Checking reading of hdd sectors. Diagnostics of the hard drive. Formatting the hard drive

Verification process hard disk for the presence of bad sectors, is a search for erroneous records and bad sectors located on the drive.

Some of these problems can cause information loss - in most cases, beyond recovery.

Therefore, every user should know about their appearance - both in order to try to fix errors on the disk, and for reserve copy important information elsewhere.

The principle of the formation of broken sectors

Over time, the owner of almost every HDD has to face problem sectors.

The principle of their appearance is as follows:

During the production of disks, sectors are created, with the help of magnetization of which information can be written to the drive.

Reading and writing information on (especially if the disc is hit or dropped), and sometimes also influence computer viruses lead to a gradual deterioration in the state of its structure.
Bad sectors begin to appear on the surface of magnetic disks - areas in which information is stored incorrectly or not recorded at all.

It is possible to eliminate bad sectors, but the system does not automatically perform such actions - the user will have to manually start the scan and repair.

If there are few bad sectors, they are replaced with spare areas.

When bad HDD blocks appear, their addresses are reassigned to sectors from the reserve, and no data loss occurs.

Signs of a problem

Among the main signs that problem sectors have appeared on the disk and need to be restored, the following are worth noting:

computer freeze during boot operating system;
failure to start the OS - in most cases, loading only reaches a certain point (for example, to the Windows logo or the inscription "Welcome") and stops;
unreasonable and frequent computer restarts;
errors in the operation of the system, expressed in the inability to launch applications, close windows and slow down the response to user actions.

The list of utilities that can be used to solve the problem is quite large.

They are divided into two main groups. - those that are already built into the operating system (for example, in Windows), and applications from other manufacturers.

The latter can also be conditionally divided into paid programs and more popular among domestic users free versions.

Using Windows Tools

To fix errors and bad sectors, Windows already contains.

The advantages of using it include the ability to restore areas damaged during operation or as a result of virus infection of the system.

Another plus - the ability to run in two ways, in normal mode or.

The utility is capable of checking any physical and logical driveshowever, there are slight differences in working with inactive and system areas.

So, the stages of checking and restoring a regular partition (which does not contain the control files of the system and the OS itself) will be as follows:

1 Goes to the window "My computer".

2 Right-click to open properties of the selected disk.

3 Tab is selected "Service".

4 Pressed check disk button.

5 Placed a checkmark opposite the checkbox for bad sectors.

Check system volumesrunning Windows runs differently.

The start of launching the utility is the same as for a regular partition, but when you try to check the disk, the screen will display an inscription that it is impossible and a proposal to do it after rebooting.

After a reboot, the system does not boot - instead, the system partition of the HDD is checked, the progress of which can be found from the information displayed on the screen.

And you can run Hitachi Drive Fitness Test not only from Windows, but also in the mode, if problems with the disk have already led to the inability to boot the system.

Seagate Seatools

The Seatools utility is free app, which features include:

detection of HDD structure violations, including bad sectors and write or read errors;
correcting bad sectors or overwriting them with zeros, so that the system later ignores the damaged areas;
windows OS problems;
damage to the system bootloader;

The application works best with Seagate drives.

The average time to fix detected errors (together with the verification process), depending on the size of the partition, can be up to 4 hours.

The advantages of the program include its free distribution and the provision of a detailed report.

HDD Health

The free HDD Health program features the ability to while checking bad sectors of the following information:

hDD manufacturer and firmware;
current storage temperature;
the general state of the structure of the device, including whole and damaged sectors;
a whole host of other useful attributes.

The utility is distributed free of charge by Panterasoft.

At the same time, the assessment of the disk condition is carried out only by S.M.A.R.T-indicators and is less effective than checking the disk by other applications.

Victoria

In a good way is an free program "Victoria".

During the check, the user can obtain information not only about the sectors of the disk, but also about all partitions (volumes) of the computer and the connectors to which they are connected.

The utility does not require installation, but it should only be run as Administrator.

Figure: 9. Program for finding problems with HDDScan disks.

Among additional information - temperature control of all disks that are connected to the PC. In addition, the test results are generated in the form of a report and can be saved to a separate file.

The PC records user information and system data on the hard disk. Over time, the drive will debris and wear out. Logical errors appear related to OS crashes, indexing, file table, and physical - broken sectors... To find and eliminate all faults will help the program for checking hard disk for all kinds of errors and bad sectors. Let's talk about similar programs and the features of their work.

Checking your disk for errors is needed if the computer:

freezes when opening and saving files;
reboots itself;
OS starts to load slower;
specific sounds appear when accessing the disc.

Power surges, incorrect shutdown of the PC, shock and shaking can damage the drive. As a result, some of the sectors stop being read - they are called "broken". Single problem sectors do not make it difficult to work, but if their number grows, try to correct mistakes as soon as possible.

Testing applications

When choosing a program for testing a disk, consider its type - HDD or SSD. The former are still more common, but the latter are often used as the main or additional storage. Some applications are universal and can test any type, others are sharpened only for one type.

Windows built-in tools

Online check of the disk for errors in Windows 7 and 10 is possible with the built-in utility. In the "Explorer" click on the desired disk right click, in the submenu go to "Properties". In the window that opens, go to the "Service" tab.

Click on "Check". In the settings, mark whether you need to immediately fix system errors and restore bad sectors. A detailed report will be output at the end.

There is still an option how to check hDD through the command line for serviceability. Hold Win + R and enter cmd, in the black window insert chkdskC: / f / r... The "C:" parameter means that the C drive will be checked; to test the rest of the drives, put the corresponding letter in the command.

Victoria HDD

Victoria HDD perfectly understands how to check a hard drive for errors and performance:

in the "Standard" tab select the required drive;
go to "SMART" and look at the background test result - good or bad;
in the "Tests" section, check the "Ignore" parameter to start a simple test;
the utility will start the test, bad sectors will be painted in blue color - unreadable, green, orange or red - slow;
to correct errors, run the test again with the "Remap" parameter enabled.

Also, the application is able to restore and reassign broken areas, scan more than 1 TB, conduct surface flaw detection.

HDDScan

Knows how to identify various storage problems. How to check a hard drive in HDDScan for bad sectors:

select the source of verification in the list;
click "SMART" and view the background scan results;
select "Surface test" on the round button on the right;
mark the "read" parameter and start testing.

At the end, the results will be displayed in the form of graphs, block color schemes and a text report.

HDD Health

The HDD Health application implements a background disk check in Windows. It analyzes the state of the surface, gives statistics on sections, rotation temperature. The program hangs in the tray, if there are problems, it issues notifications.

SSD Life

Simple check SSD disk... Carries out diagnostics, displaying the health indicators of the drive as a percentage. The program has portable version, free and advanced paid. When installed on a computer, you will be able to run SSD Life in the background to constantly monitor the status change. It will monitor the temperature of the SSD, for some manufacturers, you can change the operating speed and noise level.

Conclusion

We figured out how to check the hard drive for all errors. Select a testing program according to the type of drive and run the test. If many errors are found as a result, check the status regularly so as not to lose all data.

Check

Loss important information from the hard drive - a big problem (read the article "Recovering Information on Disks with Disk Drill for Windows"). Therefore, periodically (for example, twice a year) check the hard drive.

Checking for errors

Hard disk errors are related to metadata used in the description file system, various indexes or master file table. At the same time, the HDD itself is working properly.

Using the command line

In Explorer

Right-click on the required disk → properties → tab "Service" → block "Check for errors" → "Check".

Good to know! The system will warn you that a disk check is not required now, so run the utility forcibly.

Third party programs

The TestDisk utility is a multifunctional tool. Is used for hDD scan and subsequent recovery of the boot sector, lost partitions, and other problems that arose after errors.

You will find a detailed description of using the program in the article “How to recover a USB flash drive or RAW disk to NTFS format? ".

Check for bad sectors

The logical structure of the hard drive is created during production at the factory. As a result of its careless use (shock, vibration), surface degradation occurs magnetic disk, on which data is stored, therefore, information is not read or written on this part of the surface.

When checking special programs these damaged sectors (bad sectors) are detected, and the report shows their total number on the HDD.

The most popular program for bad search - Victoria, working in graphical interface Windows and dOS mode.

Good to know! Victoria 4.47 is for 64-bit and Victoria 4.46 is for 32-bit Windows.

In the "Standard" tab at the top right, select the hard drive you are checking.
On the SMART tab, click Get SMART. If “BAD” appears on the right, think about buying a new HDD.
Go to the “Tests” tab → set the switch to “Ignore” → close running programs, including antivirus, turn off the Internet → click “Start” page and we will try to help you.

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

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

And more importantly, the surface of the disc can succumb to various defects - some area stops being read, and as a result, all the accumulated information can disappear in an instant. If so, it is necessary to act and take action.

Hard Disk Checker - HDD Scan

HDD Scan is a very handy tool that allows you to test your hard drive and make a statistical report on the work done.

Since the application does not require installation, the keys windows registry remain intact. You can also put HDD Scan on external device and run it directly on any computer.

Main advantages hDD programs Scan:

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

On the popular site Softpedia, this utility received 5 out of 5 stars, which is a "bold" plus of the program.

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

A few words about the interface hDD Scan software.

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

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

This program has only two buttons: this is the S.M.A.R.T. In short and clear, SMART is a technology for assessing the health of a hard drive, as well as a mechanism for predicting the likelihood of a hard drive failure:

So, when I pressed this button, the utility issued the following:

Let's describe the columns of this table:

Num - attribute number.
Atribute name - the name of the attribute.
Value - the value of the attribute. This value ranges from 1 to 255. The higher the value of the attribute, the better.
Worst - shows the worst attribute value (low), for the entire existence of the hard drive.
RAW (hex) is hexadecimal system calculus (the exception is temperature, since the program indicates it in degrees Celsius).
Threshold - threshold or acceptable value of the attribute. Used to compare against the Value attribute.

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

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

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

On the data recovery site, I found the following information: UltraDMA CRC Errors is an error in transferring information in a mode such as UDMA.

As it turned out, this malfunction can be corrected. It's just that I might have an ugly twisted interface cable, as shown in the figure below:

The program has one more button that will help us to complete testing hard disk:

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

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

And now you can get down to business more serious. Let's check the surface of the disc.

These test parameters are located under Surface Tests.

Start LBA, as well as End LBA, are the sectors from which the check starts and the check stops. If you want to check the entire hard drive, you do not need to change this parameter.

Command - a choice like checking a hard drive (Verify - verification, Read - reading sectors, and Erase is writing to all sectors of zeros). Choosing such a parameter as Erase results in the complete loss of all recorded data on the disc! So be very careful!

Start and Stop - start and stop the check.

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

During disk check, the past time (Process time), the current sector, named Current LBA, and the read speed (Kbytes / s) are always indicated.

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

By the way, if we disable the Disable map dynamic update checkbox, then the sector check will be available to us in real time:

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

2. Ashampoo HDD Control 2

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

Main advantages ashampoo HDD Control 2 software:

Continuous monitoring of the hard drive (or drives);
Expanded user interface... Tips and information about the health, performance and temperature of the hard drive;
Support for external USB and solid state drives (SSD);
Supports SMART;
Adjusts the noise level and energy management of the hard drive (however, if this function is supported on the hard drive);
Recovery of deleted data;
Fully automated for defragment hard disk;
Online search for the results obtained as a result of testing your hard drive model.

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

3. Crystal DiskInfo

Another program to check the hard drive. The program interface is more user-friendly compared to HDD Scan, but there are no advanced settings and additional testing tools. She is perfect for ordinary users... Since blue and white will tell about state of tough disk. This will happen immediately after installing and launching the program.

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

As you can see, the choice of software for servicing hard drives is very rich. Here I only looked at the ones that I counted the best programs to check hard disk today. Read, test and choose the best one.

You started to hear extraneous creaks in system unit? The performance of the system has somehow completely impermissibly decreased, although the processor and memory should not allow this? Well, it's time to check the hard drive. How to do this is in our article.

This is quite an important matter. Aside from the performance hit, although this is certainly important too, it is about your data. You don't want to one day be left without all your data simply because your disk has decided to fail? Here. Therefore, it is important to check the condition of the disk and its health level more often.

Correcting errors in a timely manner also helps to increase the lifespan of the disk. Whether regular hard disk or SSD, file system errors wear it out in a forced fashion, so it's important to keep it in good condition. Otherwise, data will be lost even faster.

If you understand the importance of this event, then let's get started.

Checking with standard Windows tools

This is the easiest way and can give you quite a bit of information about your hard drive and even try to fix some errors.

Read interesting information and reliable advice in the article -

Command line

If the previous scenario of using standard Windows tools is not very effective, then the command line method can try to complement it. Its essence is that it is launched from the bootable installation media of the system, that is, the system itself is not started and cannot block some of the requirements of the verification program.

Important! This method has one drawback: it is needed installation media, and it is desirable that he was exactly with that windows versionwhat is installed on your computer.

Create bootable media and insert it into a floppy drive or USB port. In the BIOS of your computer, select boot from this media. Wait for the operating environment to load.
When the program reaches the window that says "Start Installation", press the Windows key + F10.
Enter the following command in the console window that opens: chkdsk / f. Hit Enter.
The check will start. The program will display the results immediately, in command line... She will immediately try to fix all the errors found.

Simple third-party software

Let's take a look at a few programs that can help you troubleshoot most of the problems in your hard drive without going into too much detail.

HDDScan

With the help of this program, you can understand in which sectors the write and read speed is high, and in which it is not. The program is completely universal, with its help you can diagnose anything you want, if only it was an information storage device.

The principle of working with her is extremely simple: you start scanning and wait for her report on the work done, from which it is quite possible to draw some conclusions.

Crystal disk mark

A more specialized utility, although it monitors, in fact, also the speed. The program cannot do anything else, but based on the speed of writing and reading, one can quite understand what is happening to the disk and how long it will take.

Important!It is strictly forbidden to use this program if you want to test an SSD drive. His death when using this software will be even closer: this program fills all the space with some data, and, although they are weightless and deleted without a trace, for the SSD it is also wear and tear.

More complex software

If no means standard checknor simple programs you are not satisfied, then you can go to more complex programs for verification. So, let's begin.

Victoria HDD

The most common hard drive troubleshooting software.

Its advantages are that there is both a quick and deep check of the disk, and also that it monitors its temperature. It is too important indicator, but it does not affect wear so much.

HDD Regenerator

A pro tool in our article. Corrects everything that it finds on its way. Its huge competitive advantage is Russification. Using it is therefore very simple, despite the impressive set of functions.

The principle of its operation is much more complicated than that of other programs, and these differences clearly benefited the program. She is able to restore what others have failed. Also, unlike other programs, it does not destroy your files that were in the sectors it corrects, but preserves culturally. Well, not life, but a fairy tale.

The program has two versions - graphical and console. If you are not very versed in this topic, use the graphic with the Russian language, everything is intuitive there. In the console, its capabilities are much wider, because there is less pressure and prohibitions from the operating system.

Consider a graphical interface.

On a note! However, this program has one significant drawback - it is paid, and the trial only allows you to check. Well, that's good.

Programs from hard drive manufacturers

Who, besides the manufacturers themselves, can better know how to work with hard drives? Some of these programs work only with discs of a certain brand, some - with all. Experiment.
Let's start.

SeaTools

Essentially simple program:

Data Lifeguard Diagnostics

This is the name of the verification program from the WD manufacturer. In terms of functionality, it is approximately similar to the previous program, but has a number of advantages.

firstly, it can be used with any disc. This is a huge plus, despite the prevalence of disks of this brand;
secondly, she knows how to destroy information;
thirdly, it can simply cut off dead sectors so that the disk works longer at the same speed, albeit with a slightly smaller volume. Definitely an extremely useful feature.

All options are in context menus... That is, to start scanning a specific disk, you just need to right-click on it (of course, in the program interface) and select the desired action. That's all the work.