Bad sector repair program. Recovering bad sectors of a hard drive

In this article we will talk about bad sectors on the hard drive what they are and how to treat them. But first, let's find out where they come from?

Everyone knows that the hard drive consists clusters- these are miniature cells. Each of the clusters is a logical storage of information where files are constantly written. The combination of all clusters ensures the correct operation of the entire computer.

Bad block or damaged sector- this is an unreadable sector of the disk that contains bad memory cells.

Such a hard drive is no longer suitable for working with the operating system, but you can try to use it as an external drive, like a “large-capacity flash drive.” If you use such a hard drive for data storage, it is advisable to cut off the place where the bad blocks are located using a program for working with hard drives. For example, Acronis DiskDirector.

Bad sector on the hard drive

Most common cause of bad sectors- this is the natural wear and tear of the drive, i.e. If the hard drive has been working for many years, then simply due to the large number of write and read cycles to one sector or another, the hard drive begins to slowly but surely fail. As a rule, this is more than 10,000 hours of work. This increase in sector access time manifests itself, i.e. for a new working cell it is about 10-15 ms, while indicators of more than 150 ms indicate severe wear of the drive. If one sector fails, then others will soon begin to fail, which means you should think about replacing the hard drive, or at least copying the information you need.

Why bad sectors appear - we figured it out, now we’ll discuss how to identify them.

Victoria

Maybe you already know about the program Victoria is a program specially created for in-depth diagnostics of the hard drive. Victoria is available in 2 versions: with and without a graphical shell (DOS version).

Received Smart in the Victoria program

This is an already tested hard drive, and its main parameters are shown here, i.e. data SMART. During the surface test, you can get the response time to a request for each sector. The time is indicated from 5 milliseconds to 1.5 seconds and higher, the lower the better, the faster our hard drive reacts.

As for Smart, you can navigate by the number of “”, the more of them, the better. Judging by the number" Hardware ECC recovered"It's time to change the hard drive.

1 Raw read error rate 100 253 6 0
3 Spin-up time 97 97 0 0
4 Number of spin-up times 94 94 20 6522
5 Reallocated sector count 100 100 36 0
7 Seek error rate 87 60 30 564751929
9 Power-on time 83 83 0 14937
10 Spin-up retries 100 100 97 0
12 Start/stop count 94 94 20 6273
187 Reported UNC error 1 1 0 103
189 High Fly writes 100 100 0 0
190 Airflow temperature 55 48 45 45°C/113°F
194 HDA Temperature 45 52 0 45°C/113°F
195 Hardware ECC recovered 80 64 0 100816244
197 Current pending sectors 100 100 0 0
198 Offline scan UNC sectors 100 100 0 0
199 Ultra DMA CRC errors 200 200 0 1
200 Write error rate 100 253 0 0
202 DAM errors count 100 253 0 0

Victoria can also do many other operations with HDD, up to closing sectors.

With this function, bad sectors can be closed, however, this will only slightly delay the failure.

You can download the Victoria program on the website, it is free and does not require installation on your computer.

If, for some reason, you didn’t like Victoria, then there is always an alternative, and many others, such as: Active boot disk, HDD Regenerator, R-Studio etc.

Bad sectors are not healed, but closed, and their space on the disk will be assigned to workers.

Recovering HDD using Victoria

One of the biggest troubles for PC owners can be damaged sectors on the hard drive. Such sectors are called “broken,” and the hard disk itself with such damage is said to have begun to “crumble.”

The location of such damage directly determines the ability to turn on/off the computer. If the sectors where the operating system files are located fail, the PC will not turn on. If we are talking about sectors where other files are located, then the user will have the opportunity to boot the machine. Depending on this feature, the method for eliminating bad sectors of the hard drive is selected.

What to do

With this type of damage, you need to open “My Computer” and right-click the desired drive. Next, from the proposed options, select “Properties”, then “Service” and “Run check”. You need to check the box “Automatically correct system errors” and “Scan and repair bad sectors”. By clicking “Start”, the user starts checking the hard drive for damage. After this, you are instructed to restart the PC.

In the second case, you should have a disk with a virtual operating system or a Windows installation disk at hand. To start the computer, you need to insert the disk into the drive and turn on the machine in normal mode. All further actions are similar to those described in the previous paragraph. When working with the installation disk, a menu will appear with the option to select the “Restore System” command. As a result, the hard drive will be checked for bad sectors, and any damage found will be repaired.

Special programs

You can also check and restore your hard drive using a program launched through the recovery console. The Recovery Console itself can be launched without a boot disk. To do this, press the F8 key and select Safe Mode, which supports the command line. After the console is loaded, the partition with Windows installed on it is selected. It is necessary to ensure that the partition matches the disk, after which the administrator password is entered. After the appropriate prompt appears in the line, enter the disk name, route and file name. Using the “Enter” key, the user starts the recovery process.

Thus, when checking the “C” partition of the hard drive, you need to launch the System Recovery Console and issue the command chkdsk c: /f /r. It’s easy to prevent such a nuisance in the future - for this you need to acquire special programs, for example, MHDD. Such

In this article we will talk about bad sectors on the hard drive what they are and how to treat them. But first, let's find out where they come from?

Bad block or damaged sector- this is an unreadable sector of the disk that contains bad memory cells.

Bad sector on the hard drive

Why bad sectors appear - we figured it out, now we’ll discuss how to identify them.

Victoria

Received Smart in the Victoria program

As for Smart, you can navigate by the number of “”, the more of them, the better. Judging by the number" Hardware ECC recovered"It's time to change the hard drive.

1 Raw read error rate 100 253 6 0
3 Spin-up time 97 97 0 0
4 Number of spin-up times 94 94 20 6522
5 Reallocated sector count 100 100 36 0
7 Seek error rate 87 60 30 564751929
9 Power-on time 83 83 0 14937
10 Spin-up retries 100 100 97 0
12 Start/stop count 94 94 20 6273
187 Reported UNC error 1 1 0 103
189 High Fly writes 100 100 0 0
190 Airflow temperature 55 48 45 45°C/113°F
194 HDA Temperature 45 52 0 45°C/113°F
195 Hardware ECC recovered 80 64 0 100816244
197 Current pending sectors 100 100 0 0
198 Offline scan UNC sectors 100 100 0 0
199 Ultra DMA CRC errors 200 200 0 1
200 Write error rate 100 253 0 0
202 DAM errors count 100 253 0 0

Victoria can also do many other operations with HDD, up to closing sectors.

With this function, bad sectors can be closed, however, this will only slightly delay the failure.

You can download the Victoria program on the website, it is free and does not require installation on your computer.

If, for some reason, you didn’t like Victoria, then there is always an alternative, and many others, such as: Active boot disk, HDD Regenerator, R-Studio etc.

Bad sectors are not healed, but closed, and their space on the disk will be assigned to workers.

Recovering HDD using Victoria

No matter how high-quality your hard drive is, sooner or later problems may arise with it. Improper removal of programs, viruses and harmful applications, wear and tear - all this can lead to breakdown of the hard drive and the appearance of so-called. The latter do not make themselves felt instantly; it will most likely take months before you notice the problem.

What are bad sectors?

For a clearer definition of a bad sector, it’s a good idea to understand the design of your hard drive. In general, it consists of rotating magnetic disks, which are divided into tracks, and these same tracks are in turn divided into sectors. They contain any information that you copy to your hard drive. Disk sectors have one unpleasant property - they deteriorate over time and you lose access to them. And this process is accelerated by incorrect work with the computer.

Computer freezes when trying to access any files, long copying from one partition to another, errors and PC reboots - all this can be a consequence of a large number of bad blocks on your “screw”. Some of them can be corrected, and some cannot be treated. Based on this feature and the nature of the damage, all bad sectors can be divided into two types: physical and logical.

Physical bads are the result of damage (for example), dust getting inside the hard drive and normal wear and tear of the equipment. The main thing to understand is that in such cases, it can no longer be restored. Even ordinary data recovery from such sectors will be a miracle;
Logical bads appear under the influence of viruses, file system errors and incorrect recording of information to disk (for example, a sudden shutdown of the computer while copying files or other active work). In such cases, it is not the magnetic coating of the sector that is damaged, but its data. Such broken sectors can be treated and can be corrected using a variety of programs at home.

Programs for recovering bad sectors of a hard drive

Microsoft provides a built-in utility chkdsk for working with hard drives. By default, the utility only checks for file system errors, but if you add the key /f, That chkdsk will check the disk for bad blocks and try to fix them automatically. Of course, there are many alternative solutions from third-party manufacturers for checking the hard drive and fixing bad sectors, which can be easily found on the Internet. Let's talk a little more about the most popular of them:

Victoria is probably the most popular program for testing hard drives and restoring bad sectors on a hard drive. Can be used not only for treatment, but also for testing equipment. As the developers themselves note, when interacting with a hard drive, it ignores the file system and works at the level of I/O ports. This property ensures the most efficient and high-quality work. In addition, there are two versions of the program, one of which runs directly under Windows, and the other under DOS. The latter is more universal, but is also recommended for use by experienced users.
MHDD- another popular program that works with equipment through controller ports. It also has two versions (Windows and DOS), both of which are completely free. It is distinguished by a very fast speed of work, which does not affect its quality in any way. In addition, it displays complete statistics on your device: the number of on and off cycles, the number of spindle revolutions, etc. One downside is the unfriendly interface of the program, which will become a problem for inexperienced users.
HDD Regenerator is a unique program that, according to the developers, can even restore physical damage. The point is that often physically damaged sectors have incorrect magnetization, which this program eliminates. The rest of the set of characteristics and capabilities is similar to the above utilities.

In conclusion, I would like to note that the main danger of hard drive failure is not in the drives themselves, but in the information that is stored on them. For example, if your video card fails, you can simply replace it. If your hard drive fails, then all the materials that are often so important to us will disappear along with it. Therefore, even if you do not notice signs of poor hard drive performance, test it from time to time. After all, trouble is much easier to prevent than to fix.

A hard drive is a fairly fragile device. Bad sectors are damaged cells for storing information on a hard drive. After using the hard drive for some time, a problem with bad sectors may occur. This is why it is so important to repair bad sectors from time to time.

This can be easily done using various programs, but first you need to determine whether there are bad sectors. Our article is about this, as well as how to restore the boot sector of a hard drive.

How to recover damaged disk sectors

There are many ways to repair bad boot sectors on a disk. Let's look at several of these methods in detail.

How to restore sectors via Windows

If it is possible to enter the OS, then restoring the hard drive will not require much effort. To do this, you need to call the context menu of the hard drive and select “Properties”.

In the new window that opens, select the “Service” tab, where we click on the “Run check” item. Check the boxes next to “Automatically correct system errors” and “check and repair bad sectors.” After this we run the check.

If the disk is a system disk, a reboot will occur and the verification process will begin. If the disk is not a system disk, then the test will pass without rebooting.

The system itself will find all errors and perform recovery. After which it will display statistics of the work done.

But sometimes it happens that the OS does not boot due to bad sectors.

How to recover bad sectors if the OS does not start

If Windows does not start, you can take a disk with a virtual system and load the virtual OS. In it, all steps to restore a hard drive are performed in the same way as in the previous section.

If you do not have a virtual disk with the OS, then a Windows installation disk will help. After downloading it, you need to select “System Restore”. The recovery console will appear, where you need to select the local disk with your OS. Usually this is the “C:” drive.

After the reboot, a console will appear where you need to enter the command “CHKDSK [drive:]”, where:

/F - this is disk check and error correction,
/R is a search for and repair of bad sectors.

After that, press "Enter" and wait for the recovery to begin. Then we exit the console and restart the computer. All is ready.

How to restore sectors using programs

To restore bad sectors on a hard drive, there are many programs that can be easily downloaded from the Internet. Let's look at their operating principle using the HDD Regenerator program as an example.

The program restores bad sectors by remagnetizing them again. This is achieved by creating a virtual flash drive.

After installation, launch the program. In the window that opens, several options will appear in Russian. You can restore bad sectors both in the Operating System itself and using a flash drive or regular disk from the console.

The program will check bad sectors (broken) and restore them. To make the most of the program, it is better to use a bootable USB flash drive or disk, which is created after installing the program.

In this article we will talk about recovering bad sectors of a hard drive and the reasons for their occurrence. 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);

common 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.

If the appearance of broken segments is associated with software failures, 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 a 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;

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.

This can be done using the CHKDSK utility 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.”

One of the biggest troubles for PC owners can be damaged sectors on the hard drive. Such sectors are called “broken”, and the hard disk itself with such damage is said to be...

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

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

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

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

It is impossible to copy the necessary information from a hard drive to another drive; when copying, the operating system freezes and only a reboot can save it.
Windows can freeze unexpectedly at any stage of operation.
It is impossible to reinstall the operating system, the installation process freezes while unpacking Windows files, or the installer reports the error “The installation cannot continue...”, or Windows takes a very long time to install, for example several hours.
When you turn on the computer, the Chkdsk utility immediately starts and checks the hard drive partitions for errors.
The hard drive makes strange sounds (clicking, squeaking) and is periodically not detected in the BIOS.
Download the Victoria program to work directly in the operating system Windows XP, 7, 8, 10
Go to the official website of the program and select the version for Windows. I advise you to download the Victoria 4.3 beta version, since Victoria 4.46 beta does not always work correctly.

Victoria for working from a boot disk

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

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

So, let's go, firstly, in the Victoria program we will accurately determine the numbers of bad sectors (bad blocks), then we will make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard drive and thereby save the user data, and then we will hide the bad sectors of the bad blocks (remap) in the Victoria program. We will also learn how to do a “Record across the entire clearing” (Erase test), that is, when a bad sector is detected, rewrite the entire block (256 sectors) of the hard drive with zeros.

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

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

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

The operating system on it constantly freezes and periodically when loading it starts checking the hard drive for errors. The last straw for the owner of the hard drive was that it was impossible to copy important data to another disk, and even reinstalling the operating system ended with yet another hang on unpacking Windows files. Replacing the installation disk with the operating system did not yield anything, and the hang was repeated at another stage of the installation.

That’s when the question arose about what to do with this hard drive, because one of the partitions contained important data and needed to be copied.

Victoria launch:

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

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

and go to the SMART tab,

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

S.M.A.R.T. This screw turned out to be not the best. Why? Read our first article in the series about the Victoria program. Here I will only say that as many as four attributes of S.M.A.R.T. glow red, including the most important parameter, attribute

5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), indicating the number of reassigned sectors, this means the spare sectors on the backup tracks are running out and soon there will be nothing to reassign bad sectors with.

Go to the Tests tab.

Hard drive surface test in Victoria program

On the right side of the program window, check the Ignor item and the read item, then click Start. A simple hard drive surface test will run without error correction. This test will not bring any good or bad effects on your hard drive, but when the test is finished, we will know what condition our hard drive is in.

The surface of the hard drive begins to be scanned and after a while bad sectors are detected. After 40 minutes, Victoria gives us the following result:

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

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

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

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

13 bad sectors (bad blocks), they all start in the area 6630400 and end at 980000000, that is, scattered throughout the hard drive. Bad block numbers must be written down. Friends, it is quite possible that all our problems with the hard drive can be due to these 13 bads and we need to get rid of them, but first we will make a sector-by-sector image of the diseased screw.

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

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

Managing my computer's disks

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

We will create a sector-by-sector image of the partition (E:) on a SAMSUNG HD403LJ hard drive (400 GB capacity), there is only one partition without data on it. New volume (F:)

The third physical disk in the system is an SSD solid state drive (120 GB capacity) drive (C:), it contains our running Windows 8.1 operating system, which is where we are now.

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

DMDE is also a very good tool for creating sector-by-sector copies of a faulty hard drive.

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

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

Then select the language Russian.

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

We only need volume E:, so left-click on our WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive, then check Logical drives

and partition (E:), then click OK.

Menu. Create image/clone...

Place for recording, click Disk.

New volume F: and OK. It is necessary that the partition on which the sector-by-sector image of the faulty hard drive (or partition with unreadable data) will be created should be no smaller in volume than this disk.

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

The creation of a sector-by-sector copy of the partition (E:) of the diseased hard drive WDC WD5000AAKS begins on a new volume (F:) of another healthy hard drive of the SAMSUNG HD403LJ drive, which continues for 6 hours (the image is removed from particularly “bad” screws for several days) and freezes completely at 83 percent, after waiting a couple of hours, I clicked the Abort button!

Friends, if we interrupt the creation of the image of a sector-by-sector division at the very end (after all, 83%), then two options await us, as Suvorov used to say - “either the chest in the crosses, or the head in the bushes.”

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

the bads are mostly software ones

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

No access to F:\. The file system is not recognized. Make sure that all required system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not damaged.

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

What to do if the creation of a sector-by-sector image fails

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

Or, in the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy, the following error will appear: “The request was not completed due to an input/output error on the device” (see screenshot below), indicating that DMDE was unable to read the information in the bad sector (the sector number is indicated in the error) in this case click

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

Ignore and the creation of a sector-by-sector image will continue, but we will lose information in this sector and, as a result, no file will open in the sector-by-sector copy. If the "The request was not completed due to an I/O error on the device" error appears too often, you can select

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

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

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

The reverse move, sometimes it brings results.

And click Options again.

In this window, check the Don't wait if the device is not ready - Always check box. If you select this option, the operation will continue even

in case of an error due to the device not being ready. If you do not check this option, then on some “poor” hard drives a warning will be displayed with the expected user reaction, that is, the image will not be created automatically.

Number of auto retries on CRC error - 0

Number of auto retries if sector not found - 0

Fill bad sectors with hex

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

Left click to enlarge image

This setting option also proved to be workable.

Ignore I/O errors - Always

Don't wait if device isn't ready - Always

Number of retries on CRC error - 0

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

If DMDE does not help you, then you can try other programs, for example Acronis True Image. Of course, there are still ways in which you can make a sector-by-sector image of a faulty screw, for example, booting from some operating system based on Linux, for example Ubuntu, but I will not describe the process itself here and would rather write a separate article. You can also run the safecopy utility under Linux.
What to do if you still cannot make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard drive is up to you to decide. You can contact a good and reputable data recovery service and specialists will take a sector-by-sector copy of your hard drive using special expensive equipment, for example using the same PC−3000 complex. If you don’t mind your data, then you can take a risk and run algorithms in the Victoria program that rid the surface of your hard drive of bad sectors (bad blocks), how to do this is written below, the hard drive can come back to life after this operation.
Important: Kazansky (developer of the Victoria program) promises that the most innovative algorithm for hiding bad blocks BB = Advanced REMAP is NOT destructive for data, but in some cases it can be destructive for your files, since even the most advanced Victoria algorithm Advanced REMAP hides defects (remap), this is, in any case, a change in the translation of the screw, which means the loss of user data (details below. I want to say that sometimes it happened that a Victoria hard drive would cure bad problems and you would even be able to copy information from such a hard drive, but unfortunately not All information is readable.

So, in our case, we made a sector-by-sector copy of the diseased hard drive, namely the new volume E: the DMDE program was able to do it, although in some places DMDE froze a little, but everything ended successfully. The sector-by-sector copy of the new volume (E:) is an exact copy and is located on volume F: All existing data is successfully read and copied.

The main problem has been solved and user data has been saved, now we proceed to the hard drive treatment procedure.

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

Friends, let’s now imagine that we were unable to make a sector-by-sector image of a hard drive with bad blocks and we couldn’t come up with anything else and decided to rid our hard drive of bad blocks in the Victoria program, in the hope that after hiding the bad sectors we will be able to read and copy the information to your hard drive.

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

Remap

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

While the scanning is underway, let's talk about this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Erase algorithm

Friends, you can ask me, what will happen if we use the Erase test or is there also Write?

When Erase detects an unreadable sector, it forcibly rewrites the entire block of 256 sectors with zeros (be careful, in some cases your data on the hard drive will be deleted).

Most often, you come across software (program) bads that are removed most quickly by resetting them - the Erase algorithm, and even if writing to the zero sector is unsuccessful, Remap may well occur, since the hard drive firmware may consider such a sector to be faulty. If Erase does not help, then you can choose Remap, but as we know, the chances that Remap will be performed in a running Windows are low.
In some cases, software bads can be removed even by simple formatting using Windows itself.

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

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

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

Test in Read mode

That is, from beginning to end and click Start.

Often, when “resetting” in a running Windows, the following errors will appear:

Block (bad sector number) try Erase 256 sectors. It was not possible to rewrite the block of sectors.

Write algorithm

The Write mode does not look for any bad sectors, but simply immediately erases all the information on the hard drive by filling all sectors with zeros, this is what repairmen say in the jargon of “Write across the entire clearing”, this algorithm is able to cure a hard drive from bads and simply bad sectors with great read delay, but after such a test it will be impossible to restore data on the hard drive, so first copy all important files to a portable hard drive.

What are bad 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);

common 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.

It is in them that units of information are stored. If a sector becomes unreadable, it is called “broken”.

Scanning

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:

Hard drive recovery

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.

Victoria HDD - diagnostic program

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;

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.

This can be done using the CHKDSK utility or in the following way:

Video: HDD - “healing” bad sectors

Attention! To ensure that the system not only finds, but also corrects problems, before starting the scan, select “Automatically fix system errors.”

Photo: checking the disk for 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 to you.

Bad sectors on the hard drive

In some cases, information from a sector on a disk cannot be read. This sector is called broken. The reason for the formation of bad sectors may be a sudden power outage during a write operation by the hard drive, a shock during operation, overheating, or physical wear and tear. Most often, bad sectors on a hard drive are formed as a result of the first two reasons.

Program for checking disk and recovering bad sectors Victoria

Victoria is a free program by Belarusian programmer Sergei Kazansky for restoring bad sectors and checking the hard drive. This program also has a Windows version.

But I strongly recommend using the DOS version for more reliable operation of the hard drive. Below you will find instructions for working with the DOS version of Victoria.

The Victoria program allows you to view the SMART table of the hard drive, scan the disk surface for bad and hard-to-read sectors, restore bad sectors, and completely erase all sectors on the hard drive (low-level formatting). So, let's get down to business!

Checking the disk for bad sectors

Before you start checking and repairing bad sectors of your hard drive, you need to make preparations. It is necessary to properly configure the hard drive controller in the BIOS so that the program can work correctly with the hard drive. It is necessary to set the SATA controller mode in the BIOS to

IDE

In AHCI mode, Victoria will not be able to recognize the hard drive and will not be able to work with it. Now you can boot into DOS using a bootable USB flash drive and launch Victoria. First of all, you need to select the IDE channel with which we will work, that is, to which the hard drive being tested is connected.

To do this, press the "P" (Latin) key.

In the menu that appears, select a channel and press Enter. If your drive is connected to a SATA port, then most likely you need to select Ext. PCI ATA/SATA. Service information of the hard drive (its model, capacity and other information) will appear on the screen. If this happens, then you did everything correctly and the program was able to connect to the disk.

Now the first thing you should do is look at the SMART table of the hard drive. In many cases, the information from it can clarify the situation even without scanning the surface. To view a SMART disk in Victoria 3.52 you need to press the key F9 .

In the table, we are primarily interested in two points: Reallocated sector count And Current pending sectors .

The first parameter shows the number of sectors transferred to the reserve zone (restored or remap), the second parameter shows the number of suspicious sectors, that is, which the hard drive could not read for one reason or another.

As you can see in the figure above, the number of recovered sectors on this disk is very large (767). This indicates that the disk most likely has some problems with the surface of the disk. In addition, SMART also shows the presence of suspicious sectors, which confirms the version of damage to the disk surface. Such a disk may be able to be recovered, but it should not be used in the future. Such a large number of bad sectors indicates that the disk is no longer reliable. It is better to replace such a disk with a new one and clone information from the defective disk to it. But first, in any case, you need to try to restore damaged sectors on your hard drive.

To return from SMART, press any key.

Recovering bad sectors of a hard drive

Now let's look at the question of how to recover bad sectors on a disk. Fixing bad sectors is actually not that difficult. To begin with, you can simply scan the disk for bad sectors, but we will immediately enable the recovery function.

In the first case, the sector cannot be read due to a mismatch between the information written in it and the checksum at the end of the sector. This problem can happen if the power is suddenly turned off during the recording process. That is, when the information in the sector has managed to be recorded, but the checksum remains old. Such bad sectors are not inherently defective. They just contain conflicting information that the hard drive cannot recognize. Such bad sectors are treated by erasing the information in them and writing new correct checksums. After this, the sector becomes readable and writable.

In the second case, there is physical damage to the sector (demagnetization, scratch, etc.). Such a defect may occur, for example, due to a shock or overheating of the hard drive during operation. In this case, the process of fixing bad sectors is more complicated. Each disk has a spare unused area. That is, any disk actually has a slightly larger capacity than is actually used. This area is used to redirect unreadable sectors to it.

A new physical address in the spare area for the defective sector is entered into the disk table. The logical address remains the same. That is, the sector seems to remain the same, but in reality it is located in a different place (remap).

This approach, of course, reduces the read and write speed in the area of the disk with the transferred sector, since the magnetic heads have to move to the end of the disk (to the spare area) when accessing the redirected sector. But this approach is justified when the number of forwarded sectors is small and the data processing speed is reduced slightly. Restoring bad sectors using the Victoria 3.52 program Now let's put the theory into practice. To open the disk check menu, press the key F4. In the dialog box that appears, move the cursor to the item for selecting actions with unreadable sectors and with the cursor on the keyboard, scroll to the right or left, select the item

If a bad sector is detected, the program will try to erase it. If the sector is physically healthy, then this attempt will be successful. There will be no information left in the sector, but it will be possible to use it in the future. Don't worry too much about the information. If the sector is unreadable, then it will be practically impossible to extract it from there, so by erasing the sector, no additional information is lost. If the sector is unreadable due to a physical defect in the disk, then an attempt to erase the unreadable sector will fail and an error will be reported, as in the figure below.

Even if the process of erasing sectors ends with an error, I recommend not stopping the scan, since the disk may have bad sectors of both the first and second options. And if a bad sector can be restored by erasing, then it is better to do so than to transfer it to the reserve area (which is quite limited).

If it was not possible to restore bad sectors by erasing, then you should try transferring unreadable sectors to the reserve area (remapping). Press the key Restoring bad sectors using the Victoria 3.52 program. This time use the arrows to select BB: Classic REMAP, as it shown on the picture. After that press Enter. The scanning process will begin again. But this time, when a bad sector is detected, the Victoria program will try to perform redirection and move the bad block to the backup area. On some drives, the spare area is very small, so if it runs out of space, the attempt will fail. In our case, everything went well (picture below).

Bad sectors on the hard drive have been successfully restored. Now you need to check the file system for errors (for example, through ERD Commander utility chkdsk