Process hard checks 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 be aware of their occurrence - both in order to try to correct errors on the disk, and to back up important information to another location.
The principle of formation of bad sectors
Over time, the owner of almost every HDD has to deal with 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 disk is hit or dropped), and sometimes also influence computer viruses lead to a gradual deterioration 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 run the scan and repair.
If there are few bad sectors, they are replaced by reserve areas.
When damaged 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 are: The following are worth noting:
- Computer freezes during boot process operating system;
- failure to start the OS - in most cases, the download only reaches a certain point (for example, the Windows logo or the “Welcome” sign) and stops;
- unreasonable and frequent computer reboots;
- errors in the operation of the system, expressed in the inability to launch applications, closing windows and slow 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, Windows), and applications from other manufacturers.
The latter can also be divided into paid programs and more popular among domestic users free versions.
Using Windows Tools
To correct errors and bad sectors, Windows OS already contains .
The advantages of using it include the ability to restore areas damaged during operation or as a result of infection of the system with viruses.
Another plus– possibility of launching in two ways, in normal mode or .
The utility is capable of checking any physical and logical disks, however, there are slight differences in working with inactive and system areas.
Thus, the stages of checking and restoring a regular partition (which does not contain system control files and the OS itself) will be as follows:
1 Going to the window "My computer".
2 Right-click to open properties of the selected disk.
3 Select a tab "Service".
4 Pressed check disk button.
5 Put checkbox next to check bad sectors.
System volumes on which Windows is installed are scanned differently.
Starting the utility launch coincides with the steps for a regular partition, but when you try to check the disk, a message appears on the screen stating that it is impossible and asking you to do this after a reboot.
After a reboot, the system does not boot - instead, the system HDD partition is checked, the progress of which can be determined by the information displayed on the screen.
And you can run Hitachi Drive Fitness Test not only from Windows, but also in mode if problems with the disk have already made it impossible to boot the system.
Seagate Seatools
The Seatools utility is free application, whose capabilities include:
- detection of HDD structure violations, including bad sectors and write or read errors;
- fixing bad sectors or overwriting them with zeros, so that in the future the system ignores damaged areas;
- Windows OS problems;
- damage to the system bootloader;
The application works most effectively with Seagate drives.
The average time to fix detected errors (together with the verification process), depending on the size of the partition, can reach 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 receive while checking bad sectors the following information:
- HDD manufacturer and firmware;
- current storage temperature;
- the general condition of the device structure, including whole and damaged sectors;
- a number of other useful attributes.
The utility is distributed free of charge by Panterasoft.
At the same time, the disk health assessment is carried out only using S.M.A.R.T indicators and is less effective than checking the disk with other applications.
Frequent users personal computers facing problems hard drive that affect the operation of the system. The main causes of hard drive failure are: bad sectors in HD D and faulty file system. In this material we will describe in detail HDD problem fixing process, and also describe methods for recovering information on hard drives, if it is faulty or completely out of order. I would also like to note that problems associated with the hard drive need to be given special attention. For example, if the HDD becomes completely faulty, then you are unlikely to be able to recover information from it. That is, all your documents, personal videos and photographs, as well as other files may be lost forever.
Reading SMART readings from the hard drive
If files are not copied on your computer, programs freeze after opening, then possible reason this could be faulty HDD. Typically this behavior of the operating system is due to with bad sectors in the hard drive. To be sure that the problem is related to bad sectors of the HDD and not to malware, the first step is to confirm this guess. If the situation described above is observed on your computer, we will install the utility on it CrystalDiskInfo. This utility describes the status of all hard drives installed on your computer. You can download CrystalDiskInfo from its official website http://crystalmark.info. The utility supports Windows OS, from XP to Windows 10.
To check information about the hard drive, the utility uses self-diagnosis technology SMART. SMART technology is used on all manufactured HDDs. Below is an example of checking SMART readings using the CrystalDiskInfo utility in the hard drive WD1200JS. From this window you can see that the program has detected its status as " Fine" - this means that this hard drive is in perfect order and you should not worry about it.
In the following image in the SMART readings, the CrystalDiskInfo utility detected the status of the screw with the message " Anxiety" This message means that the hard drive already has bad sectors or is overheating.
If you see the message " Bad", then this will mean that all the bad sectors on the hard drive have been reassigned and soon it will be completely covered.
In both cases, when the program detected messages " Anxiety" And " Bad", you should do backup copy all data on the computer, since the screw will soon become unusable.
One solution that can temporarily fix your screw is the utility Victoria. This utility can do REMAP BAD sectors, that is, it will reassign bad sectors to backup ones. In the next section we will describe in detail the process of REMAP BAD sectors using the Victoria utility.
Recovering a hard drive using the Victoria program
Utility Victoria created by a Belarusian programmer and distributed free of charge. You can download the utility on its official website hdd-911.com. The Victoria utility is distributed in two versions for Windows and DOS. In our case, we will download the Windows version. After launching the Victoria utility on Windows, we will be taken to such a window.
To fix the hard drive, we need to go to the “Tests” tab. On this tab we are interested in the area with the radio buttons Ignore, Erase, Remap and Restore, as well as the Start button. To fix it, we need to select the Remap radio button and click Start.
After these steps, the Victoria program will begin the process of repairing sectors, which can take quite a long time.
After reassigning sectors it is possible Victoria program It will be possible to restore bad sectors, and the CrystalDiskInfo utility will display the value “Good”. But a magical fix may not happen, since the reserve sectors may simply be absent and Victoria will not be able to help. In this case, there is only one way out - do a complete HDD replacement. In addition to screw treatment, Victoria also provides checking readings SMART on the " tab SMART».
I would like to note that all the operations that you perform with with the help of Victoria, you do at your own peril and risk. Using the utility, an inexperienced user can damage the hard drive and also deprive it of warranty service.
Fixing file system problems on your hard drive
Many users on Windows computers often experience problems related to mistakes file system NTFS. File system problems occur due to malicious utilities and various software. Also, file system problems most often occur due to inexperience the PC user himself. For example, incorrect handling of the utility Acronis Disk Director. To solve this problem, Windows itself will help us. Windows provides file system repair tool. To fix the file system on a specific partition, you need to go to its properties. In our case it is system partition operating room Windows systems 10. To run the fix we need to go to the “ Service».
On this tab there is a button Check that we will click.
After this action, a window will appear in which you need to confirm our actions.
After confirming the action, Windows will scan this partition.
After scanning, the system will display a message with the results of scanning the partition for errors.
Using this method, many users restored the operating system to normal operation without having to reinstall it. If the problems lie in the HDD itself, then no amount of checking the disk or reinstalling the OS will help in this case. The only option in this case is that you can resort to the Victoria utility or completely replace the screw with a new one, while reinstalling Windows.
Recovering disks using Acronis True Image 2016
The software is the ideal tool to create a full backup all local partitions, including the system one. This feature is used by many administrators around the world. The created backup of local disks can be restored in a very short time. For example, if the system is infected with a virus or the HDD is broken, in this case you will restore all OS disks in a short period of time. You can find Acronis True Image 2016 on its official website www.acronis.com. By launching the program in question, we will be taken to such a window.
First of all, we will show our readers how you can create a backup copy of local Acronis True Image 2016 partitions. On the first tab “Backup” you can see that the entire computer is selected for backup. That is, a complete backup of all local partitions, including the system one, will be carried out. In the next block you need to select a backup location. In our case, this is local drive E. After selecting the type of backup data and where to save it, click the Create a copy button located in the lower right corner.
Depending on the amount of data being saved, the time it takes to create a backup will depend.
Having completed backup, we will describe the process of restoring a computer. To do this we need to create boot disk or an Acronis True Image 2016 flash drive. You can do this by going to the “ TOOLS/BOOTABLE DRIVE CREATION WIZARD" Below is the wizard that should open.
In this wizard, we will select the first option and continue. In the window that appears, select where we will save the boot drive: into the image or to a flash drive.
After saving the boot drive, the wizard will display a final window.
By creating a bootable USB flash drive or optical disk with Acronis True Image 2016, you can start data recovery. To do this, we will boot from the bootable USB flash drive when the computer starts. After booting from the boot drive, we find ourselves in the Acronis True Image 2016 menu. Select the first item in this menu, after which we find ourselves in the main Acronis True Image window.
In the program window, go to the “” tab and find the backup copy of the entire system we previously created.
Now to restore system disk from Windows and local drives, press the button Disk recovery.
In the wizard that appears, select the item “ Recover disks and partitions" and continue.
In the next window, select all local disks and continue the wizard.
In paragraphs " Destination"For the first and second disks, select the original HDDs. If there are many hard drives installed in the system, be careful not to mix up the screws. In the final window, click the Proceed button.
The backup recovery time depends on the size and speed of the HDD. In our case it took 10 minutes.
The example shows how easy it is to make a backup copy of your entire computer, so if you master the Acronis True Image 2016 software package, you can easily restore its functionality in cases where the system is infected or the hard drive is broken. Also, after mastering the program, you will not have questions about how to recover data from a hard drive.
Data recovery using Recuva
There are cases when reinstalling Windows or when using Acronis software, users mistakenly erase all information from the hard drive. If this is exactly the situation you have, then you shouldn’t be upset, since all the information can be found restore. Will help us with this task free utility Recuva. You can download the utility on its official website www.piriform.com. After launching the utility, the user is taken to a wizard that will help you restore all your data. Below is the sequential work of the master.
The example shows that data recovery using Recuva is a fairly simple process and almost any PC user can handle it.
Let's sum it up
From this article it can be emphasized that restoring a hard drive is not a very simple task, but depending on the situation, even regular user PC. I would also like to advise laptop owners to handle it as carefully as possible. For example, if the laptop is dropped or receives a strong impact, the HDD may be damaged. In addition, if you yourself have identified the problematic screw, then do not be afraid to open the case of a laptop or desktop computer yourself, since replacing the HDD is quite simple task. And we, in turn, hope that our material will be useful to our readers and will allow you to restore your hard drive.
Video on the topic
Important things depend on the condition of the hard drive - the operation of the operating system and the safety of user files. Problems such as file system errors and bad sectors can lead to the loss of personal information, failures to load the OS and complete failure of the drive.
Opportunity HDD recovery depends on the type of bad blocks. Physical damage cannot be repaired, while logical errors must be corrected. This will require special program, working with bad sectors.
Before running the healing utility, it is necessary to carry out diagnostics. It will allow you to find out if there are problem areas and whether you need to work on them. We have already written in more detail about what bad sectors are, where they come from, and what program scans the hard drive for their presence in another article:
You can use scanners for built-in and external HDD, as well as a flash drive.
If, after checking, the presence of errors and bad sectors is discovered, and you want to eliminate them, then special software will again come to the rescue.
Method 1: Using third-party programs
Often users decide to resort to using programs that would handle errors and bad blocks at the logical level. We have already compiled a selection of such utilities, and you can familiarize yourself with them using the link below. There you will also find a link to a lesson on disk recovery.
When choosing a program for HDD treatment, approach it wisely: if used inappropriately, you can not only damage the device, but also lose important data stored on it.
Method 2: Using the built-in utility
An alternative way to resolve errors is to use the built-in Windows chkdsk programs. It can scan all drives connected to the computer and fix any problems found. If you are going to fix the partition where the OS is installed, then chkdsk will start working only the next time you start the computer, or after a manual reboot.
To work with the program, it is best to use the command line.
Please note that none of the programs can fix bad sectors at the physical level, even if this is stated by the manufacturer. None software unable to restore the disk surface. Therefore, in the case of physical damage It is necessary to replace the old HDD with a new one as quickly as possible before it stops functioning.
In this article we will talk about restoring broken sectors of hard disk and the reasons for their appearance. Step by step instructions will help you prepare for this procedure and cope with it yourself.
What are bad sectors?
Let's take a quick look at the structure of the hard drive. It consists of several separate disks, above which there are magnetic heads designed for reading and writing information. When storing data, the heads magnetize certain areas of the disk, which is divided into tracks and smaller components - sectors. It is in them that units of information are stored. If a sector becomes unreadable, it is called “broken”.
Several signs indicate the occurrence of such a problem:
- creaks, rattles, tapping when the disk is operating;
- heating the surface of the HDD (this should not happen under normal conditions);
- Frequent errors when working and starting the operating system.
Typical reasons
The main reasons for the appearance of broken hard drive segments are:
Also, malfunctions in the hard drive may occur due to mechanical damage. They are often caused by dropping a hard drive or computer, resulting in damage to the magnetic surface (for example, during transportation). Non-working parts also appear due to manufacturing defects. In this case, they may not appear immediately, but “crumble” over time, quickly increasing their number to a critical level.
Important! If you suspect mechanical damage or defects, you should immediately contact specialists or exchange the hard drive under warranty.
Recovering bad HDD sectors using Victoria
If the appearance of broken segments is due to software glitches, then they can be restored using specialized software. One such program for recovering bad hdd sectors is Victoria. The utility is available in two versions - for Windows and DOS. Recovery via DOS will be the most effective, since when the OS is running, some sectors may be occupied and therefore unavailable for scanning.
Scanning
To get started, we will need to do a little preparation. First, you will need a disk with a program image recorded on it, or bootable flash drive. If everyone can cope with recording an image, then creating a flash drive may be difficult.
Let's take a closer look at this step:
Note! The program takes up very little space, so after installing it, the drive can be used to store other information. To avoid accidentally deleting files necessary for the utility to work, it is recommended to select a separate folder for them.
Let's start the scanning process:
Here we need a point "Reallocated sector count", which displays the number of fragments located in the reserve zone, as well as "Current pending sectors", where parts that cannot be read are displayed. If their number is not very high, then the disk can be restored.
Hard drive recovery
Let's figure out exactly how this process happens. Problem segments can be roughly divided into two types. The first ones are not readable due to a mismatch between the information stored in them and its checksums.
This error occurs during a power outage, when new data has already been written, but the checksums remain old. They simply cease to be recognized and are restored quite easily - by formatting them and recording the correct amounts.
The second type occurs as a result of mechanical damage. In this case, recovery is more difficult, but still possible. Restoring the functionality of such parts is carried out through the use of reserve areas that are on each hard drive.
We begin to recover each of these types of errors.
Video: HDD - “healing” bad sectors
First, let's try to fix bad sectors by erasing the information stored in them:
- press F4 and get to the verification menu;
- in the menu for selecting operations with unreadable sectors, indicate “BB: Erase 256 sect” and press “Enter”.
A long process of scanning and repairing bad sectors of the HDD will begin. If the program finds a bad sector, it will try to erase it, thereby correcting the error. If there is a mechanical defect, an error will be reported. In any case, you must wait until the check is completed and then separately correct the sectors with physical defects.
For this:
Now the recovery operation will work on a different principle, trying not to erase bad sectors, but to replace them with space from the reserve area.
Important! If there are a lot of such sectors, then the reserve space may run out. A special message will inform you about this, and further restoration will become impossible.
After successfully recovering bad sectors on your hard drive, it is recommended to conduct a full check of the file system for errors.
You can do this using CHKDSK utilities or in the following way:
Attention! To ensure that the system not only finds, but also corrects problems, before starting the scan, select “Automatically fix system errors.”
The methods described above will help you easily deal with non-critical cases of problem sectors, find and fix them. By following our instructions exactly, any user can do this on their own, even without computer education. We hope that this information was useful for you.
For those who are not very familiar with a computer and do not know what DOS is, it is better not to repeat everything that will be described in this article, since here we will talk about how to restore damaged HDD sectors.
And so you discovered that you constantly have a disk check when loading, or HDD started to slow down a lot. You scanned with some utility in read mode or some program from this article. Thus, you are convinced that you have slow sectors that respond longer than 500 ms, or BAD sectors, then this article is for you.
How to fix bad sectors
If your disk periodically disappears or is not visible at all, then this is most likely a problem with the controller, cable (cable) or power supply, but we will talk about BED sectors and very slowly readable cells, in general software errors hard drive.
So you discovered (program HDD checks) that you have slow sectors on your hard drive (usually red or brown). Solution to apply low level formatting(Erase), let's do it with a program MHDD and just forget about programs running under Windows, they won’t help you like HDDscan And Victoria.
Attention!!! All the operations described below can lead to partial or complete removal information on your hard disk drive (HDD).
So, we boot from the boot disk where there is this MHDD program, these are the STEA Live, Hiren boot cd collections, or you can make a boot disk or flash drive yourself.
Stage 1. Getting rid of slow (red) sectors
Launch MHDD, type the command erase, the list of all commands can be viewed using the F1 command, the program will ask you to specify the scanning range, do not change anything, press Enter by default, wait. If there are red sectors left, you will have to run the command Erase waits
Stage 2. Getting rid of BAD sectors
We launch MHDD, type the Remap command, and the program will automatically scan the hard drive and replace bad sectors with backup ones. I do not recommend running this program if there are a large number of red and bad sectors in the hard drive partitions.
You can also clean the HDD of bad sectors manually, not the entire hard drive, but partially by address range.
Execute the command SCAN, as soon as the BAD sector appears, remember its number, stop the ESC process, run the command Erase and indicate the range in this case, if there is one bad sector, then its number and the next one, that is, we add one, then we run the command again Scan and look at the appearance of new bad sectors and repeat the procedure.
The video shows this whole process well:
If scanning takes a lot of time for you, then no program will help you. And you will have to buy already new hard disk.
P.S.: I am attaching a link to a video showing the operation of the MHDD program for general information.
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18 comments for the entry How to restore damaged bad (BAD) HDD sectors
Dear yura200, if you read the article carefully, it says that Erase- this is low-level formatting, well, I hope the word formatting, do you understand what it does?)
yura200, I am very sorry that you experienced such difficulties, but everything you do is your personal desire. The third paragraph in the text:
So you have discovered (HDD checking program) that you have slow sectors on your hard drive (usually red or brown). The decision to apply low-level formatting (Erase)
P.S.: And just for fun, you can look at the translation, it also says a lot erase- erase, cross out (from memory).
Danila, Are you sure that you have an HDD in your laptop? and not SSD, because the MHDD and Victoria programs do not work with second disks.
Andrey, unless you need to pull the remaining data from the hard drive, but I would not use such a drive in the future.
Max yeah that's really bad
Well, you're giving a hint. booted from MHDD wrote as you have in the first point Erase and all Windows was erased, even restoring through the archive right now didn’t help new Windows I bet.
So why write the first paragraph, write erase, it’s good that after installing Windows I was able to roll back everything right now. The most interesting thing is that I wanted to start this business with drive D and there were pictures of family videos, I would have grabbed it in grief, but it’s good that MHDD did not see drive D and only C drive was formatted. I'm pushing here so that others don't wipe out the whole screw. And where in the text do you say that Erase is formatting? When I used Mhdd I used erase when erasing bad blocks. Correct the text.
Good afternoon.
Can you tell me how to get the program to work on a laptop? Neither MHDD nor Victoria can see my hard drive.
Dear! If you see orange or red, or even an X in a square on your disk during the test, then don’t torture it, it’s finished. They are just trying to support people somehow during a stroke, and then you see what they become, but the glands, after you have sent photos, are the only way to a well-deserved rest. And don't listen to or read nonsense about restoration.
That’s right, on the ASUS X552EA laptop the MHDD program does not see a 500 GB WD HDD (not an SSD, and not a hybrid, regular one).
I played with the BIOS - this way and that... alas, the MHDD program opens from the bootable flash drive, but does not see the disk, no matter how hard I tried.
It is necessary to set the HDD operating mode to SATA Standard IDE INSTEAD OF SATA AHCI
I want to check and fix this problem in dos (I checked it in winows with Victoria before) But I can’t switch from AHCI to IDE in the BIOS, there’s nothing similar. HP laptop (they wrote that they removed this function) How can you help?
Place this hard drive in the system unit and launch it there and, if necessary, configure the BIOS.
Respect and respect to the author! The user does not have the funds for a new hard drive, but a system engineer is vital... so I found, along the above path, that in addition to the first 42 gigs of crosses, there are two more thirds of the workspace... and the person is grateful!
Thank you very much for the article!
It was necessary to restore the functionality of the old disk. I scanned its state with the MHDD program (found on an old CD resuscitator), found several dozen “red” sectors, but did not know that the ERASE command was exactly what I needed. I thought it was a simple erasure of information.
Now, after processing the disk with ERASE, I scanned it again. The result is not a single BED!
The question is, if there are problems in the first 4 gigs and the last 4 gigs, and there are 2047 of them, is there any point in straining to recover?
Is 653 bads really bad? Erase won't help?
Hello bortvlad. Is it worth bothering with treating bad diseases? Windows already monitors and edits cells as best it can. And he won’t write down the information in the bads. The loss of speed is negligible. And replacing cells from the backup area changes the desired table, which, in my opinion, will only accelerate the death of the HDD. If you really want low-level formatting and use the disk for archiving movies, games... What can you say about this software: Low Level Format Tool?
