Celsius. It is not hard to guess that if the elimination of this failure is left to chance, it can come to the point that both the processor and motherboard fail.

Disk check

Now directly about how it is eliminated bug hard disk 301. The first step in a running system is to check it for broken sectorsusing a standard system tool in the properties of the main and virtual sections on the service tab. In this case, it is desirable to indicate automatic fix mistakes.

But this method may not work, so your best bet is to use the command console by entering the chkdsk command with additional parameters like / x / f / r. If this does not give the desired effect, you can try to boot from the installation or recovery disk, and then do a similar operation in command linecalled by the combination Shift + F10. If the system denies access or an attempt to initialize, you will be prompted to check the next time the OS starts. It remains to restart the laptop and wait for the end of the procedure.

Using the Victoria program

However reveal all bad sectors the above technique cannot. The main remedy for the problem when the 301 error code appears is to, if not fix, then isolate the bad sectors if the hard drive begins to crumble.

At the first stage, this will have to sacrifice space, about 5-15% of the total. But after all, it is required to identify from which sector the braking begins.

To do this, use universal program Victoria. In its results and statistics of calls to the hard disk, it will be possible to find out the exact volume that will have to be cut off so that the system simply does not address them in the future. By the way, quite often you can find feedback that the error is more related to virtual partitions, and not to the system one.

Removing and re-creating a virtual partition

Now, in order to answer the question of how to fix the error 301 of the hard drive, you need to delete the virtual partition, and then create it again, taking into account the minus of the volume that the Victoria program revealed.

Please note that if there are failures outside the system partition, you can format virtual disk, but in order to avoid loss of information on the main disk where the system is installed, this is not discussed.

You can perform such operations in the disk management section, which is located in the control (administration) menu, invoked through the PCM on the computer icon. By the way, in Windows 10 it is in File Explorer, not on the Desktop.

After that, you need to create new volume (simple virtual partition), again taking into account the deduction of a previously defined space, and initialize and activate it.

Disable paging file

Another method that sometimes resolves the 301 error is to disable swap files for both system and virtual partitions, since when using virtual memory the system accesses the pagefile.sys file, but it can either be located in the area with bad sectors, or reserve this area in the bad section.

To disconnect through the PCM on the computer icon, the system properties menu is called up, you go to the additional settings and the tab of the same name. Here you should use the button to change the size of the paging file, uncheck the box from its automatic detection and check the box to deactivate its use. This operation is performed for each section presented in the list above.

Defragmentation

Finally, when all the steps have been taken so that the 301 error probably does not appear again, you must defragment the system and all virtual partitions.

This operation can be performed using standard Windows-systems tools, which are accessed on the service tab from the disk properties section.

Provided that some program can be used in the system for optimization and acceleration, the maintenance (defragmentation) command can be integrated directly into the "Explorer" RMB menu. I must say that the defragmenter in such utilities looks much more preferable than the built-in Windows tool. Therefore, if possible, it is better to give preference to optimizers (they use a slightly different principle of putting things in order in the system, and in particular on the hard disk).

Upon completion of the entire set of actions, as a control tool, you can run the same Victoria utility and check. As practice shows, in 99% of cases out of 100 "cut off" bad sectors will be ignored, and the test will not reveal any errors.

Instead of a total

As you can see from the above material, it is quite easy to fix the error with code 301. True, here you need to keep in mind that its appearance is the first bell that the hard drive has started to crumble and will soon have to be changed, having previously copied the most important information onto removable media or even another hard drive. In order not to have to reinstall the system, you can create an image of it with all the data and place it, for example, on an external uSB disk HDD. This option looks much more efficient than copying individual files and directories to flash drives, even if they are large enough. All the same, according to the time spent, it will take longer.

In extreme cases, if nothing helps at all, you can use a unique program for remagnetizing the hard drive called But for an ordinary user it will be too difficult to understand and use, in addition, the process will be complicated by the lack of a Russified interface and work exclusively in DOS mode.